Category Archives: Game Design

Sago Sago‘s apps are charming interactive experiences that aim to engage the youngest players. We recently had the opportunity to ask CEO Jason Krogh to share the story behind the company and to tell us more about their most recent game, “Friends,” which encourages young children to go on a digital play date.   Can you tell us a little bit about your path to developing apps for children? Like most people in the field, I stumbled into it. Shortly…

Together with our partners at the Smithsonian and E-Line Media, we are thrilled to announce that the National STEM Video Game Challenge is now open for its fourth year! The Challenge aims to motivate interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) learning among youth by tapping into their natural passions for playing and making video games. The competition is held in partnership with founding sponsor the Entertainment Software Association and the generous support of the Institute of Museum and…

He called himself MechaStayPuft. That was the username and avatar he would use across all of the game design platforms we used. It struck me as an odd choice for a teenager, a compound reference to Ghostbusters, which turned 30 this past June, and Gozilla vs. MechaGodzilla, which predates Ghostbusters by a decade. How did a student who couldn’t have been born before the Clinton administration be acquainted with two relics of 70s and 80s counterculture? Regrettably, I never found…

Einstein put it best: We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. The world’s most beloved genius reminds us that it doesn’t take a genius to graduate beyond the state of being stumped. It only takes an earnestly dogged jury-rigger. Martha White’s Time Magazine article, “The Real Reason College Grads Can’t Get Hired,” reports the widely-held managerial observation that young job applicants either haven’t been born or bred to think critically…

Like most teenagers, Nicolas Badila, 15, spent Memorial Day playing video games. But, unlike his friends, he was playing games at the White House. Nic, one of the winners of the 2013 National STEM Video Game Challenge, had been invited to showcase his winning game at the White House Science Fair on May 27. The White House Science Fair began three years ago as part of Obama’s Educate to Innovate campaign. Why, Obama asked the audience, do presidents traditionally meet…

Are we living in a fantasy? Of the 70 or so panels, celebrations, play tests, and keynotes that took place last month at the 11th Annual Games for Change Festival in New York, nearly all made some mention of the potential for educational games. So what’s with all the hype? Why games and why now? As the Cooney Center’s Executive Director Michael Levine put it in his speech on the last day of the festival, “In the face of global…

  The photo above was taken last night at NYU’s Skirball Center at the 11th Annual Games for Change Festival Awards Ceremony as these fourteen young people from all over the country were being honored for their achievements as winners of the 2013 National STEM Video Game Challenge. Gaming has touched the current generation of learners in a new way. The 2013 National STEM Video Game Design Challenge challenged enthusiastic students around the country to look under the hood of…

The Games for Change Festival starts bright and early tomorrow morning in New York City, where game designers, investors, journalists, and researchers will gather for a four-day investigation of the current state of serious gaming. The Joan Ganz Cooney Center will be there, hoping to engage with a community who we believe possesses a cultural connection to the young learners of today. Earlier this month, another game-focused meeting of minds took place in New York, albeit in a more intimate setting and…

One morning last summer in DeRidder, Louisiana, Angel Acevedo-Martinez’s father came into his room and woke him up with exciting news. Angel’s 6th grade math teacher, Miss Sanchez was on the phone to tell him that his game, The Arcade, had been chosen as a winner in the National STEM Video Game Challenge in Washington, DC. Before that spring, Angel had never designed a game of his own, and now here he was, an award winner in a national competition!…

Children are constantly experimenting. It’s ingrained in everything they do, and it’s how they learn. The process is full of humorous misunderstandings, setbacks, and successes that all lead toward mastery. And while it’s impossible to fully anticipate how children will react to something new, they can provide plenty of clues along the way. Which is exactly why playtesting our products is so important.