Kavanavak

Virtual Reality Projects

2022 - Unreal Engine - Hardware Agnostic

Locomotion system. Drag yourself around your virtual environment, adjust your world scale, and rotate yourself around using controller input. My preferred way to move around smaller roomscale VR scenes. Made as part of a larger ongoing project and shared with the community.
Repo on Github

HOME: Our Journey

2019 - Unity - HTC Vive

A virtual orrery built to allow people to explore the Solar System. Fast-forward and rewind time as you highlight planetary orbits and discover a bit more about your nearest celestial neighbors.
[An earlier dev version: Itch.io]

VR Locomotion:
Space Flyer

2018 - Unity - HTC Vive

VR Locomotion Prototype. A test for a hand-locked spaceship asteroids-blaster. Project visioned as a puppet-scale dogfighter.

Computer / Web Games

While working on a few VR ideas I made a bunch of friends, and every so often we make little games together. These are the games we made.

Root Bound

2023 - Unreal Engine - Windows

Embark on an exciting adventure as a single raindrop, tumbling down from the clouds and destined for the earth below. Navigate through an unpredictable journey filled with obstacles and twists. Make the most of your brief moment as you phase through your cyclic journey. But be warned, one wrong move could lead to a SPLAT! Created in 48 hours as part of Global Game Jam 2023.

Team 💧 Ezra Sandzer-Bell, Jacob Bruns, Shepherd Duff, Chris Gruchacz, Jordan Kulm, Stevie Smith, Nathaniel Sticco

Grim Repair

2020 - Unity - WebGL

Trapped aboard a sinking vessel, you'll have to work fast with your comrades to avoid death under the sea. Patch holes, close doors, and maybe even abandon your fellow players. Play with up to 4 of your friends via local multiplayer .exe download, or single-player through your web browser. Created in 48 hours as part of Global Game Jam 2020.

Team ⚓ Oliver Smith, Drew Gingerich, Ryan Kubik, Ezra Sandzer-Bell, Matthew Morgan

MAKE for the WAVES

2019 - Unity - AirConsole

Race down the beach as a baby turtle using your phone as a controller! Built using Air Console, an in-browser console that allows your friends to play games together with your phones as controllers. Created in 48 hours as part of Global Game Jam 2019. Was an 'Honorable Mention' in AirConsole's Game Dev Contest 2019.

Team 🐢 Oliver Smith, Ryan Kubik, Lia Snyderman, Ezra Sandzer-Bell, Curran Gregory

Trainsmission

2018 - Unity - WebGL

A whodunit murder mystery that takes place on an infinite train ride. Created in 48 hours as part of Global Game Jam 2018. Later showcased at OMSI After Dark: Game On!

Team 🚂 Wesley Gyde, Oliver Smith, Lia Snyderman, Ezra Sandzer-Bell, Ryan Kubik

TEAMBUILDING

Back-Burnered - Unity

Local Multiplayer zombie shooter. Your helicopter has crashed and you and your team need to find a way home.

Team 🚁 Oliver Smith, Ryan Kubik, Lia Snyderman, Ezra Sandzer-Bell

Card / Physical Games

The Band You're Dealt

2018 - Index Cards, Paper and Pens

3 - 6 player tabletop card game. Draft a band, play gigs, build the biggest fan club. Designed at the PIGSquad Tabletop Jam in March of 2018.

Team 🃏 Ryan Kubik, Lia Snyderman, Wesley Mueller, Carly Sjordal, Chris McPhearson

Injustice, growing class division, general suffering. There's always room for improvement and everyone knows that we can do better. If you look around and you don't like the world you see, remember that society is an ever-evolving construct 'we' built over time.

Pick an issue and get engaged.

ConsciousCreatures.org

Active - HTML

A place where I evolve my thoughts. Current home of the Do Better Manifesto.

WhoReps.us

2023 - HTML & JS

A web application that enables users to identify their representatives at the Federal, State, and Local levels based on their address. The tool integrates publicly available data and utilizes Google Maps Autocomplete for accurate address input, and the Google Civic Information API and Wikipedia to fetch representative details.

State/Local Politics

2024 - present

I serve as an elected Precinct Committee Officer (PCO) in Washington's 43rd Legislative District
Elected by my district PCOs to serve as an alternate delegate for the Washington State Democratic Central Committee (WSDCC)

2019-2023

I was the Voter File Manager / NGP VAN Coordinator for the Democratic Party of Multnomah County
I served on the State Central Committee (SCC) for the Democratic Party of Oregon (DPO), and was a member of the DPO Executive Committee as their CD3 Delegate.

2017-2023

I served as an elected Precinct Committee Person (PCP) in OR House District 43

I've put in some work to build support behind a call to End Federal Student Loan Interest.

0% INTEREST ON GOVERNMENT-FUNDED STUDENT LOANS.

Stop charging interest on student loans, current and as part of future federal student loan contracts.
Clear unpaid interest from outstanding balances.
The US Government should retroactively apply all student loan interest paid to date to any remaining principal on outstanding loans. Should there be a remaining balance of interest paid, credit it to the debtor (student) as a tax credit to be used over a generous balance of years.

Endorsements so far:

Democratic Party of Oregon. Resolution 2033-03. 5/21/2023
American Federation of Teachers-Oregon, Political and Legislative Affairs Committee. 2022
Multnomah County Democratic Party. Resolution 2022-8. 12/8/2022, unanimously
Klamath County Democratic Party. 1/3/2023, unanimously
Democratic Party of Clackamas County. 1/19/2023
Jefferson County Democrats. 2/20/2023, unanimously
Peter Hall, Baker Co. Dem. Party Chair, PCP HD60. 2023

Misc. Projects

Make It Happen

2010 Vancouver Olympics - UPM

Team ⛷ Nino DelGiudice, Jon Edward Miller, Nicole Vaskell

Recommendations #1: Pilot G2

2009 Fun Spec - Director

Team ✍ Zorba, Mike Gan

Wearshare®

2011 - 2016

In 2011, I co-founded a company with my good friend Eric Anderson to allow people, mostly teens, to create unique photo-friendship bracelets using their digital photos. Two per order, One to Wear One to Share®.

An expression of love and tribe. We registered over 100k user accounts, grew a thriving community of over 200k social media followers and sold 120k+ bracelets worldwide. Day-to-day operations included but were not limited to UX/UI design, physical product design, marketing strategy and scheduling, negotiating vendor contracts, brand development, customer support, bookkeeping, operations, general task management, and playing in the intersection of face-to-face and digital connections between human beings. Currently consulting for a relaunch of the brand.