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

Spectre is a 2010 IGF Student Showcase winner!  Great work, everyone!

Suits is a Facebook strategy game in which each player is a middle manager for a classic Bond-movie-style evil organization. As a team of managers, you work together to complete a nefarious plot to take over the world, while also stabbing each other in the back in order gain favor over your peers in the organization.

Players conspire to send henchmen on missions throughout the world, with the ultimate goal of placing a deadly laser on the moon while earning the most kudos points with the Boss. Remember, it doesn’t matter who does the work, as long as you get the credit.

A combination of shared and personal mission goals leads to complex strategies. Will you be a team player or a backstabber?

I worked with Sean Bouchard to design the game system for Suits. It was a challenging and intriguing problem to design a game which is simultaneously cooperative and competitive, allows for asynchronous play, doesn’t penalize the team for individual inaction, and provides an engaging level of strategy while remaining accessible as a Facebook title.

The world map, and your henchmen.

Send your henchmen on nefarious missions.

Suits
2010
Facebook Game
My Title: Game Designer, Producer
Team:
• Lead Designer: Sean Bouchard
• Game Design: Sean Bouchard, Bill Graner
• Producer: Bill Graner
• Software Development: Joey Kohn, Kevin Lee, Rhett Farney,
Brian Valdillez, Josh Martin, Patrick Monroe, Elliot Lee

Game Website: www.spectregame.com

On a quiet winter night, Joseph Wheeler stares up into the snow and tries to recall the nine moments that shaped his 73 years of life. Travel through Joseph Wheeler’s memory and relive those nine moments, choosing how his life will be remembered.

Game description and images courtesy of www.spectregame.com.

Spectre is a recombinant narrative platformer, a game that tells the story of an individual’s life. The landscape before you is not a physical world, but 73 years’ worth of Joseph’s memory: moments of joy and fear, light and darkness. As you navigate through his specific recollections, similarly themed events will glow bright. If you succeed in these moments of play and follow a glowing path, you will find a theme uniting his experience, and uncover a little more of his fading memory. If not, your nightly story will end in confusion.

With over a hundred memories linked to fifty-two different ending themes, there are many possible narratives to discover in Spectre. Each session of play represents one fifteen-minute summary of Joseph Wheeler’s past, one piece of a life-long puzzle. Different stories will highlight different facets of his experience and personality, leaving the player with a compelling, if never entirely complete, impression of the man, his place in the world, and what he sees when he stares upwards into the endlessly falling snow.

Encountering the memories of childhood

As the sound designer for Spectre, I created all sound and music for the game, with the notable exception of the theme song/overworld music, which was composed by Jamie Antonisse. I worked closely with Jamie and the artists to develop the unique atmosphere of each minigame vignette. I also directed, recorded, and mixed the voiceover for the game. Spectre was my first sound design project, and I relied on skills I’d acquired as a filmmaker and game designer creating audio for my own projects.

Lost in a book

Spectre
www.spectregame.com
2009
Flash Game
My Title: Sound Designer
Tools Used: Garageband, Pro Tools, Flash, Quicktime Pro
Team: Vaguely Spectacular
Download for PC and Mac

I like to think that my work as audio designer helped to tip us into the “honorable” distinction. ;)

Spectre project page

www.spectregame.com

-Bill