Jason Jaccoi - Digital Media

Roll: Boulder Smash!

An accelerometer-based destruction/bowling game for mobile devices. Our first entirely in-company game at All Things Media, originally conceived as a means of researching the capabilities of Unity 3D, it grew over a period of five years into a fully fleshed-out production. As our first venture into Unity, it saw many iterations before finally being completed in 2013 and launched on both the iOS App Store and Google Play. Despite its limited attention, I still feel the passion and talent of everyone involved is easily apparent.

I was one of several programmers who developed major aspects of player control, prop & power-up behavior, world physics, level design, FX management, UI & menu screenflow, and many under-the-hood workings. I also served as Gameplay Director, conceiving much of the intricacies of core game functionality, rules, and rubrics. I created a number of in-game effects & designs, and handled all sound design. I voiced several characters and directed the recording of additional VO talent.

Cadillac VR: Virtual Showroom

A virtual-reality showroom experience for Cadillac dealers using the HTC Vive. With the explosive development of newly-accessible virtual reality peripherals, learning & developing for this medium was inevitable. Our app allows users to live the experience of visiting a Cadillac dealer with every vehicle, customizing every aspect of that vehicle, and physically move around it in a fully-immersive virtual environment. Users interact through use of the Vive headset & controller in a natural and intuitive fashion.

I was involved in a number of programming roles involving implementation & control of UI elements, user locomotion, animation control, editor tools, and audio control. I also did preliminary sound design and worked with the vendor's audio engineers on final assets. Many nights were spent at the office during the final weeks of this project, culminating in one of our most advanced projects yet, from the technical to artistic end.

Toys R' Us Digital Retail Experience

A multi-part user experience & marketing enhancement that was deployed in Freehold, NJ. We developed various augmented-reality as well as conventional interactive media, and physical accessories with blue-tooth based communication across in-store beacons and servers. Experiences included Kinect-controlled avatar mirrors, streaming video kiosks, 3D projection on mixed physical media with IR touch, Magic-Wands with integrated displays & QR scanners, and a fully-enclosed projection viewing dome. We developed, installed, monitored & maintained the experiences on-site at an experimental test-store, and were present during the store's launch.

I worked closely with developers from Perch Interactive to incorporate our experiences into their 3D projection and touch recognition hardware, creating kiosks that allowed for integration of physical merchandise. I also created applications for video-playback & blue-tooth wand control with automatic content update capability. Both systems were created to be quickly templatable for development and easily maintained by in-store staff.

Mercedes-AMG Power Wall

An MB dealer and showroom information app made up of two separate programs on two separate displays which communicate information back and forth from each other. A user interacts with a touch screen to control the focus of the application, which is displayed across a borderless multi-monitor wall. The app features fully rendered vehicles & components which can be rotated, exploded, customized, and animated through touch screen control. It also contains historical timelines, digital video, and CG animation.

I was one of several programmers that handled implementation of vehicles and components as well as UI control. I also contributed some editor tools, animation handling systems, accessibility options, and general tweaks & improvements based on client-feed back. I had a hand in QA from both a programmer and user perspective and was responsible for some of the sound design.

Albright-Knox Art Gallery ArtGames 2.0

   A collection of educational games based on artistic pieces. We were approached by the ABK art gallery in Buffalo, NY to conceive and develop a series of mobile games based on select art pieces in their holding. With my background in game design as well as art history, this project presented a satisfying development opportunity. In its original deployment, 8 games were consolidated into one customizable hub-world; stylized as a planet which developed as the user progressed. Other users' planets could be visited, giving the player the chance to compare their progress to the progress of their friends. At the client's behest, the games were later split up into individual apps.

   I was heavily involved in the development of game concepts and client relations. I was sole developer of two games featured here, Karma Catch & Special Delivery, and aided with programming and concept of several other included games. I got to mess with IK chains for Karma Catch, though I eventually went with a more simplified approach for a more predictable game experience. Special Delivery featured what I think was a simple and intuitive control scheme, and features some nifty systems I created, such as a JSON based level generator with procedurally-built parallax scrolling background elements.

   I handled the sound & music design and lead development on an expansion which unfortunately was later dropped. In the end, we had created 8 individual games that had to both be entertaining and speak to the original intentions of the pieces they were based on; all on an incredibly tight timeline.

Covanta Games

A collection of two arcade-style games featuring educational information regarding Covanta Energy company and its services. Two games are featured; The Crane Game and Sort n' Toss. The Crane Game is an accelerometer and touch based claw-machine styled game where the player must dispose of a quickly increasing pile of waste while avoiding improperly disposed of materials. The app launched initially as The Crane Game and grew to Covanta Games when Sort n' Toss was later added.

This was largely a two person project between myself and a digital artist, with a second programmer creating the later-added Sort n' Toss game. All of Crane Game, as well as the application wrapper & Game Center integration were programmed by me. I also handled all sound design, Crane Game music selection, intro animation (Crane Game), as well as project management on the initial launch.