Amplify Reading is a personalized reading program that students can’t wait to play. Whether they are just learning to read or mastering close reading, Amplify Reading helps achieve off-the-charts reading growth in grades K–8.

Amplify Reading is divided into seasons that are designed to provide developmentally appropriate engagement.

K-1: Students befriend a curious companion—a Curioso—who grows alongside them and welcomes them into Bookerton, a community of readers.

2-3: Students are drawn into a mystery when a stranger comes to town and uncovers a forgotten secret from Bookerton’s past.

4-5: The adventure continues when students unlock an abandoned workshop, and discover that their world is just one of many to explore and comprehend.

6-8: Reading becomes rebellion, when when students join the Last Readers and fight to save a world where reading is under threat.

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Available in fall 2018.

Educational ELA Tablet Game for iOS

The World of Lexica™ is a beautiful 3D game world designed for students ages 10 to 14. The initial version includes 2 seasons of episodic content as well as a gaming engine that enables players to plan, build and write stories they can share with others. As players explore a vast, fantastical library and read books from Amplify’s virtual library of over 600 books, their avatars grow and acquire magical powers. Players can also access and progress through a series of embedded games that focus on the development of vocabulary, spelling and grammar skills.  

There are two seasons of The World of Lexica: Lexica: Unbound and Lexica: The Seeker which are intended to span two academic years. 

Lexica: The Seeker takes players on a journey into Lexica’s storied frontier to discover the whereabouts of a famous League of Curioso storytellers who have mysteriously disappeared.

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Schell Games
Available in the App Store fall 2015.

Educational ELA Tablet Game for iOS

Ink Blott Underground is an action game in which players advance by digging through a series of caves, purifying “corrupted” soil by learning and using word parts, or morphemes, to fix broken words and sentences. By the end of the game, players will have learned more than 100 morphemes useful for understanding the meanings of words. 

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Schell Games
Available in the App Store.

Educational ELA Tablet Game for iOS

Page Invaders is a fast-paced syntax game in which players form complex sentences to defend against an oncoming invasion of fantastical worms. Players will refine their understanding of grammar by experimenting with syntax in the context of an exciting action game.  

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Highline Games
Available in the App Store.

Educational ELA Tablet Game for iOS

In Twisted Manor, players are brought to a warped house, overtaken by the most evil trickster. Only they can save their captive family by solving vocabulary-based puzzles and obstacles as they explore the mysteries within.

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Bossa
Available in the App Store.

Educational ELA Tablet Game for iOS

The Tomes is a create-your-own-adventure series that focuses on vocabulary and features characters from classic literature. Its evocative social dynamics, similar to those found in hit games such as Surviving High School, appeal to middle-school students. The Tomes incorporates progressively more difficult vocabulary into a relatable story and allows players to move at their own pace. Players can tap words to access in-context definitions and listen to pronunciation. The adventure is interspersed with mini-games that motivate players to look up word meanings. 

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Ira Fay Games
Available in the App Store.

Educational ELA Tablet Game for iOS

Sentence Sensibility is a word game that encourages players to learn varied, complex grammatical structures. The game has two modes. In the first mode, players are given a set of words with which they must form as many sentences as possible within a time limit. Players score more points for longer, more complex sentences. In the second mode, players use a set of words to recreate a quotation from a great work of literature. Both modes encourage experimentation with word order and syntax while providing immediate, corrective feedback to hone grammar skills

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Schell Games
Available in the App Store.

Educational ELA Tablet Game for iOS

Venture is a bundle of quick-play games that target spelling, irregular verb conjugation, and homophones (similar-sounding words with different meanings, e.g., “meat” and “meet,” “flower” and “flour”). Players must complete timed obstacles to make their way through an ancient temple. Between puzzles, players fight bats and scorpions and earn coins.  

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Schell Games
Available in the App Store.

Educational ELA Tablet Game for iOS

Words are your weapons as you battle gramlins, goblins and other unsavory creatures. Explore whimsical environments and battle bosses on your journey using only your words to defend you.

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Asymmetric Games
Available in the App Store.

Educational Science Tablet Game for iOS

SIMCell is an immersive Fantastic Voyage-style exploration game with beautiful, realistic depictions of the inner worlds of a human muscle cell and a plant cell. By guiding the Nanobot, a microscopic ship, through the cell and completing a number of directed tasks, players will learn hands-on about the function of each cell’s organelles. This game takes full advantage of the processing and graphics power of the latest generation of tablets. 

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Strangeloop
Available in the App Store.

Educational ELA Tablet Game for iOS

The World of Lexica™ is a beautiful 3D game world designed for students ages 10 to 14. The initial version includes 12 months of episodic content as well as a gaming engine that enables players to plan, build and write stories they can share with others. As players explore a vast, fantastical library and read books from Amplify’s virtual library of over 600 books, their avatars grow and acquire magical powers. Players can also access and progress through a series of embedded games that focus on the development of vocabulary, spelling and grammar skills.  

There are two seasons of The World of Lexica: Lexica: Unbound and Lexica: The Seeker which are intended to span two academic years. 

Lexica: Unbound puts players at the center of a battle for Lexica’s future. The Council believes Lexica will only be safe once all of it’s books are locked away, but a rebellion is stirring in the depth of the library.

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Schell Games
Available in the App Store.

Educational Math Tablet Game for iOS

Crafty Cut is a gestural puzzle game that enables players to explore the relation between 3D and 2D geometry in a way that can’t be simulated on paper or in video. Players rotate and slice objects in 3D space, using the same sorts of intuitive gestures found in some of the best commercial games, to obtain specific 2D facets. 

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Preloaded
Available in the App Store.

Educational STEM Tablet Game for iOS

Tyrant is a real-time strategy game in which players control a colony of Acromyrmex ants in their struggle to survive and reproduce. Using two classes of ants, foragers and soldiers, players collect leaves to feed the queen while protecting the colony from rival ants. The goal is to collect enough resources to fuel the nuptial flight, a reproductive event that alters the genetic traits of the colony at random and affects each successive round of play. 

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Preloaded
Available in the App Store.

Educational Science Tablet Game for iOS

MetaboSIM, an arcade-style game about human and plant metabolism, seamlessly integrates learning into gameplay as players control each organism’s respective systems for collecting, processing, and distributing energy. Challenges invite multiplayer cooperation on a single tablet.  

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Zachtronics
Available in the App Store.

Educational Math Tablet Game for iOS

Twelve a Dozen is a story-rich puzzle-platforming game that elegantly integrates algebraic math into its core game mechanics. Players add, subtract, multiply and divide combinations of numbers to acquire numeral-based special abilities and solve equasions…and save the world! 

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Bossa Games
Available in the App Store.

Educational Tablet Game for iOS

Mukashi Mukashi means "once upon at time" and is a syntax and storytelling game based on traditional Japanese folklore. Players control a dragon, which they must steer toward correct words while avoiding obstacles such as incorrect words and demon masks. The arcade-style game mechanics make failure fun while engaging players in sustained exploration of the impact of word choice on narrative. Players can share the legends they create with friends. 

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Schell Games
Available in the App Store.

Educational ELA Tablet Game for iOS

Story Cards is a multiplayer collectible card game featuring authors of and characters from some of the classic and contemporary books in Amplify’s virtual library. Each card is beautifully illustrated and packed with information about the character and its book. Players collect cards for their Story Cards deck by reading books and answering comprehension questions in a Story Cards-themed embedded quiz layer called Questionary. Players can launch the virtual library from the deck editor, which makes it easy for them to read books about characters whose cards pique their interest.

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Preloaded
Available in the App Store.

Educational Math Tablet Game for iOS

In this tactical puzzle game about fractions and unity, players combine the fractional members of a disparate tribe of mlobs (a portmanteau of “math blobs”) into units of 1 in order to form attacks and defensive walls. In addition to a story-driven single-player mode, players can also challenge their friends to multiplayer matches, either online or locally on the same tablet. 

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Preloaded
Available in the App Store.

Educational ELA Tablet Game for iOS

Shelf Life is an action puzzle game in which players walk across sentences and overcome obstacles by combining words. The game offers players close reading practice and expands their vocabulary with fun, challenging puzzles. 

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by BTG Games
Available in the App Store.

Educational Science Tablet Game for iOS

Habitactics is a match-three strategy game in which players control individual organisms of several types in unique habitats. The survival of each ecosystem depends on the player’s careful management of grazing and predation. Some organisms have special abilities the player will have to use in order to optimize the fluctuation of small populations across changing seasons. 

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Zachtronics
Available in the App Store.

Educational ELA Tablet Game for iOS

W.E.L.D.E.R. Edu is the educational version of a top-selling mobile word game. Players practice spelling and expand their vocabulary as they attempt to form words by carefully reordering letters on the game board. Sometimes a serendipitous move will create a satisfying cascade of words. The game includes a dictionary with definitions of all acceptable words.

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Highline Games
Available in the App Store.

Educational Math Tablet Game for iOS

FAKTR is an arcade space shooter featuring upbeat music, responsive touch controls and fast-paced gameplay. In Puzzle mode, players collect the prime numbers and factor the composite numbers from 1–50. Once players have mastered the concept of primality in Puzzle mode, Arcade mode challenges them to pilot a ship while dodging lasers and factoring asteroids. Players practice factoring by, not in addition to, navigating a colorful, treacherous, math-inflected outer space. 

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Zachtronics
Available in the App Store.

Educational ELA Tablet Game for iOS

Spell Tracer is a spelling puzzle game. To complete each level, players form words using prefixes and suffixes known to cause spelling errors for grades 4–9. A detailed hint system allows players to seek help or to receive targeted error correction when they spell a word incorrectly. Correct words award the player with magical stones that can be placed on a circuit board.

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Schell Games
Available in the App Store.

Educational STEM Tablet Game for iOS

Planet Planners is an ecology simulation game. Players guide a civilization of lifeforms called Cubiforms in their quest to explore and settle unknown planets in an imaginary galaxy. Players acquire items and materials in other STEM games that they can use in Planet Planners, similar to how ELA games are embedded in Lexica. 

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Schell Games
Available in the App Store.

Educational Math Tablet Game for iOS

In Phoenix Protocol, players are solving musical puzzles that involve binary math. Players will be introduced basic programming logic gates represented by machines that manipulate shapes and sounds. 

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Finji Games
Available in the App Store.

Educational STEM Tablet Game for iOS

Creature Cubes is a game about abstract geometry, which makes it most similar to Crafty Cut. In this game, players place tiles depicting facets of a cryptid (fantastic creature) onto a 2D rectilinear shape that folds into a cube. Players become comfortable with visualizing the relation between 2D and 3D geometry by manipulating objects animated in the game.

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Schell Games
Available in the App Store.

Educational Math Tablet Game for iOS

Play as a brother and sister pair as they take back what was taken from them in this math puzzle game. Players will solve math based security systems to bypass them in order to solve a crime. In addition, players will create their own puzzle rooms and challenge each other to solve them.

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Strangeloop 
Available in the App Store.

Educational STEM Tablet Game for iOS

Lightsmith is a game in which players learn about optics by amplifying, reflecting and shifting the wavelength of light in order to solve 30 challenging puzzles.

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Schell Games
Available in the App Store.

Educational STEM Tablet Game for iOS

AntiGermz is a real-time strategy game that models the operation of the human immune system. Players use several types of white blood cells to heal wounds and destroy pathogens. By fighting off agents of infection, players gain an intuitive understanding of the interrelated function of the various leukocytes. 

Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Preloaded
Available in the App Store.

This is a sample of the creative direction I provided during the development of The World of Lexica. The body of work below, spans from the development of the product vision to the iterative development and follow through of Amplify's vision during the game's four years of development with Schell Games studio.