June FableFriday: Andrew Start, Developer

FableVision developer Andrew Start is certainly not a newcomer to building educational games and interactives. With a background in programming and years working in the industry, Andrew brings a breadth of knowledge and experience not only to the projects he tackles at the studio, but also to the teams he works with.

“My favorite types of projects are ones where I can build tools that enable others to make awesome things,” says Andrew Start. “I am always happy to discuss needs, capabilities, and limitations in order to come out with the best possible product. At FableVision, I’m able to do that while working on a range of projects.”

An avid fan of games and an experienced learning games developer, Andrew “starts” his FableVision career bringing his knowledge and passion to help designers and artists build amazing games and interactives. His collaborative mindset, a key trait of FableVisionaries, ensures that FableVision doesn’t lose sight of designers’ creativity while building innovative projects for our clients. And the structures that he creates allow producers and designers to convert the clients’ visions into tangible products. 

Read more to learn about Andrew’s love for games, approach to learning, and favorite llama factoid!

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You’re a new FableVisionary. Welcome to the team! What is your “journey to FableVision” story?
I’ve always loved games, and I realized that I could enter the learning games industry to create games that also teach. I developed educational web games for years at CloudKid and continued that at Jibo, a social robotics company. After Jibo shut down, I focused on freelancing projects, which is how I discovered FableVision. After learning more about the studio development team, and overall culture, I accepted a full-time position here.

What does a typical day in the life of a FableVision developer look like? 
The vast majority of my time is spent head-down building out code structure or fixing bugs. Each day has its own tasks and fixes needed, so no two are the same, but overall there’s a lot of staring at computer screens and pondering involved. I’ll also spend time talking with producers and artists to keep abreast of known bugs and assets that are ready to be integrated, so collaboration and creative problem-solving play a large role in my daily routine.

What is your favorite part of being a developer, and how does FableVision differ from other studios? 
FableVision has a large range of clients and products, which keeps my daily work interesting. I like working on new challenges, whether I’m creating a game for a big-name client, an interactive for a museum, or a website for a small non-profit. FableVision’s varied clients and projects help me learn something new every day.

Technology has changed a lot in the years that you’ve been a programmer. How do you adapt to stay on top of current trends? 
I keep track of the tools that I use and then expand my knowledge to technology and situations adjacent to those tools. I also learn a lot about current trends and resources from helping out with open source projects and chatting with other developers.

What was your favorite game growing up, and how has your love of games impacted your career path? 
I don’t know that I had a single favorite game growing up, but the ones that I played multiple times were Golden Sun, The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages, and Pokémon Gold. Beyond the puzzles honing my analytical skills, the hours lost in the games fostered a lifelong love of video games, and that pushed me toward majoring in Electronic Game Programming in college. 

As someone who works in educational media, you also love to learn! Where do you go to learn new things, and what is your favorite random factoid that you’ve picked up?
I tend to learn from a variety of YouTube videos and Wikipedia rabbit holes. Most of that information gets packed deeply away, only to come out unbidden when tangentially related to whatever topic I am discussing. A fun fact that I can bring to mind, though, is the herding behavior of llamas: a single llama will form a herd with non-llama animals and aggressively defend them from threats, but two or more llamas will form a herd with each other and ignore other farm animals.

We hear that you’re a big fan of science fiction and fantasy. What are your favorite franchises, and what about those genres appeals to you? 
Star Wars got its hooks into me at a young age and has stuck with me ever since. My favorite part of fantasy and sci-fi media is the world-building—I have admittedly low standards for quality of dialogue and characters, but really value an expansive and coherently crafted universe that I can spend hours (or years) exploring in my imagination.

More About Andrew

Favorite video game: I think I’ll go with my soft spot for the first Company of Heroes game, whose cover mechanics ruined other RTS games for me.

Most challenging board game you’ve ever played: Diplomacy—it’s always a challenge to come out on top of six other players who are looking to betray you (or have already been betrayed by you).

Spring or summer: Trick question—winter is best, with hot cocoa, cozy fires, and no mosquitos.

A new skill you’d like to learn: I’d like to experiment with 3D printers.

Favorite outdoor activity: Ultimate frisbee.

Three people, dead or alive, you’d invite to a dinner party: A random assortment of the game-related YouTubers that I subscribe to—the conversation should be interesting, or we could just retire to the living room for some good gaming action.

June FableFriday: Jordan Bach, Technical Director

FableVision Technical Director Jordan Bach is definitely not new to the edtech game. A member of the FableVision team for almost 10 years, Jordan has decades of experience in developing educational games and media with a focus on accessible technology and innovations in tech. He’s also just a really nice guy.

Jordan first joined the team as a developer and now, in the role of Technical Director, oversees the technical department, contributes to planning and budgeting proposals and projects, and continues serving as lead developer on a number of the studio’s large game projects. Working with tools such as Unity and HTML5 to merge physical and digital play, Jordan is an expert in all things AR and VR. And through the advancements and innovations in technology over the years, Jordan has also consistently been the go-to person on staff for questions about accessibility, designing and leading projects to support people with learning disabilities and different educational needs to provide a safe and engaging space to learn.

“Accessibility means so much more than making a game compatible with a screen reader,” Jordan tells us. “It means that many people experience learning games differently and we need to communicate with as many of them as we can.”

Using his vast skills in design and developmental technology, Jordan has adapted to the many changes that have happened to the edtech and media fields over the past decade and helped FableVision to stay on top of and actively respond to growing trends in the industry. Working closely with other members of FableVision staff, freelancers, and clients over the years, he approaches his dedication to his work with endless patience, a calm demeanor, and a creative eye—actively looking for the best ways to help others and making possibilities realities. Continue reading to learn more about Jordan’s journey to FableVision, how he approaches projects in his role as Technical Director, and what advice he has for developers at the start of their careers!

How did you first hear about FableVision, and what initially drew you to the studio?
I first heard about FableVision through friends and former colleagues who loved working here, so I connected with Brian Grossman, the former Technical Director. During my first visit and first interview at the studio, the mission and the creative spirit were so clearly visible in everyone I met and in the physical space that the decision was already made from my perspective.

What does a typical day look like for you?
My day-to-day schedule has changed a lot since I’ve become the Technical Director! Every day I’m trying to do two things: first, I’m contributing to current, upcoming, and potential projects. This includes offering support to the developers, participating in planning, and completing budget estimates for proposals.

And second, I’m reserving a little time to continue being a developer, which is something I love. Most recently I’ve been helping set up the architecture of a new project, and then sharing it with the developer who will take it through the rest of development and over the finish line!

You’ve been at the studio for ten years! How has the technology the studio uses changed, and how do you stay on top of edtech trends?
Ten years ago, Flash was the most common way to develop highly interactive applications for the web browser, and mobile apps were still relatively new to the world. Unity has emerged as a go-to tool for building cross-platform mobile apps, and we’re also using various web frameworks to speed along complex browser-based development projects. We’re more used to change than we were then! 

The best way to stay on top of trends is to ask questions. When someone mentions something and I don’t know what it is, I just ask. And then go look it up if I need more information. There’s so much to know and sometimes there’s pressure to pretend like you know everything. As a mission-based company, FableVision is all about learning, so I just ask.

How do you approach each project from a technical perspective? How does the process differ depending on the scope of a project or the medium (game-based app, Augmented Reality experience, website, etc.)
Determining the technical approach for a project goes hand-in-hand with the creative design. After we have started the creative brainstorming, we think about what technology might make sense to help us with the project. The scope, medium, audience, and platform all feed into this thinking process. We focus on HTML5 and Unity, but also work with other technologies. Then the strengths of the chosen development platform can further inform the creative definition of the project. 

Once the design and technology are set, we'll pick what’s hard, what hasn’t been done before, and start there. 

What is a FableVision project you’ve worked on that you’re particularly proud of?
I feel particularly proud of the projects we’ve done that are used in research studies. The Zoombinis remake and the Reach Every Reader apps for the Harvard Graduate School of Education are examples of apps that are not only fun to use, but also move educational research forward. It’s definitely rewarding to be a part of such important projects such as those.

Here at FableVision, we’re dedicated to making sure our work follows accessibility standards. What do you have to keep in mind when making sure our projects are accessible? 
When we create accessible media, we need to think beyond the platform it's housed on and what features we can add to accommodate certain disabilities. Many of our users have different experiences and use our games, interactives, and other media in different ways, so we have to design for as many different learning contexts as possible.

Right now we’re making a game that is “born accessible,” meaning we’re designing it to be accessible to many from the start, instead of retrofitting an existing game for a more diverse audience. We’ve learned that an important tool is customization: for example, if a player struggles with focus, we can expose a setting to turn off distracting background imagery. If someone has low vision, we can expose a setting to turn on audio descriptions. On the other hand, there are some elements of a game we can make accessible to many without the need for customization. For example, we can design artwork to be easily distinguishable by people with the most common forms of color blindness.

You have a background in music! How does music continue to impact your life, and how has your degree influenced your work at FableVision?
In college, I got degrees in both math and cello performance. Doing both was a great opportunity to see all the connections (and differences) between the two. It was also a great opportunity to understand the similarities between learning each. When working on an abstract math proof, you start with what you know and build from there. When learning a difficult passage in music, you break it down to the smallest pieces you can play and start stringing them together. And now, when starting a new project at work, I approach it with the same mindset: what do I know, and how can I start putting it together to get somewhere I’ve never been before?

You’re currently a Teaching Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Technology, Innovation, and Education program. What’s rewarding about your role, and what has teaching taught you?
I was involved in a course called Advanced Design Studio this past semester. In the first half of the semester, I taught Unity development in the lab sessions; together with the class, we made one of the puzzles from Zoombinis (“Cap’n Cajun’s Ferryboat”). During the second half of the semester, I coached groups of students as they developed their own designs into prototypes. It’s exciting to see the students coming up with great concepts. After 20 years working in this space, I saw ideas I hadn’t seen before. And the students all wanted to participate in learning; they didn’t just want to be fed information. This encouraged me to think about what I needed to provide to facilitate learning without getting in the way of it.

What advice do you have for students and professionals starting out in the technology field? What skill is important for a programmer to develop early on in their career?
Consider also focusing on a non-programming skill or interest. Programming is a tool; it also helps to have experience in education, games, some kind of production, or something else that you love. Beyond that, well-rounded programmers think big (code architecture and efficiency) and small (detail-oriented, predicting every way a user might interact with the application). I’ve found that most people are usually naturally good at one of those ways of thinking and need to focus on improving the other. (Also, see above: asking questions!)

You made an amazing quilt for Creative Juices last year! Are you currently working on any new projects?
I’m working on an underwater-themed quilt for my niece. It’s somewhat improvised, which is new for me, so I don’t know what it’s going to look like yet!

Quick questions

Recipe you haven’t tried but would like to: Anything from Pastry Week on the Great British Bake Off.

TV show you’re currently binging: I, Claudius, while listening to the I, Podius podcast. I’d never seen it before, but I vividly remember the “Me Claudius” spoof on Monsterpiece Theater when I was young.

Best consolation of Staying at Home: curbside pickup to support small restaurants. Vietnamese Fresh Roll Friday is now a thing!

Game you love to recommend: Carcassonne, as a board game or as an app. I just gave it to my nieces and they love it.

Top two tips you give to new gardeners: 1) A plant in the wrong place will never be happy. Pay attention to the sun/shade requirements! 2) If you’ve only ever planted annuals, try a perennial. It’s magical to see them come back from nothing in the early spring. It’s my favorite part of gardening.

A book you love to reread: Lizard Music by Daniel Pinkwater, a favorite from elementary school. A weird story for a weird kid.