Falling

Falling is a surreal soundscape game where the user drifts gracefully to their death while amidst a peaceful storm. I worked on this game as a designer where I helped conceptualize, implement, and test various ways to create and enhance an audio-visual experience from the ambient music delivered to us by James Reynolds. I also primarily worked on designing the main menu and menu animations to deliver a smooth menu-to-game transition so that the game remains one smooth journey, while simultaneously keeping the UI intuitive and clean.

Project Timeframe

1 Month in total to publish the project via WebGL.

My Responsibilities

- Designing the journey down and events that transpire on the way.
- Conceptualizing the world and storm.
- Designing and modelling the terrain.
- Designing and implementing the main menu and menu animations.

Tools Used

- Unity Engine 2018.2.0b1
- Visual Studio 2017
- WebGL
- GitKraken/SourceTree
- C#
- Google Docs

Download it here!

Ardent Garden

Narration by project lead, Jacob Duniam.

Ardent Garden is a prototype AR 'Serious Game' I helped develop for client 89Friends PTY LTD focusing on spreading environmental awareness throughout the New South Whales school curriculum by providing students and educational experience, while simutaneously balancing it out with interesting and entertaining content. My priorities were to design prototype potential minigames that would educate and remind the students how to prune young plants, plant seeds in the approprate soil/locations, exterminate pests safely, and remove weeds without harming the garden.

Project Timeframe

6 Months in total. 3 Months for prototyping and documentation, 3 Months for development, polishing, and showcasing. The former 3 months were spent on a disclosed version of the project named 'Project Sapling', that we, the developers, took ownership of.

My Responsibilities

- Designing the educational minigames in a way that educates whilst simutaneously captivating them.
- Designing and implementing the plants and their purpose as different rarities based on how endangered they are.
- Conceptualizing how we can keep the UI/UX clean and intuitive for children while keeping it interesting for older students.
- Designing and implementing the prototype's garden and menus.

Tools Used

- Unity Engine 2018.2.0b1
- Visual Studio 2017
- GitKraken/SourceTree
- C#
- Google Docs

Something

“Have you ever wondered why darkness is eternal? An unending void of lightless space, that’s all it really is. But have you ever actually asked yourself why it is that the dark is what always goes on, not light?” Whispered Arthur to his companion, Isabelle, as they stared up towards the sparkling sky coloured in a deep velvet black.

“A better question is: why was it that the darkness came first instead of the light.” Retorted Isabelle slyly and unmoved, confident she would outwit him at his own game. Arthur scooped her hand up into his and intertwined their fingers to form an unspoken bond that represented the beginning of a game of thought. She turned her head to meet his, their eyes locked and she gave his hand a confirming squeeze in response to say that she too was ready to let their dreams dance together.

“Well first ask yourself, why was there nothing first instead of something? Who decided that nothing came before something instead of the other way around, hmm?” Arthur finally spoke, turning his head back up to the night sky and breaking the intense silence. There was another long moment of silence before Isabelle finally turned her head back to the great slate of spotted charcoal above. Before she set loose the words caught in her throat all that could be heard was the gentle breeze brushing through the thicket of wheat that surrounded the hill they lie on and the slow rustle of the dry maple leaves that effortlessly detach themselves from their former body and gracefully glide through the air to eventually settle around the two chittering minds below.

“There’s always something, but there’s always nothing as well. They balance themselves out, wouldn’t you agree?” Isabelle finally let out, confusing Arthur with her blatant contradiction. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean, if there’s something, I’m not entirely sure nothing can exist since something must fill in the nothing’s emptiness?” Arthur responded with doubt in his voice, she had taken him by surprise. He believed his logic was sound, but Isabelle then put his doubts to rest with her next statement.
“I see where you are coming from, my dear Arthur, but this brings us back to light and dark again. Light always overwrites darkness because darkness is just the absence of light as common knowledge tells us. So then we answer that with: nothingness is the absence of something. But obviously there is always something- we are something. We take up space, no matter how little in existence. Even in death we represent something. To quote Einstein: ‘Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.’ End quote. If you think about it we are technically immortal, our matter I mean, we’re always something.” That was finally the end of Isabelle’s train of thought. Of course she had more to say, but she was more curious to see how her dearest companion would reply first.

“That makes plenty of sense, I see where you’re coming from. But no matter how you put it, nothing will always be somewhere. Not here of course, there will always be something around us at least because we are something, even beyond our passing. To use your quote that means no matter where we go in whatever form we will always mean something because we are made of something.”

“Ha! So you do agree with me. Something and nothing coincide with a special equilibrium.” Isabelle quickly retorted with a spriteful attitude.

“I think you misunderstand me, my dearest. What I’m getting at is that nothing can never truly exist to us. Something is always there. Space could be a whole lot of nothing, but not to us, literally speaking because we can’t actually see just nothing We can’t even be in nothing because, as I said, we are something” Arthur pondered for a moment realising that he still had more to say. Isabelle stayed quiet patiently and listened with intent, the way he thought captivated her.

“In a broader sense though something is currently occupying the nothingness of the universe. Think of a vacuum for example, if it’s even a quarter full it’s not empty, we don’t class it to have nothing in it. I believe the same goes for space. There’s a bunch of giant floating rocks, balls of fire, and holes that suck in something to create nothing…” Arthur let out a long sigh and threw his head back abruptly the moment he finished the word.
“What, did you realise that I’m right?” Isabelle giggled to herself.

“Oh dear, no. I’ve just realised that we’re going to have to debate whether black holes make something into nothing, or follow Einstein’s rule.” Arthur reluctantly responded with a bit of bite. Isabelle turned her head to face his, his followed shortly after. He could clearly see a grin on her face, and she could clearly see that he was growing tired. Isabelle’s hysterical laughter finally broke the silence.

“Hang on we haven’t even answered our first question! ‘Why was it that darkness came first instead of light’, remember?” Isabelle was clearly determined to outsmart him with her sound logic and sly quips. Arthur on the other hand was taking this far too seriously for his liking. His current expression almost made it seem like he was desperately scanning his mind for way to answer that, he almost felt as though his last few statements could have. Eventually he just opened his mouth and responded with whatever escaped, he was growing tired.

“Light is something, darkness is nothing. Can nothing ever overpower something? Of course not, but on the contrary something needs nothing to be something. On a slight tangent that’s why I believe good and evil shouldn’t be represented by light and dark. Evil isn’t the absence of good, well, technically it is but that’s about the same as saying an apple is the absence of an orange. It’s true, but it’s also something else entirely-” Arthur drew in a deep breath preparing to continue.

“-Evil is human nature, contorted and twisted, chaotic and malignant: it’s a disease. One that’s impossible to cure because there will always be some of it in us. Evil cannot be absent because evil is as much of something as good could ever be, easier to be fact. That’s why we find evil so enjoyable I believe, because it’s succumbing to our inner nature.” Arthur finally finished, inhaled deeply, and then let out a slight yawn. He squeezed her hand to draw her attention back in case she’d lost it to his endless flow of dark dilemmas. She quietly responded with another squeeze back to reassure him she was listening the whole time.

“Alright Mr. Morbid, that’s enough of that. How about we save that for another evening, smarty-pants. You look like you’re about to fall asleep.” Teased Isabelle, trying to contain her devilish grin, she truly loved these games of thought.
“I suppose you’re right. Do you think if we slept here we’ll be bitten by any bugs?” Arthur asked, obviously too lazy to get up. Isabelle curled her body over to his and laid her head on his heart, feeling the rhythmic beat of his life blood coagulating through his warm outer-shell.
“I think you always find something to worry about.” Whispered Isabelle soothingly into Arthur’s chest.
“There’s nothing out here but you and me.”