You and the Garden is a collaboration with Ben Spalding, a fellow Digital Arts and New Media member. It is a first person game of exploration and intimacy. In the game, the player will explore a fantastic low poly garden, and in doing so, they will find that the garden is not empty, but is in fact inhabited by an artificial intelligence. This AI, or, 'the game itself', challenges traditional notions of AI which typically form under the genre of 'sexy robot AI' or killer AI. You and the Garden proposes an alternative in which the AI is a fellow player and collaborator in this exploration game.
As players progress throughout the course of play, they will learn they have access to an in-game console in which they can access all the same code as the AI.
You and the Garden was a finalist in Dare to Be Digital 2015, and was exhibited at Protoplay 2015 in Dundee, Scotland.
Role
You and the Garden was a collaborative effort, and the working version of the game for Dare Protoplay was completed in roughly 7 weeks.
Designer-Responsible for drafts and design of the garden level. This had to be a tightly interwoven space design specifically for the fast-paced festival format.
General Programmer-UI coding, user tracking, and other general purpose programming.
Asset Artist-Modeled everything within the game.
Sound Designer-The original soundtrack was written by myself. I knew this would be paramount to setting the proper mood for players.
Player Modeling as Intimacy
Google knows us intimately. Amazon knows us intimately. They know what we like, dislike, secretly are interested, and would like to forget. However, the use of this data is rarely used in an intimate fashion. You and Garden seeks to use traditional player tracking and modelling techniques in order to build a more intimate relationship between player and 'the game itself'.
