Paper Balloons - iPhone App - Fall 09

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

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 were all done by Kylan.

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

In the summer of 2008, Kylan 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.

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 Kylan.

Center of the Universe - Interactive Installation- Summer 08

Center of the Universe is an interactive installation using a projector, webcam, and coding in Actionscript. Kylan 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.

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.

The project came about from an graduate assignment in the Media Design Program at Art Center in which we were given the task to either re-design an existing social network or create a new one.

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.

Whisper Stones - Interactive Installation - Fall 09

Whisper Stones is a design experiment and part of the graduate thesis, Empathetic Play. Whereas Paper Balloons is an entirely virtual, high-tech exploration of 'Empathetic Play', Whisper Stones is a completely tangible, very low-tech exploration of the same idea.

The original idea for the installation was inspired by Carl Jung's writing on dream symbolism and people's universal attraction to certain objects as metaphors (stones representing people, strength, comfort, etc). After a couple of design tests, it quickly became apparent that the same idea behind Paper Balloons could be explored through the Whisper Stones.

The interactive installation was set up in public parks around Pasadena in late 2009. A large stone sat on top of a plinth. Users were instructed to lift the stone and hide a whisper beneath it, capturing the whisper for another user to release. Once another user picked the stone back up, the previous whisper would be played back once and released forever.

Prosthetic Table- Interactive Installation - Spring 08

The Prosthetic Table was the end result of a group project to create a technological cultural probe examining families and family interactions in the Pasdena area.

The Prosthetic Table was installed on top of two families' dining room tables (Family A & Family B) who were instructed to have dinner at the same time. On top of each place setting is a webcam which would broadcast a live feed of Family A's eating habits to Family B's home and vice versa. The feed would show up on the small monitors hanging down so that individuals would see how their counterparts were eating at the exact same moment.

The project explored ideas of co-presence as well as networked media.