Jon Tiburzi

Alea's Island

Meet Alea, a little musician adrift in an ocean of sound.

Explore islands filled with musical puzzles and creatures. Master your instrument and learn how it communicates with your environment. Meditate in lush landscapes, immersed in an evolving procedurally-generated soundtrack.

Alea's Island was an eight-month collaboration with musician Terrane. In spring 2017, the game was exhibited in two art galleries — Public Functionary (Minneapolis, MN) and The Northfield Arts Guild (Northfield, MN).

Hikari's Station

Make new friends on a train ride across Tokyo.

Ride the train from station to station as you work your way home. Take selfies to rack up points while trying (not) to annoy your cute fellow passengers. Reflect on the charming but fleeting faces around us. Who will you meet?

A game in collaboration with musician James Rose. Originally created for the game jam A Game By Its Cover, inspired by this Famicase cartridge art by minomawari.

Alea's Garden

Things aren’t beautiful because they last forever.

Alea’s Garden is a cosy polyomino deckbuilding card game. Balance beauty and decay within your garden in this pocketsized card game for one player. Free to print-and-play!

Game design by Brave James. I made the art and assisted (lightly) with development. Our game won the 2025 BoardGameGeek Solitaire competition!

cync

A cyclic drum machine for exploring non-quantized grooves.

Most drum sequencers are rectangular, organizing notes linearly in a quantized grid. However, there are many rhythms that are difficult or impossible to construct this way (such as traditional African, Indian, and Indonesian drumbeats). These rhythms rely on repeating patterns of different lengths, which can vary in arrangement and timing.

Representing these grooves as overlapping cycles reveals their underlying patterns. This approach can also be used to explore and experiment with polyrhythms, syncopation, and beat construction.

A web app created in collaboration with Terrane and Omar Shehata.

Isle of Eden

Don't rush yourself — the end may arrive before you are ready to get there.

Explore a randomly-generated island garden, filled with ambiance and tranquility. Discover forgotten ruins and mysterious totems, which offer reflections on the hectic nature of everyday life. Enjoy your time in the garden, and reflect on your choices before night falls.

I designed this experimental video game for my undergraduate art capstone project in 2016. All graphics, programming, music, and audio were created over the course of three months. At the end of the semester, the game was exhibited in a campus art gallery.

The game's arcade-influenced short playtime is juxtaposed by environmental ambiance and gentle music, toying with the relationship between video games and the traditional arts. I documented the process of making this game on my developer blog.

Hiiro

Solve puzzles, discover secrets, experience dreamy solitude.

Hiiro is a 2D platform game focused on ambient exploration and puzzle solving. Discover a grand world filled with mysterious artifacts and forgotten ruins. Become immersed in relaxing gameplay and meditative music. Remain observant as you unravel an explanation for your solitude. In-game death not included.

An early passion project with my good friends Bevibel Harvey and Philip Gibbons.

Other projects

Taking Space — Chart out patterns in the night sky in this pattern-laying card game for one player.

Nightwalk — Go on a quiet night adventure to find a very special someone.

Snowday — A gentle game about playing in a fresh snowfall.