Combining both the thrill of video games with a more serious theme related to the police, Tisch graduate student Stephen Clark has created “Rooftop Cop,” a unique collection of five endless vignette games. The game’s novelty has earned it a spot as a finalist for the Nuovo Awards in the Independent Games Festival, which will take place March 2-6.

Clark created the games and original music for his Master’s thesis presentation. Clark, who received his undergraduate degree in audio post production, had never designed a game before completing NYU’s program.

“It was something I wanted to try,” Clark said. “I’ve liked video games since I was young and growing up.”

Each of the five games in Rooftop Cop is completely different and ungated, meaning that finishing one game to proceed to another one is not required. The first game is performative, the last game more like a toy and the middle three games more traditional games. In the fifth game, titled “Palace of the Organizer,” players pick up sticks on a beach and rearrange them to create patterns.

Clark collaborated on this game with fellow game developer and NYU alumnus Zeke Virant. It was Virant’s idea to feature a fax machine in the games — the outdated technology fits in with the game’s central theme of a police cult and the sense that one’s actions are pointless.

“I’ve had an obsession with fax machines for a long time because they don’t make sense anymore,” Virant said. “We can sort of laugh about it.”

In general, Clark’s games represent broken systems in society, and the point of the games is to find a way to enjoy it — a theme that emerged from a class in which he had to create a new game every week.

“The point of the cop-like character is not to condemn your behavior but to let you enjoy your actions while knowing that your actions are bad or meaningless,” Clark said.

Poly graduate student Nina Freeman, who was in her studio class and also has a game nominated for a Nuovo Award, is impressed with Clark’s work.

“I remember seeing his prototype of one of the Rooftop Cop pieces — the capture the flag one,” Freeman said. “He demoed it and I was totally blown away. I’m also really interested in designing very focused, small games like that, so it was cool to see another designer tackling some of those same challenges so successfully.”

Virant, who also noticed Clark’s abilities, said Clark tends to have ideas that are innovative and different.

“We’d toss around different ideas and he’d be open to everything,” Virant said. “Then he’d think about it in a different perspective. It’d be the Stephen way of doing it.”

Clark is currently working for BabyCastles, a company that exhibits galleries of games in New York City. For his next project, he is working on a race car game in Chico, California, in which the direction of the race car is controlled by piñatas.

“He’s been on a roll for a year now. Everything he’s touched has been really good,” Virant said. “I love Rooftop Cop but I’m more excited to see what he’s going to do next. I’ve watched him get consistently better
and better.”

A version of this article appeared in the Monday, Feb. 2 print edition. Email Amanda D. Morris at [email protected].