Tlaloc’s Book is an educational game to teach fraction math to struggling students.  I was one of four game designers on the game development team at the EA Game Innovation Lab at USC’s Interactive Media Division.  We created the game in collaboration with the UCLA’s Psychology Department.  The overall project was led by the UCLA’s Center for Advanced Technology in Schools.

Tlaloc’s Book is a puzzle platforming game in which players collect whole numbers, fractions, and mathematical operators, which they use to perform operations on platforms to change the platforms’ heights.  Because the player can jump or fall up to one unit, it is sometimes possible for the player to pass the level with an inexact solution.  However, exact solutions unlock treasure from the signposts in the levels.

During the design process for Tlaloc’s Book, we continually tested prototypes with grade schoolers, to make sure that the game was challenging and fun for our target audience.  We also worked with education theorists and designers to ensure that the game accurately implemented recent theories of learning.

Tlaloc’s Book
2010
Flash Game
My Title: Game Designer, Programmer
Team:
• Game Design: Bill Graner, Erin Reynolds, Samantha Vick, Dai Yun
• Art: Dai Yun
• Animation: Diana Ling

Leafcutters is a game where you shape the actions of a leafcutting ant colony by suggesting to individual ants what they ought to do.  From these invididual ants’ behaviors, the complexity of the whole colony emerges.

I won’t say too much right now, since the Winter (work-in-progress) Show is coming up on December 3, but here’s a quick update:

• We’ve changed the name of the project to Leafcutters.
• As the player, you give suggestions to ants which influence how they act in various situations. You can teach a whole colony how to operate with relative ease.
• The game is as true as possible to current myrmecological knowledge.

Alright, that’s all for now. I hope to see you all on the 3rd!

Bill

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After all, I have plenty of hobbies and passions of my own which I’ve been involved in for years: social dance, musicianship, coffee, filmmaking, and classic video games. Why not do something stemming from those?

Also, I’ve defined some of the characteristics that have been laced throughout my past work: an acknowledgement of the context of the work, generally featuring a ragtag team of creative friends who follow their dreams and do it “their way” –– so why doesn’t any of that apply? After all, I’m currently working with Vaguely Spectacular, which is a sort of Bad News Bears organization, but I continue to think of my ant project as separate from that. Have I been drawn in by the desire to make a masterpiece, and therefor cast it as the work of an individual? I should likely focus instead on the orchestration of the organization to create the piece, as Jamie did with Spectre, since that’s a central passion of mine as well, it turns out (the art of producing).

So, next design brainstorm: Themes or subjects from my past which could win out over ants. And after that: Organizational structures which could win out over the lone wolf paradigm.

AntWalk.mov