Sam Kingston

Waiver: A Balancing Act

Inspired by the prompt of "Among All these Tundras", an exhibit featuring Indigenous Artists put on by OCAD in 2019, Waiver: A Balancing Act is an endless-runner that explores the delicate balance that must be maintained in order to preserve culture which is under threat.

“In collaboration with 2020-2021 Digital Futures graduates Shiloh Light-Barnes and Madelaine Fischer-Bernhut, we found that two common themes in the exhibit were that of the bike and the pipeline. Often used to visually symbolize and contrast the sustainable and the unsustainable, we began exploring the idea of being forced to balance between and navigate through such massive cultural threats and traditions simultaneously. Game assets and animations were produced by myself while Shiloh and Madelaine designed lighting, interactions, and game mechanisms. The game speeds up the further the player gets, but also introduces more complex and difficult combinations of pipes and obstacles as time goes on.”