Awards:

• Featured in 4 gaming articles.

About the project:

Cold Equations, released December 2011, is a game adaptation of the short story “The Cold Equations” written in 1954 by Tom Godwin. The game is intended to capture the emotional resonance of the short story. This five minute experience explores the idea of failure in games, and uses interaction and the promise of potential reward to emotionally attach the player to the characters and the story.

My Role

• Creative Director
• Project Lead

What I learned

Using the lessons learned from Richard Rouse’s GDC 2010 talk, “5 ways games can make you cry” I feel that the game can impact the player in the way I hoped. The key is that it has to be for the right player. I realize now that the game is designed for a ludic player, but is best suited for a narrativst player. As a translation the other thing I realize now is that in the short story the narrative is responsible for the feeling of failure and in the game the mechanic is responsible for the feeling of failure. Click here to read the full Postmortem (coming soon).

Awards:

• Balance of Power was awarded 1st place in the ’08-’09 Computer Game Entrepreneur Competition.

About the project:

Balance of Power is an iPhone action puzzle game that puts you in the role of an arms dealer. Released in December 2009, Balance of Power was the first game released by our company, 5 Minute Games, Inc.

My Role

• Project Lead and Lead Designer
• Co-Founder of 5 Minute Games, Inc.

What I learned

I learned a tremendous amount from working Balance of Power. As my first commercial game and the first game I’ve been a project lead there were many missteps to learn from. First I learned about the difficulties of getting the last 20% of polish and how that takes 80% of your time. I learned about managing stress. I learned about the process and mentality that goes into creating a company which shifted my perspective entirely. I also learned, after the fact, how to design a game that was not at all suited for the target platform it was designed for.

About the project:

Famished Farm Animal Frenzy, released Summer 2010, is a fun, frantic iPad game where you try to eat as many melons as possible. Supporting up to 4 local players, we wanted to see how well a boardgame would work on the iPad’s larger screen.

My Role

• Game Designer
• Project co-lead
• co-texture artist

What I learned

This was primarily a fun little project to create something simple and fun for the iPad. The most enlightening thing about this project for me is that this is currently our best seller.

About the project:

Boogie Woogie, released Summer 2011, is a simple-one button iPhone and Android game about traveling up as you explore the art style of Piet Mondrian. Based on a game prototype a friend, Bobby Frye, entered in the Gamma IV one button competition, we felt that the iPhone would be a perfect home for his game.

My Role

• Project Lead
• Co-Game Designer

What I learned

This game was an exercise in adapting the clever prototype into a large scale mobile game. It’s also been a learning experience trying to outsource the game to produce a port for the Android.

About the project:

The Values game Initiative were a series of 6 games addressing the ethical ramifications of Human Augmentation and Genetic Manipulation. The goal for these games were to get you to think and to open a dialogue for an intellectual conversation about the subject.

My Role

• Research Assistant – Game Designer

What I learned

Working on 4 different projects over the course of the year yielded some interesting challenges. I learned how to jump back and forth between design ideas and how to deal with a constantly changing team.

Awards:

• Skyward was awarded 1st place and awarded Excellence in Innovation in the 2008 Computer Game Entrepreneur Competition.

About the project:

Skyward is a demo for a total conversion mod for Unreal Tournament 2004. It is a co-operative game set in a fantasy steam punk environment. The first player has the ability to boost around the environment using platforming style gameplay. The second player’s gameplay is similar to an on-rails shooter, automatically following the path of the first player.

The two players must work together in order to avoid the spike balls, air boats, missile pods, and to traverse the environment.

My Role

• Co-Game Designer
• Texture Artist
• Animator

What I learned

This was the very first functional game I worked on. Luckily under the guidance of our project lead, I learned a great deal about the development cycle, design process, and technical hurdles associated with making a quality game.

Awards:

• Mission Earth was featured in an article on Kotaku.com. Read the article

About the project:

Mission Earth was a small 4 team prototype for the 2010 Nation STEM Videogame Challenge built in 3 months. Gumpert is on a mission to discover Earth to locate his missing Grandpa. Targeted towards 5th grade students, Mission Earth teaches the six steps of the scientific method and about the planets in our solar system.

My Role

• Project Lead
• Game Designer

What I learned

The largest failing of this game was assessment. I realize now that a key component for an educational game is the ability to determine if learning has actually taken place. If I were to continue this further I would add a final section about Earth where the player would choose the order of steps to double check that Earth has the hamburgers Gumpert’s Grandpa went searching for.