Games That Make You Smarter

AnnMaria De Mars

Ronda Running — A few months ago, we had the super fantastic amazing opportunity to have some special guests in our game design meeting. These included a best-selling author, a programmer who had worked on two of the best-selling games on earth and two people who play more video games than anyone else I […]

Game design – you talk, we listen

June 28, 2016 in AnnMaria / Game Progress by AnnMaria De Mars

Terry being interviewed — In school, I was in probably every clique but the ‘cool kids’. I was in a lot of fights and hung out in “hoods’ woods” with all of the other troublemakers. The woods from Forgotten Trail aren’t far off. I was in all of the advanced classes with the ‘smart […]

Party Like a Rock Star?

June 26, 2016 in AnnMaria / podcast by AnnMaria De Mars

Mom says right — Some of our testers had suggested that we have a more dramatic event when the player got the answer right or wrong. I thought I would replace the existing image with something like this with maybe a farting sound effect. (Kids liked the puking in Spirit Lake that happens if […]

See What I Have to Put Up With

June 25, 2016 in AnnMaria / Game Progress by AnnMaria De Mars

cat — When I get discouraged about the pace of ‘traction’ at 7 Generation Games, I remember an interview with one of the founders of Google. He said that it did not bother him in the early years that Google did not have a lot of users because they were working on […]

Cats on the Head & Other Start-up Tales

June 19, 2016 in AnnMaria / Game Progress / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

teacher saying "Correct" — It’s been a crazy week here at 7 Generation Games. Maria was first at the Native Innovation Ed Tech Summit debuting our new game, and then at the White House speaking on a panel on women entrepreneurs. As for most of the rest of our crew, we have been busy […]

What CEOs can learn from elementary school teachers

June 15, 2016 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

Girl writing a letter — I know a lot of entrepreneurs who are having trouble gaining traction, even for products that are free. It’s not that they don’t have good technology, it’s just that it is so hard to get people’s time and attention. When I was in ninth-grade, chain letters were extremely popular. I […]

I’ll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours

June 15, 2016 in AnnMaria by AnnMaria De Mars

wigwam in background with Making Camp in text in foreground — As I mentioned earlier this week, we’ve been burning the midnight oil – and the early morning oil, and the afternoon oil. It all came together on Friday. WE HEARD YOU! I like your games but … I’d like a game that runs on the Android tablet. I’d like a […]

We missed you so much we’re giving you a free ...

June 11, 2016 in AnnMaria by AnnMaria De Mars

Buffalo in a field with lake in the background — I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – coding 16 hours a day for weeks on end looks far cooler on TV and hurts your back far less than in real life. To make a long story short … we needed to create an app in a few […]

Sorry I didn’t return your call/ text/ email/ carrier pigeon

June 9, 2016 in AnnMaria / Game Progress / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

room floor covered in books and other crap — The past week, I’ve spent some time cleaning up the nooks and crannies of the house. Informing my grandchildren about the chimney sweeps in Victorian England, I had them crawl under the bed and push out everything that had collected there. The result was this. Also, Eva, would like it […]

Cleaning up code is a lot like cleaning your house

May 30, 2016 in AnnMaria / Code Talk by AnnMaria De Mars

This post is bound to be disapproved of by two-thirds of our founding team. Dennis will disapprove because he thinks ‘programmer’ is something lowlier than a ‘software developer’ and I should not call myself a programmer. Ha! (This is the type of reasoned argument we have here at 7 Generation Games.) […]

Things that make programmers go AACK!

May 29, 2016 in AnnMaria / Code Talk by AnnMaria De Mars

Characters with dog traveling across a map — Confess! Do all of you people have early morning meetings, before I am awake, planning how to irritate me? We have been focused on letting as many people as possible know about our games, including our new release, Forgotten Trail. We write blogs, have a mailing list, exhibit at events, […]

Excuse me, I must be really stupid

May 19, 2016 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars