Scatback & the Schizophrenic Tree is a game that tells the story of a U.S. space monkey, Scatback. Scatback was one of few space monkeys from the U.S. space monkey program to not be proclaimed dead upon landing, and instead was claimed to have been "lost at sea." Our game, however, claims that Scatback was not lost at sea, but hurled into another dimension. Upon crash landing, Scatback's ship got stuck in the dimension's only living organism, a tree. In order to get back to his ship, and back to earth, Scatback must climb the tree using only his unicycle. Simple enough right? Well actually there is something you should know about this particular tree - it is severely schizophrenic. Scatback must keep the tree happy by collecting the tree's medication on his way to the top. If Scatback fails to collect enough pills during his climb, the tree will turn against him, and the climb back to his ship will be nearly impossible. Play it!

The live version of the game adds in a second layer of interaction involving an actor on stage. We built a physical version of game's tree, and (using an arduino, flex sensors, and a make-shift pulley system) we made a tree who's limbs are controlled by the actor on stage, directly reflecting his or her actions on screen, and in the game. Scatback & The Schizophrenic Tree was performed live at the UCLA Design Media Arts Senior Exhibition.