You and the Garden

Explore a shifting, low-poly garden. Lose yourself in a uniquely rendered space that flits between the real and a digital fantasy.

Utilize the in-game console to manipulate objects, the environment, and even yourself. Over time, the game teaches you to access a powerful set of commands to fully explore the garden you inhabit.

Fall in love with the game itself through a series of responsive exchanges. The game is constantly seeking to model the player and respond according to the actions of the player. Through partially-scripted exchanges, the game teaches the player strategies for playing the game while engaging in playful and surprising behaviors.

No Frontier

No Frontier is my thesis project for my MFA program at UC Santa Cruz. It is a game that confronts issues of frontier fantasies and colonialism as they are presented in games. Often these issues become all-too convenient metaphors for play. No Frontier looks at what these metaphors are, and provides a space in which to analyze these issues, and perhaps begin to discuss other possibilities. 

In this two player game, one person takes the role of a native population of people, and the other takes the role of a newly arrived group. Throughout the course of play, they must attempt to come to terms with each other, facing the harsh realities of colonialism in spaces in which there are, in fact, no frontiers.

Augment Universe

For my undergraduate Senior project I a created an Augmented Reality Android application entitled Augment Universe. This is an app that functions as a means of communion or practice for a fictional religion. In the app, users scan images which would generate 3D game content. Each sigil can be activated within the app and subsequently a ritual can be performed. By completing the game-like rituals, the user can better understand this religion and progress through the more game like aspects, collecting rituals and sigil icons alike. Taking a quasi science fictional approach, the application would integrated image recognition of both corporate logos and religious icons and symbols alike, drawing connections between the two. This is intended as a discussion of ritual as form of control, AR as form of control, and the proliferation of corporate entities. The project draws from Benjamin Bratton’s concepts regarding the nonsecular uses of Augmented Reality and its ability to destroy the metaphor of religion as well as from Walter Benjamin’s work regarding ritual and image ‘auras’.

Neurotibots

Neurotibots is a game that explores notions of artificial intelligence, memory, and digital consciousness. In the game players upload human memories to a robot's 'mind', causing it to believe these experiences were its own.  

Through the manipulation of these memories, the player creates different personalities with various hopes, fears, and desires. A robot whose only memory is that of being chased by a dog, for example, will form its entire world-view around this experience, and is likely to be jumpy, suspicious, and possess a mortal fear of all things canine. 

CRUSH

CRUSH is a four player networked PC game that was developed by team of six over the course of ten weeks. The game was created for our Software Systems Design and Implementation class. The conflict of the game revolves around a science fiction narrative in which various corporate factions fight over an asteroid field's mineral resources. Placed in the far future, a lack of resources lead to the in-game conflict, and we wanted to design the play of the game to reflect this desperate, cut throat narrative. To achieve this, we created a hybrid of capture the flag and diplomacy in which players can choose to extract minerals from the center of the field, dog fight others for minerals, or even steal them from opponents' bases. Without explicitly informing them of which options were ideal, a vicious cycle of stealing and dogfights would sway back and forth as different factions were viewed as threats at different times. Someone who was too big of a threat would become victim to other factions teaming up. In this way, many complex interactions could take place in an open world setting, and the narrative was intrinsically built from these interactions.