GAMES
Here are the games to which I have made significant contributions. Tiltfactor is using most of my work in studies or in unreleased games, so I cannot show all my contributions publicly. I would be happy to discuss them with you further privately.
DARK SECRETS OF DARTMOUTH (VR)
Take a virtual reality tour of Dartmouth and discover its hidden dark secrets
In a typical Dartmouth College tour, high school hopefuls learn all about the storied history of Dartmouth’s big green campus, the vast piles of resources available to lucky undergraduates, and the many distinguished accomplishments of their alumni. Oh, but what about the grave robbing, book burning, and murder?
Of course, the admissions office won’t tell you any of these dreadful stories-but we sure will!
This is a virtual reality version of the first Dark Secrets of Dartmouth game. Players go on a virtual tour of Dartmouth’s campus featuring dark, goofy, and just-plain-weird stories about Dartmouth-and they’re mostly true! When players walk to designated locations in a virtual 3D recreation of Dartmouth’s campus, an odd character pops up and regales them with a bit of Dartmouth trivia. As players progress through the game, they collect items commemorating their newfound illicit knowledge. In this version, I contributed by rewriting, redesigning, and 3D-modeling some of the buildings.
DARK SECRETS OF DARTMOUTH (AR)
Learn fun secrets about college on an augmented reality walking tour
In a typical Dartmouth College tour, high school hopefuls learn all about the storied history of Dartmouth’s big green campus, the vast piles of resources available to lucky undergraduates, and the many distinguished accomplishments of their alumni. Oh, but what about the grave robbing, book burning, and murder?
Of course, the admissions office won’t tell you any of these dreadful stories-but we sure will!
Players go on an Augmented Reality tour of Dartmouth’s campus featuring dark, goofy, and just-plain-weird stories about Dartmouth-and they’re mostly true! When players walk to a physical location indicated on the Metaverse app, an odd character pops up on their phone’s camera and regales them with a bit of Dartmouth trivia. As players progress through the game, they collect items commemorating their newfound illicit knowledge. This was my first major project at Tiltfactor, and I did a lot of the design, research, writing, and playtesting.
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ENTANGLED
An upcoming virtual reality game about manipulating multiple dimensions
Entangled is a virtual reality puzzle game about manipulating multiple dimensions. On this project, I’m doing level design, writing, 3D-modeling, audio editing, and playtesting. As this is an ongoing research project and future published game, I cannot say much publicly, but I can discuss it in more detail privately.
RUMOR HAS IT
A mystery augmented reality game with an anti-bullying twist
Rumor Has It is a mystery augmented reality game in which players investigate the mysterious disappearance of college student Cynthia Newman. Players read the Snapchat story posted by Cynthia which helps them piece together what happened the night of her disappearance. The Snapchat story (a series of captioned images and videos posted by a social media user) hints at locations where they can find real-world physical clues such as party invitations or bracelets, and “overhear” other characters discussing the missing student.
Unbeknownst to the players, this is an anti-bullying ARG that gives them ambiguous clues that often leads them to believe unpleasant things about Cynthia. “Cynthia” reveals the real, innocent end to her night by updating her Snapchat story during the players’ endgame deliberations. Then, the players realize that they made biased negative assumptions, placing them in the role of the bully. I am pleased with how well the game went: the players found all the clues, integrated them into the right narrative, and followed the desired emotional arc of curiosity, excitement, and self-reflection.
WOODHAVEN
A prosocial puzzle game about a mysterious disappearance
In Woodhaven, players receive letters and photographs from their old friend Delilah describing one of the first-and strangest-cases in her journalistic career. When the daughter of a prominent family goes missing and a gleaming steam-ship appears in a dried-up canal on the edge of a town named Woodhaven, Delilah investigates and uncovers a vast conspiracy. In order to discover the entire story, players must “piece together” the old, ripped photographs in the form of jigsaw puzzles to learn the information missing from the letters. Players receive letters with their associated puzzles through the mail in several installments, although it could be sold as a single package as well.
I did all of the game design and writing for this game. My design goal was to make a game that reduces loneliness in the elderly (based on psychological knowledge about loneliness), which provided many interesting design challenges about accessibility and crafting an engaging narrative that does not counteract the desired effect. Some of the characters appear to dislike Delilah (the player stand-in character), but when the players solve the jigsaw puzzles, they organically learn that they were merely acting unpleasantly because of personal problems unconnected to Delilah.
TUNDRA TUSSLE
An Arctic-themed deck milling game
Tundra Tussle is a “deck milling” game that pits two players against each other in a race to preserve or exploit as much of the Arctic Tundra as possible. One player plays as the “Oil Tycoon” who wants to make as much money as possible by drilling the arctic into nothing, and the other player is the “Activist” who wants to preserve the Tundra and native species. This was my first time working with the “deck milling” mechanic, and I contributed by helping with the game design, creating components, and writing a lot of the instructions (including the flowchart).
For complete instructions, click here.
