Aquanesia: Ecosystems as Game Systems

Kimberly Long Loken

Aquanesia is a location-based game and performance set 100 years in the future in which players test their skills at different watershed-based activities to decipher a set of clues, which will help them unlock the mystery of how and why people are losing their memories of the past century. The goal of Aquanesia is to create a fun-filled adventure that gets people outside to play and connect with their city and local watershed on bicycle or on foot. During the process of solving the game, they will become familiar with specific aspects of the local environment as well as general principles about a watershed and clean water. The intended result of the game is that players are encouraged to become ever-better stewards of their watershed. The creative team behind Aquanesia, including Game Designer Kim Loken will discuss the creative team’s process. http://northern.lights.mn/aquanesia/

Kimberly Long Loken, AIA, LEED AP is an assistant professor of design at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. She teaches graduate and undergraduate students at the intersection of architecture, interiors, film, and games. Kim’s 15 years of experience in the architecture industry includes many adaptive reuse and historic preservation efforts, a complement the narrative emphasis in her scenic and exhibit design work. With Aquanesia, her creative research explores ecosystems as game systems.

Better Games for 3% of the Cost

Jajeev Nithiananda and Lane Davis

Better games for 3% of the cost: how a strange form of multiplayer and last-minute art tweaks saved PGA TOUR’s new game.

Jajeev Nithiananda and Lane Davis discuss changes, discoveries, and diverted disasters in the development of PGA TOUR Golf Shootout.

Jajeev Nithiananda has been primarily working in games since 2010. He got his start making 3d and UI assets at a humble, little dev studio called Graveck Interactive. He currently works at Concrete Software as a UI artist and spends his free time making art and murdering alien life forms with his growing army of loyal Space Marines.

Lane Davis resents Jajeev Nithananda’s cooler sounding hobby, largely because Lane Davis’s Space Marines aren’t very good without accompanying medivacs. He also works at Concrete Software, where his main roles are Design, Development, and Bickering.