Checking in with Legends of Learning, the edtech startup providing games for teachers to assign

At Legends of Learning headquarters near Union Station, capes can be found hanging off the backs of staffers’ chairs, and the office is busy developing the company’s platform, as well as games.

At the center of this is Legends of Learning CEO Vadim Polikov, who grew up in the Baltimore area on a diet of Civilization, Oregon Trail, Math Blasters and Number Crunchers. He still has a TI-83 emulator on his smartphone to play the occasional game of Snake.

As Polikov told us last year, those “edutainment” offerings were influential in the creation of Legends of Learning. The platform offers educational games for teachers to assign to their students. The games are aligned to curriculum, and allow educators to track progress. Polikov said growth has continued over the last year.

“On our platform, we have over 1,000 games that are built by over 350 different game studios around the world that cover 3rd through 8th grade science,” he said. The company is involved in “building the platform, building the tools for game developers and also building the tools for teachers and district staff to see how their students are doing,” Polikov said.

If a school district is looking to implement Legends of Learning into its curriculum, it can reach out to the company to find a curriculum that works for the District.

Vadim Polikov.

“We see ourselves being in more grades, more subjects, so building out beyond science, building out beyond the third through eighth grade,” said Polikov when asked where he saw the company over the next couple of years, adding that he hopes to see “a lot more games on the platform and a lot more exciting developments in the internal title.”

The latter refers to the company’s internal role-playing game, slated for release this coming school year, adding new missions and characters to the game while also offering new opportunities for students to engage with each other.

The company works with independent developers to add new offerings. For developers looking to get an app on Legends of Learning’s platform, the process is relatively open. The company currently hosts sprints over a period of several months in which developers can create 5-25-minute games around certain sets of criteria (such as a science game for the fifth grade market, etc.) that’s subject to their API and content requirements and upload the games for review. Titles which receive optimal reviews will be selected for the platform. Developers are welcome to apply on their own and Legends of Learning has also been known to invite developers with interesting portfolios to offer submissions for consideration.