Bio
The most important thing to me about my work at Meow Wolf revolves around the idea of play, and what that means to people of all ages. I think that play is a tremendously powerful tool for understanding the world, especially experiences and/or viewpoints which might differ from ones the player would typically experience.
In addition, there are some important ethical considerations associated with play. Play needs to be entered into willingly, and there needs to be a safe space to explore and imagine. Play can be light or heavy, but the repercussions of decisions and actions need to be no greater than the player was expecting. If you make a mistake while playing, or do something/have something happen to you that you don't like, you need to be able to stop play and readjust.
These are some of the guiding principles that lead me in my work of enabling and encouraging play and playfulness for our guests.
Convergence Station
Lead Interactive Developer
I led the team which created the MemPort and ATM experience, as well as the few desktop computers scattered around the exhibit, and the digital control panels on both the Navigators. In contrast to Omega Mart, this experience was more open ended, and I liked that there were not any predefined paths that a player had to go through. Something that is important to me is player agency, as well as meaningful decisions in gameplay. So I pushed hard for there to be an actual decision point at the end of the experience, where you had to decide to give your mems to Numina or to Oleander.
Projects
Omega Mart
Lead Interactive Developer
I led the development team which created the exhibit spanning interactive 'boop' experience. I also helped write a tiny little bit of the the story. This was the first experience we created, and we learned lots and lots of lessons. I hope that people enjoy the gameplay and narrative we worked to create. My favorite part of the gameplay is the codename generator, where we just choose a random adjective and put it in front of a random animal, and that is your super-secret Monolith codename which follows you throughout the exhibit form that point forward.