TumbleSeed

On the surface, TumbleSeed is a remediation of a vintage mechanical arcade game (Ice Cold Beer) as well as a simple skill challenge of controlled rolling. While these impressions are both true even a small amount of time, effort, and attention paid to this intricate physics puzzle reveals incredible depth in both mechanical understanding as well as visual assemblage. Perhaps this secret depth is best encapsulated in Greg Wohlwend's cyclopian design of the many denizens of the TumbleSeed summit. With incredible economy, a single eye and some accompanying features are all the characters need to convey the highly defined personalities and the culture embedded into the minute world of mountain flora. At the same time the all-seeing single eye of each seed villager also symbolically hints at the kind of mysticism and power that runs throughout this society and must be grasped in order to explore further.

In this composition created specially for the VGA print collection, Wohlwend gathers many of these big personalities wrapped up in tiny signifiers as a bustling town square. The composition serves as a kind of group portrait representing the harmony brought together by the myriad characters and visual elements; a harmony that is always there to lift you back toward the challenge of the mountain every time it throws you back to the bottom.

Greg Wohlwend is a game developer and graphic designer based in Chicago. Tumbleseed was created by Wohlwend, Benedict Fritz, Joel Corelitz, David Laskey, and Jenne Blazevich and published by aeiowu.

Options:

• Poster: $35 - 18 x 24 inch unframed matte poster

• White Framed Poster: $85 - 18 x 24 inch white framed matte poster (US shipping only)

• Black Framed Poster: $85 - 18 x 24 inch black framed matte poster (US shipping only)

• Unframed Giclee: $75 - 16 x 20 inch premium giclee

• Framed Giclee: $150 - 16 x 20 inches, lightly cropped (US shipping only)