Portfolio
Project Management
Kabuni Dream Room VR CAVE and 5′ x 5′ Holus: a HoloMAX Experience
The flickering is not visible to the human eye in real life. Cameras are more sensitive to it due to a high refresh rate.
Accomplished
Team Player
Behind the Holus: UX Design Approach
How are Holograms made in the Holus?
I was lead designer for the 4-Player pinball shown at the end.
Communicator
Game Design
Looking Back
H+Technology (January 2015 – April 2016)
At H+Technology, we work to bring people together with technology face to face. Using the Holus, a holographic tabletop display, we created games to show how it can be used. I worked on various small projects and a few larger projects. The noteworthy projects are: working on the Kickstarter video, Kabuni Dream Room, and Phase 2 of the Magic Room.
Kabuni Openhouse – First Peek at HoloMAX
Magic Room: Phase 2
EP Daily and Reviews on the Run (September 2011 – December 2014)
EP Daily is a news show about movies, videogames, comic books, and everything Geeky (aka Cool). Reviews on the Run reviews all the awesome stuff and helps viewers decide if something is worth getting or avoiding it.
In 2014 we merged EP Daily and Reviews on the Run into a larger Network called EPN.TV, combining everything into one place.
EPN – 2014 (Site Takeover for Watch Dogs)
EPN 2014 – Below the fold
Key Accomplishments:
- automated email newsletter from scratch – daily or weekly at recipient’s preference
- sped up posting daily videos more than 50%
- Podcast capability (including hooking into iTunes and various podcast aggregators)
- creating and installing banner ads and marketing material for the website
- “Site Takeover” mode for ads, including hooking up ads for the video player
- hooked videos into Facebook and social media, playing directly there
- setup back end to allow for videos that will be embedded into new yearly themes without having to update every single video link
- implemented designer’s new look for 2013 and 2014 (a screenshot for the February – December 2014 look isn’t available so the previous look is shown to give an idea of the content available)
EP Daily – January 2013
Reviews on the Run – January 2013
Oddly enough, before I even knew the hosts of the show I met Scott Jones when he was a keynote speaker at a Global Game Jam. It was GGJ 2011 when I joined a team where in 48 hours we made:
Global Game Jam 2011: The Invasion of Giant Planet-Eating Bacteria From Outer Space
Check out the Global Game Jam game I made with some new friends. Click here for the game or Click here for a summary of the event.
Project Blue Sky (November 2009 – April 2010)
We were awarded the Coca Cola “Living Positively” Award for this project. It was accepted by Dave Calder on behalf of the team.
My latest project has been helping out the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Sustainability and Social Innovation (or CSSI) on an Olympic Athlete inspired project called “Project Blue Sky“. The premise is to get people to walk, bike, or use public transit instead of their car to reduce their carbon footprint. By entering their distances into the widget they can see how, if everyone contributes, we can make a difference.
One of the big challenges for me was that I knew a lot of the theory of accessing databases, but only worked with one once before for a two week project. Furthermore, I didn’t have an artist to help me out and have not considered myself much of one. However, given the existing assets I feel I pulled off a decent job of using Adobe Photoshop on an old splash page of theirs to create backgrounds, logos, and buttons. (We removed the splash page as one of our first items of business since it stopped more users than brought them in)
Here is the project before I joined the project (November 2009) :
and here is the website currently (February 2010):
Star Catcher (February 2009)
StarCatcher Screenshot
Concept: Collect a moving collection of objects and direct it safely to a destination. (Collect stars and light the lamps with them)
This was made with two other people: Steve Danic and Michelle Parent. It was made in one week during the “lightning round” of our Big Hadron Games Student Pitched Project at the MDM Program. See the rest of the games we made at Big Hadron Games
Evasive Maneuvers (January 2009)
Evasive Maneuvers Screenshot
Concept: Make the game escape the game.
This was made with Michelle Parent. It was made in two weeks during the first cycle of our Big Hadron Games Student Pitched Project at the MDM Program. See the rest of the games we made at Big Hadron Games
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I worked on some NDA work during this time so I cannot show it here. Sorry. Moving on to the next project that I can show…
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UBC Fisheries (January – April 2008)
UBC Fisheries Screenshot
Spring 2008 a group of 6 students, including myself, created a fish visualization for UBC fisheries that read their models of fish populations depending on fishing limits and predicted the results of fish populations in 50 years based on these limits. I worked in conjunction with their .NET programmers using Python.Net and XML to actually retrieve the information from their models and produce the fish on the screen.
update: The video is on youtube, so here it is embedded for your convenience!
6 years of game design work spread out in front of me.
Before I designed any computer games I designed board games, card games, and party games as a passionate hobby. Here are some synopses of games I’ve designed and some of the problems I had to address.
Mutiny: The Pirate Party Game
Mutiny being playtested by friends
Made in 2006
Style: Party Game
Ages: 10+
Inspiration: The Prisoner’s Dilemma
Description: Ever wanted to be a pirate? Well, join the crew of the Lecherous Seagull and find your fortunes! In this party game, crew members are all trying to steal the treasure from the hold while the captain sails the ship and its cargo safely to port. The Captain’s position is a tenuous one though as the crew regularly mutinies against him and try to take control.
The crew’s main challenge is to balance the need for money with the need to make sure the ship gets safely from island to island, successfully overcoming obstacles such as other pirate ships, storms, and the dreaded Kraken!
Challenge: My biggest challenge has been that while everyone enjoys the mini-game challenges (based off of kid games I learned when growing up). It seems everyone over 18 gets hurt playing them.
Solution: I’m still searching for other active games that aren’t risky and have plans to add a digital element so that digital mini-games could be a part of the fun!
Challenge: A host is required to guide players through the three phases of each round.
Solution: see the above solution – I’m looking into creating a digital host to lead the game. (i.e. a video)
Bumblebee Boogie
Some of the revisions done to improve BumbleBoogie
Made in 2005
Style: Tile Game
Ages: 8+
Inspiration: Encryption + Dancing + Bees
Description: A game about communication. Each team of two is a pair of bees: a scout bee and a worker bee. The Scout bee peeks under the tiles during their turn and then must communicate to their partner what tiles to move the bees to to collect pollen from the flowers and what tiles to avoid (such as the bear or beekeeper). The Scout, however, must communicate the way that bees do – through dance! Players can either play dance move cards or – if they’re comfortable – dance out their message in 20 seconds or less.
The real twist – your opponents get to move before your worker has a chance to move so you have to encrypt your message somehow so that they don’t steal the flower out from under your partner!
Challenge: Not everyone is comfortable with dancing.
Solution: I foresaw this and included the cards with arrows which are dance moves.
Challenge: The Dance move cards had too much information and were hard to see the arrows from a distance. (I had the actual dance footsteps on the card, plus arrows, plus information about bees)
Solution: Simplify the cards to a small quote about bees plus BIG arrows on the cards.
Project Quasar
The Board and Characters from the Project Quasar Story
Made in 2000 – Redesigned in 2005 with Mission Booklet
Style: Board Game
Ages: 8+(includes simple variant for ages 5-8)
Inspiration: Trying to Design a Flight Game.
Description: Project Quasar is a deadly project that creates black holes. It has created one which is threatening to suck in all the planets and destroy them! The four planets each have a space station which could pull their planet to safety, but the races are worried that using all their power to pull the planet will leave them defenseless to the other races. Because they won’t cooperate you need to take command. You will fly your three ships into the opponents’ bases and take control. By doing so, you will pull the planets to safely and save the day!
A Mission Booklet is included which tells of how you rise from a Space Racer to a Flight Leader in the S.T.A.R. Defense Army. The Mission booklet and redone board were made in 2005.
Challenge: The original game I tested on some kids I babysat. The 8 year old got it pretty quick while the 5 year old had a hard time understanding it.
Solution: The first mission booklet starts with missions that are simpler than the game and build up to the full game.
Challenge: I wanted to have some educational value in the game.
Solution: The story in the missions talks about forces (action and reaction) and wormholes. Which I think may be a bit above their comprehension level. I figured it would work because I remembered a friend who at that age talked to me about wormholes. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but he was fascinated by them. So I figured that it would hit that kind of kid just right.
