Games and Interactive Media
As a professor of Game Design and Interactive Media at West Virginia University, as well as the director and founder of MonRiverGames, Cole's work can be seen through the instructor and director's lens as well as artwork and level design. These can be viewed collectively on the GDIM itch page she manages. Click on the "Project Info" button to see more. The video below is a reel of her most recent work, detailed on the project page.
Cole has also worked outside of game design and art. In July of 2016, Cole first experimented with Augmented Reality at the University of Victoria's summer Digital Humanities program. The original design has since been improved and moved beyond this adaptable, but a heavily prosumer tool called BLIPPAR. The idea of this augmented reality project was to allow the audience to tap on a different part of this Finnerty Gardens map to learn more about the gardens as well as view them. In the summer of 2016, Cole received a commission to work on her largest printed piece so far: a 20ft by 8 ft background for Erie, Pennsylvania's TEDxErie on Saturday, November 5th. With this commission, she was also given the opportunity to discuss the theme and tech behind the work. The video of the TEDxTalk is embedded below. Download the free app "Blippar" and scan the artwork to view the Augmented Reality function of it. To see how this works, you may also watch the video below the artwork. The large fabric version has found a permanent home in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Penn State Behrend in the Kochel building. In March of 2017, this design was used to create an interactive program app for the Penn State Behrend Digital Media Festival. It can still be accessed by going to bit.ly/digitfest2017 Since then, Cole has also experimented with the HoloLens, Rift, Cardboard, and Vive.
