Adeline Ducker

Age: 27
Hometown: Palo Alto, CA
Prior Education:UCLA Design | Media Arts
Current City: Los Angeles, CA
Role in UCLA Game Lab: Game Lab Resident

Games

Classroom Aquatic (WIP)
Nuclear Family (2014)
Totem’s Sound (2014)
Cryptoid Blues (2012)
Monkey Soup (2010)
Documentation here!

What are you doing now?

I freelance and work on Classroom Aquatic.

How would you describe your experience at UCLA Game Lab?

I feel like the Game Lab really encourages games a as form of self expression. Many of the experimental projects created here challenge conventional gaming wisdom.

What did you find valuable at UCLA Game Lab? What did you learn during your time here?

I love the diversity of people and the creative energy at the Game Lab. Its energizing to be in a community where unconventional games are being created. Our cultural zeitgeist on gaming is dying. Games can be anything.

What would you tell other prospective students about UCLA Game Lab?

You should come in willing to have your paradigm challenged on what a game “should” and “shouldn’t” be.

What do you want to do in the future?

Not sure really. I’m still figuring everything out. Currently I’m working on the creative design and art for Classroom Aquatic. The game should be released later this year.

Garrett Johnson

Age: 26

Hometown: San Diego, CA
Prior Education: UCLA B.A. – Game Design and Development
Current City: Los Angeles, CA
Role in UCLA Game Lab: Game Lab Resident

Games

Ascension (2012)

What are you doing now?

I’m a Designer and Software Engineer at NASA JPL. I’m currently researching and developing tools to shape the future of designing and operating spacecraft. Some of the more notable projects include creating new ways to model and evaluate spacecraft designs, developing augmented reality applications for the International Space Station, and researching how to control space robots with VR.

How would you describe your experience at UCLA Game Lab?

Games require such a broad set of skills to make, from programming, to visuals, audio, and design. Game Lab is one of the few places at UCLA where you can meet people with such a range of expertise and interests, as well as hone your own abilities.

What did you find valuable at UCLA Game Lab? 

The collaborative space and inspiring and knowledgeable community of the lab. Seeing how other people work, think about games, work creatively, and solve problems are some of the experiences I remember the most.

What would you tell other prospective students about UCLA Game Lab?

Take advantage of the Game Lab while you have the chance — it’s a fantastic resource, and a great opportunity to create freely, iterate on a project with like minded people, and build experience.

Peter Lu

Age: 27
Prior Education:UCLA, M.A. in Math, M.F.A. in Media Arts
Current City: Los Angeles, CA

Role in UCLA Game Lab: Game Lab Resident

Games

Perfect Woman (2016)

What are you doing now?

On a break after publishing Perfect Woman for Xbox One.

How would you describe your experience at UCLA Game Lab?

The Game Lab is unlike anywhere else I’ve been. It’s very self-driven but still has a strong identity.

What did you find valuable at UCLA Game Lab? What did you learn during your time here?

Community 🙂

What would you tell other prospective students about UCLA Game Lab?

Don’t be shy to try something new!

What do you want to do in the future?

Make games! Teach games!

David O’Grady

Age: Old Enough!
Hometown: Born in Oakland, grew up in Kansas City
Prior Education: University of Missouri, B.A. in Journalism
Current City: Los Angeles, CA
Role in UCLA Game Lab: Game Lab Resident and Researcher

Games

4Square (2012)
Wine Thief (2015)

Selected Publications

“Playfully Subversive: the Many Roles of Adaptation in Making Games at the UCLA Game Lab.” Mediascape, Fall 2014.
“Movies in the Gameworld: Revisiting the Video Game Cutscene and Its Temporal Implications.” In The Game Culture Reader, ed. Jason Thompson and Marc Ouellette. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2013.
“Biomechanics” and “Gestural Interfaces.” In Encyclopedia of Video Games: The Culture, Technology, and Art of Gaming. Greenwood/ABC-CLIO. 2012.

What are you doing now?

I am finishing my PhD dissertation in Cinema and Media Studies at UCLA about theories of video game interactivity and the implications of interface controller design and use on the experience of play. I’m fascinated by the aesthetics or “feel” of gameplay–and how human agency is enhanced and constrained in relationship to screen space through various devices. I am also a researcher at UCLA Game Lab and a lecturer at California State University-Long Beach.

How would you describe your experience at UCLA Game Lab?

In a videogame development landscape today that emphasizes commercial/technical training over artistic growth and experimentation, the UCLA Game Lab remains a special place–a room of one’s own–for game artists and game scholars alike. I highly value the lab’s organic, collaborative environment, cultivated by Eddo Stern and Tyler Stefanich; it has the right feel or “vibe” in which to explore game-making as an artistic practice, not a mass product. I also appreciate the lab’s emphasis on making complete games–and not on polishing technical game components or assets. What is so confounding in gaming these days is the emphasis on visual representation, when the medium of gaming is really only fully experienced in the ACT of play itself. I think the lab’s emphasis on developing games for actual play over all other considerations makes it indispensable to the future of the medium as a distinctive, interactive art form. Also, the UCLA Game Lab is the only lab I know of with a restaurant rating on Yelp.

What did you find valuable at UCLA Game Lab? What did you learn during your time here?

I appreciate the fact that the lab’s mission is in fact an accurate articulation of its values in daily practice. I think the lab offers game-makers a habitat, an incubator, for game ideas that remind us the medium is more than just exercises in mastery or flow. Games are an art form that possess a special power all their own; the lab is a fertile place to explore the breadth and depth of that power.
First, I’ve learned a great deal about developing my own games, and I’ve had the chance to playtest two of them with people in the lab–people who are deeply passionate about games. Perhaps more importantly for me, in my academic work, the lab provides direct access to the people and projects that are shaping the future of games as a vibrant and diverse medium. Guest demos and lectures, game jams, exhibitions, interviews… it has all proven invaluable to my writing and research!

What would you tell other prospective students about UCLA Game Lab?

I think the game lab is an ideal environment for student-artists who desire the opportunity (and responsibility) to work “across” a variety of artistic practices to create interactive, playful art. The meta-medium of games requires great flexibility and willingness to embrace the challenges and ambiguities of “new” or “fresh” mindedness (a condition which ever-changing, game-making toolsets and game-playing platforms often induce). Most importantly, the lab is a place for people who love the idea of pushing games into new concepts and spaces. I think anyone excited about working with innovative, interactive media–and willing to take on the thrilling and mystifying play impulse–should consider the lab a safe space for bold experimentation.

What do you want to do in the future?

Hopefully, teach new media and videogame history/theory/criticism as a tenured professor (assuming they still have those when I earn my degree!). And perhaps teach game making, too!

Nick Crockett

Age: 24
Hometown: Grass Valley, CA
Prior Education: UCLA, B.A. in Design Media Arts
Current City: Pittsburgh, PA
Role in UCLA Game Lab: Game Lab Resident, 2012-2016

Games

Pachinko with Nick
TV Pals
Sneaky Cactus
Tap-Out Saga
RUNRUNRUN: RACE TO THE BOTTOM
Black Friday
Defender Of The American Dream
Propheteers
And many more!

Notable Shows/Exhibitions/Awards

UCLA Game Art Festival 2013, 2012
Amber Platform Festival, Istanbul
GDC Wild Rumpus After Party
San Francisco Giant Robot Game Night no. 25, Los Angeles
Northern Spark – Minneapolis Popup Arcade, Los Angeles

What are you doing now?

I am currently working on Vietnam Romance and pursuing my M.F.A. at Carnegie Mellon University, with a focus on games and media art.

How would you describe your experience at UCLA Game Lab?

What sets the Game Lab apart from programs I’ve seen at other schools, I think, is its focus on the inherent value of play and games, and also an openness to considering the aesthetics, systems, contexts, and content of games as all worthy of study. We have a really special culture here that emphasizes personal expression and risk-taking, encourages constant re-examination (and often rejection) of tropes in games that many of us steeped in gaming culture take for granted. Also, the lab’s unique position at UCLA allows us to bring extremely talented artists, visual designers, writers – often people who never thought they would make a game – into games, all of whom bring fresh perspectives and make lots of great work.

What did you find valuable at UCLA Game Lab? What did you learn during your time here?

The most valuable thing is the community. The Game Lab represents a wonderful community of makers; everyone has unique skills and perspectives which we all share with one another. I’ve been really enriched by the diversity of people, practices, and ideas here, and feel like my work (and life in general) are much better for it.
Working in the Game Lab has had a transformative effect on the way I think about making games. It’s expanded the way I think about the contexts that games can exist in and the kinds of ideas that can be expressed through them. It’s also where I was first exposed to and really dug in to the formal study of games, although my understanding is that the formal aspect of games is emphasized less ardently here than other academic game programs.

What would you tell other prospective students about UCLA Game Lab?

It’s a really special place. I don’t know that there’s any other lab that has this position between the worlds of art and games, nor do I know if there’s a university games program that emphasizes the inherent value of games (as opposed to games for commercial purposes, games for change, gamifying your life/business, etc.) in quite the same way.

What do you want to do in the future?

I’m interested in a lot of different things! On the one hand I’ve made several games that use satire and role-play to critique social and political happenings in the US, and on the other I’ve made a number of short-form games that play with interface to put players in uncomfortable (but hopefully fun-inducing) situations. In the future, I’d like to find some way of merging those two channels in a meaningful way. Working on Vietnam Romance has made me really excited about the possibilities of site-specific games that function as performances or social events. More and more, I’m seeing that as an avenue for this merger of interface and content.

Lea Schönfelder

Age: 29
Hometown: Heidenheim an der Brenz, Germany
Prior Education: School of Art and Design Kassel, Film Academy Baden-Wuerttemberg
Current City: Oberursel, Germany
Role in UCLA Game Lab: Artist in Residence, 2012

Games

Haus Quest, Flash game, p.p. Deutsches Haus at New York University
Perfect Woman, Perfect Woman PC & Mac, Kinect game
Kartenspiel der Verlogenheit, Card game
Stagediver, Flash game hunt
Stagediver – World Tour, Multiplayer flash game
Installation Harmonic Flight, Facebook game
Ute, Flash game (NSFW)
Ulitsa Dimitrova, Point & click adventure
Huong Jiao Ping, Point & click adventure

Notable Shows/Exhibitions/Awards

Museum für Ägyptische Kunst, München, Kino der Kunst (Perfect Woman) 2015
ZKM_Gameplay, Karlsruhe (Perfect Woman) 2014
GaymerX, San Francisco (Perfect Woman) 2014
Games for Change, New York (Perfect Woman) 2014
Museum of Design, Atlanta, XYZ: Alternative Voices in Game Design (Ute) 2013
UCLA Game Art Festival, Los Angeles (Perfect Woman, Stagediver) 2013

What are you doing now?

I’m working at flaregames GmbH, a mobile games company, based in Karlsruhe, Germany. I’m employed as a game designer; my daily tasks range from finding completely new ideas for feature design, balancing, level design, and prototyping to discussions about the current best practices, new developments in the market and evaluation of other games. On the side I am an active part of the independent games scene as a judge of the Independent Games Festival, organizer of the European Innovative Games Showcase at GDC Europe, and a speaker at various conferences and festivals.

How would you describe your experience at UCLA Game Lab?

The UCLA Game Lab is special because of the people that work there. Creatives of all different backgrounds meet and work together here. They come from fine arts, technology, sociology, design, politics, etc. and they have a common goal: making games. As a result, the games that are worked on at the lab are different from the games we know from the main stream game market. They try something new, dare, experiment, sometimes fail – but always push the boundaries. That is how you make a medium develop beyond what it has been for many years.

What did you find valuable at UCLA Game Lab? What did you learn during your time here?

I learned a lot. I learned from other people experiences, and I learned that a game might become much better if you co-design it with someone else. Because of the Game Lab’s close connection to the Design|Media Arts department within UCLA, I also developed a bigger picture of the field we’re working in. For me, it was valuable to talk to the many smart people at the Game Lab. You talk about existing games, about your own ideas, and also about how you could execute them. Without the Game Lab I wouldn’t have been able to make Perfect Woman, which has been my most recognized game so far.

What would you tell other prospective students about UCLA Game Lab?

If you are fascinated by games and interactive experiences, but don’t want to reproduce what you already know, or if you want to experiment,think, or develop, then the Game Lab is the place to study for you. You shouldn’t be afraid of technology, but rather think of it as a tool to make an artistic statement. In the Game Lab, people are artists who make games, not gamers who make art.

What do you want to do in the future?

I want to make my living by designing games. I work in a free-to-play mobile games company right now, which is great because after my more artistic studies, I am learning a lot about the best practices of the industry. My future goal, though, is to incorporate the things I learn and have learned into personal, artistic games again that still pay my bills.