Creation Through Destruction: Artifacts of Worldbuilding in Experiential Legacy Games
September 2019 - May 2022
My thesis draws connections between physically, emotionally, and spiritually powerful media: storytelling, rituals, and games. All three utilize worldbuilding to have a profound impact on our lives and our games. By tracing their entangled evolution over time, it becomes clear that legacy games are one of their more recent forms. Legacy games employ many of the mechanisms of liberation and transformation rituals, setting them apart from similar genres.
Legacy games began with a forward-looking goal to subvert the assumptions of traditional games, but some of the recent games labeled “legacy” have strayed from this original ethos. This work returns to the vanguard “legacy game” definition and employs user-centered, iterative design research to push the boundaries of the game design space. To create meaningful, playful social interactions, the game iterations explore the power of various practices in their mechanics: fire, funeral rites, ancestral connections, generational knowledge, community-building, and more. The unique mechanism of “creation through destruction” emerged as the central tenet of memorable, meaningful legacy games.
PDF of thesis is available upon request until it is published.
In Event of Moon Disaster
September 2019 - Present
I collaborated with a team to create the “story” around a deepfake film entitled In Event of Moon Disaster and give a more immersive, full experience to the guest. This included brainstorming the exhibit layout, defining the project goals and how they would be embodied in the space, hiring an artist to create era-appropriate graphics and oversee that design process, and developing physical materials.
I worked with the team to develop physical materials for the project's installation at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. I was the lead manager for creating a newspaper compiling articles about deepfake technology and oversaw the layout process. I wrote articles, analyzed the field of current research, and ensured each aspect of the newspaper was completed on time and with high quality.
At its premiere at IDFA, the project won the Special Jury Award for Creative Technology in Digital Storytelling, and it has received extensive media coverage. It also won the 2021 Emmy in Outstanding Interactive Media: Documentary. A web-based version of the installation for public viewing has recently been released.
Some articles I wrote are available in the "Writing" tab above.
IDEOGRAM
February 2020 - Present
I am currently playtesting a mindful, collaborative tabletop game that fosters understanding and personal insights through the co-creation of a shared language.
Project proposal: "The co-creation of a shared world is a pillar in understanding someone’s point of view - it is a bridge where you can meet someone halfway between 'my world' and 'your world', and develop 'our world'. Players will gain insight into the problem-solving process of their partners, and build a common ground together that reflects all of its contributors. After play, the physical symbols of their shared experience provide the roadmap for discussion about their personal and shared perspectives of the world. Truly understanding the worldview of another person is a challenging process, but this game can provide the foundation and framework for further dialogue, hone perspective-taking skills, and give players the unique experience of being alone together in their intimate, co-created world."
Kirrion Legends
Writing: 2013 - 2017
Playtesting: 2017 - Present
I have a particular focus on designing tabletop role-playing games that are accessible to beginners and feature a diverse, inclusive cast of characters and potential conflicts. Since 2014, I have been writing and researching mechanics for a campaign based on the D&D 5e rules that emphasizes collaborative worldbuilding and creating a dynamic storyline. Since 2017 I have been playtesting different modules that I hope to bundle into a campaign for publication.
Recently, I have focused on story edits, character design, analyzing playtests, integrating user feedback, and adding content to fulfill the players’ needs. For example, I have created supplemental character creation guides, a wiki for the game lore, and a substantial alternative rules guide that expands dying, death, and divine intervention.
Excerpts from the wiki and rulebooks are available in the "Writing" tab above and the link below.
Super Senior
November 2021 - December 2021
I was project manager in the design of "Super Senior", a collaborative tile-placement game.
PREMISE: Each player is an overworked graduate student desperately trying to complete their thesis before the semester ends. The problem is… they are also B-list superheroes, and sometimes saving the world gets in the way. Although their careers are lackluster, these heroes are trusted with important (though inconvenient) missions and always try their very best. The game takes place over the course of the students’ final month of school - 4 rounds of 1 week. Players must work together to complete personal and group goals, balancing academics, social life, and superhero duties.
Crossroads
September 2021 - December 2021
I was a writer and producer for "Crossroads", a surrealist urban fantasy podcast. It was born out of our team's shared interest in exploring the bizarreness of sibling relationships and how they could be further abstracted with the existence of a secret, interdimensional hellscape portal - something the siblings consider no stranger than having an inside joke. Tensions rise as the siblings weigh the dangers of the portal against their moral obligation to help others, putting their loyalty and trust in one another at risk.
The link to its audio file is below, and the script is in the "Writing" tab above.
Tall Tales
October 2021 - November 2021
I led my team in designing "Tall Tales", a social game revolving around telling a collective story. Players take turns adding to the story based on word prompts, all while role-playing a character and trying to accomplish their secret goal.
Educational Science Fiction ARG
May 2020 - September 2020
I worked with the Education Arcade on a currently unnamed educational alternate reality game. As the narrative designer I was granted an incredible amount of artistic freedom:
I began by updating the in-story timeline, narrative bible, and creating an episode breakdown. Each episode needed to encapsulate our learning goals, engaging narrative beats, and an immersive alternate world. I wrote proposals for the activities and writing required in each episode, being sure to account for any plot holes or giving too much/too little information to players. With feedback from other members of the team, I arranged the many different sections into a relevant episode. I then wrote each episode's narrative and designed options for out-of-class activities that still immersed them in the in-game world.
Next, I moved on to character design, where I ensured there would be a diverse cast. Once we had placeholder visuals for the characters, I created storyboards of the game's past and future events, which helped other members of the game design team understand the sequence of events and changing goals for players. I then wrote more in-depth vignettes, which functioned as both a user story and a way for the team to immerse themselves in the game world. With the vignettes as reference, the team found it much easier to see where their assigned project fit into the big picture, and this helped the overall narrative feel more cohesive.
Finally, after extensive research, I designed an activity that combined both "soft"/people skills and STEM skills to ensure a well-rounded and personally relevant education. It invited students to reflect on their values, the values of others around them, and how those values influence their decisions and actions. They learn to consider multiple perspectives, how to present a persuasive argument, understand why someone might have a view that conflicts with theirs, and find common ground so that all sides can agree on an option.
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Neon Noire City
February - May 2020
I designed the narrative and wrote all text for Neon Noire City, an interactive narrative game where players navigate through a sea of information of varying truth in order to unravel a mystery. The game was designed as part of a curriculum to teach media literacy, a skill that is increasingly important over the years. The player takes on the point of view of a young investigator in the city, gathering information from different sources (websites, newspapers, friends) and determining which sources to trust.
The game empowers students to be an active agent in their media consumption with a personal responsibility to seek out truth, question claims, inform themselves, and curate the content they pass along to others. It also addresses the interplay of different parts of the media ecosystem rather than just one platform, especially the influence of friends and family as a source of news and misinformation. The narrative abstraction from the real world aims to limit the biases/assumptions players may otherwise bring into the experience, leading them to logically deduce who to believe and what sources to trust based on interaction.
The prototype was created with Twine, and an example of the path a player can take during the tutorial is below. Some articles I wrote are available in the "Writing" tab above.
SPOREconomics
February - May 2020
I led a small team to adapt an existing game to fit an educational curriculum. We created a custom saved file for Spore that can be used in conjunction with our Lesson Plans and Daily Handouts to teach basic economic principles to middle school students. I acted as project manager, and beyond that I also researched curriculum requirements, designed potential teacher lesson plans, and created the student handouts.
Project proposal: "Our SPOREconomics package balances four Freedoms of Play with targeted educational content, giving students the freedom to learn at their own pace while still having the structure to ask their teacher and peers about the principles they are exploring in their common ground."
#Popcorn: A Digital Humanities Movie Tagging Project
September - December 2019
I worked with a small team to mock up a movie-tagging website that is populated by and for its users. I designed the potential user journey maps and the initial website wireframe, as well as interviewed people in our target demographic to gain a better understanding of how they would like a user-generated tagging system to function.
Project proposal: “We believe that a database that allows users to tag movies based on tropes and attributes they’ve defined themselves would draw new connections between movies. Such a platform would hopefully encourage ritual use, encourage frequent users to collaborate on building a robustly tagged database, and shine some light on less well-known and less well-distributed movies.”
Fears of Climate Change Effects Exhibit
September - December 2019
I worked with a partner to design a tangible data visualization to bring awareness of climate change fears to activists. I analyzed data in Tableau to get an initial understanding of the global distribution of concerns, and together we created the layout of the exhibit and how our audience would interact with it.
Project proposal: “To address climate issues, we decided to create an interactive exhibit for display at global climate change conferences to target the people already working hard on solutions, but who might not be as aware of the current fears and struggles certain countries are facing as a result of climate change.”
PostPone
September - December 2019
With a partner, I designed an app for content creators that would help them manage their online activity, fan engagement, and motivation to create. I explored research about the community as a whole and their difficulties, as well as conducted interviews with creators to get an understanding of their personal needs. I also created the initial website wireframe to ensure the user interaction would flow naturally and cover a creator's most poignant needs in a unique way. I created the potential user journeys, while my partner cleaned up the website interface mock-up.
Project proposal: “How might we enable content creators with atypical schedules to reach an audience and sustain financial stability through their work?” PostPone tries to tackle two important issues of solo-preneurs: stabilizing inconsistent income and sustaining motivation levels. The PostPone online platform features ways to schedule creative work to provide regular stream of content to followers, build an audience, and to generate sustainable income."
Coffeebucks
September - December 2019
With a small team, I designed a card game that is both fun for players and inspires them to think about the absurd abundance of choices they encounter even with something as simple as a coffee order. Supported by research from my team, I designed the mechanics to allow for both competitive and collaborative play, and led multiple playtests to fine-tune our rule set until the dynamic we desired emerged.
Project proposal: “A hybrid collaborative-competitive card game in which players aim to fulfill drink orders. Each participant plays as a barista trying to complete two coffee orders at the same time. We were inspired to build a game about making newfangled versions of Starbuck’s drinks in order to poke fun at the myriad ways to customize a Starbuck’s drink.”
Insight
January - December 2017
Following an intensive internship at GLITCH, MN, we created a team of 5 to plan and develop a game in just 24 hours. I worked with an Ojibwe informant to design the narrative for the first level, which is inspired by the story of Nanabozho and the theft of fire. As my team created the puzzles in Unity, I arranged the puzzles to increase in difficulty and challenge perspectives in new ways with each button. I designed the flow of the game to evoke contemplative, meditative feelings in players, and invite them to open themselves up to questioning their assumptions of the space they inhabit. I also oversaw the game's art creation to ensure our informant found it to be an echo of cultural art but still respectful.
After this sample was created, we presented to a panel of judges on our game's purpose and what we saw for its future. We were granted a 3-month residency at GLITCH and funds to develop the game further for the Youthprise Summit in Fall 2017.
Agency and Empathy in This War of Mine
December 2016 - June 2017
I designed a games user-centered experiment to collect data on the features of the game This War of Mine that affect a player's identification with and empathy towards the characters. Qualitative surveys on player experience and understanding of the narrative enhanced by quantitative measures of empathy, charity behavior, affinity, and identification informed my conclusions. The game was compared to Don't Starve to distill each game's ability to create identification and empathy with the characters.
I was invited to present my preliminary results (from late April) at two conferences hosted at the University of Rochester.
The Experience and Perception of Asexuality in Copenhagen, Denmark
August 2015 - December 2015
I designed and conducted an original qualitative study based in ethnography to gather information about the formation of the asexual community in Copenhagen. Recruited potential interviewees through forums and multiple LGBT+ support centers in the city then conducted semi-structured interviews, wrote transcriptions, and implemented the Nvivo10 software for coding. Results were distilled into a research paper and the findings were presented at a research symposium to faculty, students, and members of the Copenhagen community.
This research was selected to be presented at the 2017 National Convention of Undergraduate Research and published in its journal.