About
I'm a storyteller, system designer, and engineer. I design and develop computational systems of character interaction and theatrical practice, building interfaces and interaction models to facilitate new kinds of expressiveness between players and AI driven characters. My primary inspiration for the approaches I use comes from my time as a playwright and lighting designer on theatrical productions, formal acting practices, and computational caricature. From this confluence of influences, I create approachable, customizable systems for interactive narrative projects. Please visit my itch.io page for the official pages of my released games.
Currently, I'm a narrative designer at CCP Games where I am helping craft ecologically inspired character interaction and a world which pushes back against players. I hold a PhD in Computational Media PhD from the Interaction Dynamics Lab at UC Santa Cruz. I previously received an MFA in Digital Arts and New Media in 2021 and an MS in Computational Media from the Expressive Intelligence Studio in 2019, both from UC Santa Cruz.
Selected Projects
An interactive drama Ren'Py game using Puppitor that follows two young women on a road trip. It is a digital play about insecurity, communication, and the complexities of relationships as well as the nature of ghosts and golems. The MFA version of the game can be downloaded through its itch.io page.
Papers: AIIDE 2022, MFA Thesis
Papers: AIIDE 2023, AIIDE 2022, FDG 2019, MS Thesis
Inure is a fully 3D, six degrees of freedom, bullethell game built in Unity as my undergraduate senior thesis project. The project draws heavily from the mid to late 1990s era of science-fiction shooters for its narrative design, told mostly through radio chatter between points of action, and shmups like Ikaruga for the bullet absorption mechanic. Screenshots of the game from prototype to final version can be found here.
One of my small cast, near single setting stories that centers on a group of soldiers trapped in a building and forced to reckon with their identities as tensions mount. One of my main interests in writing this script was the responses different people have to their perception of self being challenged. Sometimes we embrace this and sometimes we violently push back and in doing so reveal more about ourselves than we normally would.
Selected Publications
AIIDE 2023
ICIDS 2022
Best Student Paper Nominee
AIIDE 2022
FDG 2021
Best Paper
FDG 2019
Teaching
I created this class and added it to the Games and Playable Media catalogue to help undergraduate students practice their writing skills with games and other interactive media in mind. The structure was mainly focused around a bi-weekly writing workshop style classroom where students would bring in progress work to be read out loud by their peers or myself followed by a discussion and critique of what was read. I also scheduled time for group playthroughs of narrative focused games to give students a better idea of some of the variety in kinds of projects they might find themselves on.