MEMORY TAPES
Special Japanese Language Mobile Game in Development + Study Interface and Self-Exploration Driven by Music & Karaoke [Los Angeles, CA; Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, JP]
Programming, sound design, AI sound implementation, language conversion & transition, art, and more.
[The Game] Memory Tapes is an interactive, language learning game developed for mobile which narratively centers around an elderly couple who dive back into their deepest musical memories, quite literally, to remember what was good about the uncertain world they now live in. This project makes usage of advanced modules such as Whisper, Tesseract, new music composition technology, and more to take gameplay further than the screen and into the physical world to further the user's language learning journey and help the couple reach a nostalgic, blissful finale.
[Background] Studying Japanese through karaoke was and is a multi-year project iterated upon over the span of 5+ years in Los Angeles, Tokyo, Osaka, and Kobe to validate the potential of learning Japanese through performing karaoke night-after-night. Memory Tapes is composed of 150 individual Japanese songs from various artists. The respective hiragana, katakana, and kanji of those songs were performed publicly by myself and occasional duet at predominantly the Lounge Ohjah in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles along with other locations domestically and abroad. The results became valuable and personal. The milestones emanating from the project are characterized by the development of life-long relationships, myself transitioning from a non-singer to a singer, reconnecting to my lineage as a fifth-generation Japanese-American, travel abroad to Japan on multiple occasions, and resulting data which can be repurposed as a learning tool for those who desire to take on a similar path. The unique interactive program created here is a way of reviewing each 'tape', or song, of a karaoke performance track-by-track, its personal connection, and, with several embedded tools available, using the tapes to assist in making sense of phrases in the songs and creating a shared meaning across them to find common understanding. Memory Tapes is not an ultimatum of how to study Japanese in which live conversation and day-to-day effort is much a requirement; it is an original, stylized methodology to initiating that study, strengthening that study, and improving oneself and ability to connect with others with an activity ordinarily found to be purely entertainment. Karaoke is more than entertainment: it possesses a hidden magic and a way of seeing someone's soul shine forth.
IN A PERMANENT SAVE STATE
2013 International Mobile Game Award Nominee, Best Serious Game [San Francisco, USA]
Hand generated & digitized artwork, animation, programming, gameplay, and design.
In a Permanent Save State was a cerebral, colorful mobile game which was part identity exploration and interactive criticism of human rights topics surrounding the manufacture of mobile devices. Upon initial release, the game was censored from Apple's app store. At that point, released onto the Google Play store until its expiration where it now lives through documentation and a few select devices in the world. The narrative within the game chronicles the afterlives of seven overworked laborers who lost their lives while being a part of the manufacture chain. Controls designed to be intuitive through tapping and exploration throughout seven levels of gameplay. Music courtesy of Reno Video Game Orchestra. Art, animation, and programming done individually by self through a period of 800+ hours.
RESURRECT FROM DIGITAL
Special Lumen Prize 2015 Exhibiting Project + SIVA Seminar [Shanghai, CN]
Crafted sculpture from raw materials, programming, creative construct with game engine, and projection mapping.
The work and namesake of Resurrect From Digital is a reference to the process of bringing digital, 3D objects and data into the physical realm to take on a unique form in and of itself. This projection mapped sculpture borrows from the process of 3D printing; only the 'printing' and sculpture by done by hand instead of machine. The result is a calamity where it is not sure it is a tangible, real thing or a digital being. Through the added layer of projected light-mapping, a newly born physical object is returned to the digital aesthetic in physical space. Loose references to the phoenix (Feng Huang) referencing the context of its creation and the concept.
DOORS TO THE CITY
2018 Alt.Ctrl.GDC Exhibiting Work and LKG Technical Demo [San Francisco, USA]
Art, sculpting, animation, programming, and emerging tech in collaboration with musician and likeness.
Doors to the City was a visually focused, planetary-platforming skating game which existed on monitor or as a holographic experience. Created as a audiovisual collaboration during tech demo phases for LKG holographic units based out of NYC. This is a project which is a merging of urban culture, poetry, how they mesh with virtual existence and vivid, colorful iterations of . The city-worlds of Doors to the City are imaginative interpretations of what the musician sees as his domain. Soaring throughout on a skateboard, he monologues to himself in reflection of what 'the city' means to him and where is home when everywhere is always.
TOUCH TABLE
Creative Client Driven Interactive Experience [New York City, USA]
Technical art, FX, programming, emerging media, electronics, collaboration.
A specialized multimedia client project and convention ready work demonstrating UI and UX principles infused with game engine logic, multitouch, and correlation with Arduino based widget controller. Based out of Ogilvy Innovation Lab. Separate from my solo-artist pipeline works and games, I served in this project as lead developer responsible for coding, animation, visual FX, interaction, and end user experience.
NOGGIN
Published Application from Nickelodeon Studios [New York City, USA]
Programming, content authoring, technical, collaboration.
Involvement during the period I developed with Viacom/Nickelodeon was as an interactive content author for episodes of Blues Clues & You where-in the logic for interaction between scenes was created per studio, producer, and technical design collaborating with artists, programming, and leveraging proprietary game engine.
AMUSEMENT PARK GLOBAL RIDE TIME TRACKER
Custom built new media hardware for personalized, creative use. [Los Angeles, USA]
Capacitive touch screen module, mini-computer, game engine software, public API.
Leveraging the API available through Queue Times online, a persistent day-to-day custom hardware was built to tell wait times for amusement park rides across multiple time zones. The user can cycle between the locations (i.e. Tokyo, Paris, Anaheim) utilizing touch and drag commands. On a 10-minute cycle, the wait times are updated where the global actual time is persistent second-to-second.