Games That Make You Smarter

AnnMaria De Mars

form for math problem — Note: This is a step-by-step example of how to go about creating a mini-game. In this example, you get an animated pet dog. For every multiplication problem you solve, you and your dog get to do more activities. To see the first post in the series, Game Design, click here. […]

Making a Mini-Game Step 2: Setting it up

May 24, 2015 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

Going through our archives, we came across this great post from May 23, 2013,“Schoolchildren questions for statisticians” that we wanted to share with you in case you missed it the first time around. It must be that time of year because I was asked to speak at two different schools in downtown […]

Throwback Thursday: Schoolchildren questions for statisticians

May 21, 2015 in AnnMaria / Throwback Thursday / Women in Tech tagged career day / Math / statistician / statistics by AnnMaria De Mars

Invisible barriers - zoomed out view — Whenever I get irritated by a company’s failure to consider it’s customers, I try to take a lesson from it. For example, I can’t stand software that nags you to download an update every freaking day. Seriously, is your product so bad that I really need to stop what I’m […]

Little Things Add Up

May 19, 2015 in Game Progress / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

2 dogs and a play more button — It’s well-known around here at 7 Generation Games that the first 10-20% of a project is going to take you 40% of the time. Progress is slow while you figure out how to do some task, but once you have that code written, you can reuse it many places. Here […]

Step by Step Guide to Making a Mini-Game: Step 1 ...

May 15, 2015 in AnnMaria / Dog food / Game Progress by AnnMaria De Mars

Going through our archives, we came across this great post from May 25, 2013,“Don’t Wait Until You’re Perfect” that we wanted to share with you in case you missed it the first time around. I’m not perfect. God am I ever not perfect. I’ve been working on the Spirit Lake Game […]

Throwback Thursday: Don’t Wait Until You’re Perfect

May 14, 2015 in AnnMaria / Throwback Thursday / Women in Tech tagged being perfect / perfection / Spirit Lake by AnnMaria De Mars

A colleague of mine had this warning sign in her office of the dangers of trying to do too many projects at once: Jugglers don’t get paid very well and sometimes balls hit them in the head. Currently, we have two games on the market and are determined that VERY […]

Jugglers get hit in the head: Lessons for Forgotten Trail

May 13, 2015 in 7GenGames by AnnMaria De Mars

Going through our archives, we came across this great post from May 16, 2011,“What I learned about statistics from martial arts” that we wanted to share with you in case you missed it the first time around. I’m doing a workshop at the San Diego SAS users group meeting on Wednesday […]

Throwback Thursday: What I learned about statistics from martial arts

May 7, 2015 in AnnMaria / Throwback Thursday / Women in Tech tagged martial arts / programming / SAS / statistics by AnnMaria De Mars

Going through our archives, we came across this great post from April 20, 2012,“Why Business Travelers (and Grandmas) Need an iPad” that we wanted to share with you in case you missed it the first time around. The rocket scientist told me that I am too one-dimensional and write too much about […]

Throwback Thursday: Why Business Travelers (and Grandmas) Need an iPad

April 30, 2015 in AnnMaria / Throwback Thursday tagged business travelers / grandmas / reasons to own an iPad by AnnMaria De Mars

sunrise — I mentioned to someone this week that if things keep up I will eventually be the worst programmer in the company. (Some of us un-cool people still call ourselves programmers instead of software developers.) She said, You’re okay with that, right? After all, you’re the CEO. For years, I said […]

CEO Doesn’t Mean Having Your Own Way

April 28, 2015 in AnnMaria by AnnMaria De Mars

Going through our archives, we came across this great post from April 29, 2012,“Useless & useful advice for SOME small businesses” that we wanted to share with you in case you missed it the first time around. Being sick with only half of my brain cells functioning, I spent the weekend reading […]

Throwback Thursday: Useless & useful advice for SOME small businesses

April 23, 2015 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries / Throwback Thursday / Women in Tech tagged keep the rights / speak your mind / startup advice / Throwback Thursday by AnnMaria De Mars

bad jockey on slow horse — One of the questions that came up during our Kickstarter campaign was whether it was wise to release “sneak peeks” of our game under development, whether that would, in fact, discourage people from backing us because it was less than perfect. My answer was that I believe there are several […]

Why You Shouldn’t Wait for Perfect

April 16, 2015 in AnnMaria / Dog food by AnnMaria De Mars

Going through our archives, we came across this great post from January 21, 2013,“Things I’ve Learned in (Almost) 55 Years: Post 1 of a bunch” that we wanted to share with you in case you missed it the first time around. I forgot how old I was for a while. Someone […]

Throwback Thursday: Things I’ve Learned in (Almost) 55 Years: Post ...

April 16, 2015 in 7GenGames / Throwback Thursday tagged failure / permanent / perspective / Success / tact / Throwback Thursday by AnnMaria De Mars