https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeGZhdS3ngQ
I was selected to participate in a 6-month collaboration between USC and students from Tokyo Geidai University of the Arts. I contributed the concept as well as programming and design.
Meet Tofu Tower. A living breathing apartment building located on a quiet city block. Life changes, though, when a freeway begins being built, and Tofu Tower is standing right in its way. The player’s goal is to find a new home for Tofu Tower and its residents, and explore what it means to be uprooted from one’s home.
トウフタワーをご紹介します。このトウフタワーは、建物であるだけではなく、居住者とともに生きているタワーです。とある街の静かな一角で暮らしていました。しかしそこに高速道路が通ることとなり、全てが一変しました。トウフタワーと住人のために新しい居住地を探してください。
Tofu Tower aims to tackle questions around gentrification and displacement using an absurd and playful framing device — a living apartment building. Through the game’s simple mechanics, we wanted players to experience the powerlessness of losing their home and discover resilience by building a community to push back against forces greater than an individual.
Collecting a citizen empowers Tofu Tower to ‘firm up’ and push back on new development
Players control Tofu Tower, a meek and jiggly apartment building, that has just been displaced from its neighborhood. Players must explore the city to find new residents to move into the tower, helping Tofu Tower firm up (!) and learn to resist the encroaching development.
The player’s goal is to collect enough citizens from different zones in the city and use their collective power to help Tofu Tower regain its home by pushing back against the highway that displaced it.
Tokyo University of the Arts Geidai Games Exhibition (2023)