Paper Balloons - iPhone App - Fall 09

Paper Balloons is a design experiment and part of the graduate thesis, Empathetic Play. I collaborated with a programmer while making all design decisions, prototyping, artwork, and animation myself.

The world of Paper Balloons is one of quiet fantasy and inward thought, where users have their own floating island in the sky on which to meditate. From time-to-time small, candle-lit, paper balloons will float down onto their island with notes inside from other people on other islands, somewhere out in the sky. These notes can contain writing or drawings about others' worries, hopes, fears, or thoughts on the world and their own lives. Sometimes these notes are funny & uplifting, sometimes they are remorseful & sobering. They are always meant to be introspective.

Paper Balloons has currently won the "Innovation" award at the 2009 iDMAa Conference and was a Finalist in the 2010 SXSW Casual Game Design Competition.

It is available for download on the iTunes Store.

Pelago Shooter - Flash game - Fall 06

The world of "Pelago" is one of floating islands in the sky with large airships and other fantastic flying machines. Pelago shooter game is a 2D side-scrolling Flash game where the player pilots a small airplane in an endless dogfight with other fanciful ships. Everything from the artwork, animation, sound fx, music, and coding was done by myself.

Oracle Info System - Oracle Multi-Touch Table - Summer 08

In the summer of 2008, I did a study on players of the popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft. To sort through all of the layered findings from the study, he put together an information system using the Acura Oracle multi-touch table, NET Lab widgets by Phil Van Allen, and Actionscript coding.

Using the metaphor of going deeper, the Oracle Information System allowed the user to "pull back" layers of information, viewing how the data overlapped and formed the final outcome that it did. Ironically, the information system ended up being more interesting than the actual study that it represented.

"Life and Art of Keith Haring"- 22" x 34" Poster - Fall 09

Art Center College of Design has one of the last murals that legendary American artist Keith Haring created before his death in 1990. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the completion of the mural, the school hosted a tribute to the artist & his work on November 30, 2009.

The poster was designed for the event and includes not only designs from the mural (the large red dinosaur king & ankle chain), but also contains a message on the current state of the HIV/AIDS Health Crisis in respect of Keith Haring's activism against the disease.

The "Keith Haring Foundation" wrote an article on the event which can be read here.

Paper Wars- Flash game - Spring 07

Inspired by a childhood pastime, Paper Wars is a Flash game where the player is given half of a sheet of paper to draw on. The player must use gestures to draw out their troops in order to destroy the red opponent's base. Different gestures can create anything from a tank to a bomber to a hulking hover platform. Once the troop is created, they will move and fight on their own, leaving the player to figure out what other type of unit to draw next.

Similarly to the "Pelago Shooter" game, all artwork, animation, coding, music, etc. were done by myself.

Center of the Universe - Interactive Installation- Summer 08

Center of the Universe is an interactive installation using a projector, webcam, and coding in Actionscript. I created this project to look at introspective gestures and interactivity. On the ground the participant can see small, white orbs floating around. As the participant moves through the space, the orbs will change into words as they near the person. The words will spell out different themed poems depending on where the participant is in the space. The themes include love, stillness, hatred, and loneliness.

The floating orbs also react to the participant's gravitational pull, altering their paths slightly to move closer to the person. After changing into a word, it's possible to "capture" specific words if the participant plans their movements just right to alter an orb's velocity and trajectory.

"Paper Balloons" Concept Futures- 8" x 6" Booklet - Fall 09

While working on the "Paper Balloons" iPhone App, numerous feature ideas came up & were sketched out.

Towards the end of the first year of development, these ideas were compiled into a small booklet. The booklet was fantastic for showing the ideas to thesis committees, as well as possible investors and to document all of the directions that the App could head into.

Some of the ideas in the booklet were implemented into the "Paper Balloons" App (like changing weather) while others were saved away for future iterations of development.

StudioMe - Flash-based Online Community - Summer 08

The StudioMe Network is a concept for a social network and online game aimed at middle school and junior high students in which the users can create short animated movies online and share them with one another. The animations would use premade characters, backgrounds, gestures, and other animations which the user could trade with their friends or purchase more of with in-game currency earned from creating popular films. The films would be categorized into various genres which the user could navigate through in a virtual 3D space.

Media Response (to Walter Benjamin)- Flash - Fall 07

This is a media response to ideas put forth by media theorist, Walter Benjamin in his book, "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." The response specifically looks at Benjamin's idea of original artwork having an aura which is lost if it is mass-produced. The question is asked if there is any way to translate this aura into or from the video game medium.