For more than ten years, my work has lived between two worlds:
game development and education.
I kept returning to learning spaces not because games were a novelty—but because, under pressure, they did something nothing else did.
They brought people back in.
The Moment It Clicked
During the development of Muffin Fight, I watched players do something unexpected.
They failed — publicly.
They laughed — immediately.
They tried again — without prompting.
In classrooms and workshops, those same moments usually triggered withdrawal.
In the game, they triggered re-entry.
That contrast became impossible to ignore.
I wrote about that turning point in detail in the article
“Chaos to Connection: The Story Behind Muffin Fight 2.0”, but the insight underneath it was simpler than the product itself.
The Pattern Beneath the Product
Across schools, workplaces, and community programs, learning didn’t break because people lacked ability.
It broke when participation became emotionally expensive.
Mistakes carried social cost.
Silence felt safer than trying.
Re-entry required courage most systems didn’t support.
Games didn’t remove difficulty.
They changed the cost of trying again.
What Play Revealed
In play, failure is expected.
Feedback is immediate.
Retry is normal.
The medium wasn’t the message.
The structure was.
Over years of observation, I saw the same loop repeat:
Uncertainty → Try → Feedback → Adjust → Re-Entry
That loop restored agency faster than instruction ever could.
Why Third Bell Studio Exists
Third Bell Studio exists to study and design for that structure.
We focus on:
- learning re-entry
- emotional safety under challenge
- retry as a developmental skill
- play as a learning platform—not a reward
This work isn’t about games.
It’s about what allows learning to restart.