I first met writer, programmer, and interactive artist Erik Loyer at the 2009 Game Developer’s Conference. Alternately demo-ing NightSky and wandering the IGF show floor, I happened upon his unique short story app for the iPhone called Ruben & Lullaby. Was it a game? Was it a comic book? It certainly didn’t look or feel like anything else I had seen. Needless to say, I was impressed.

In December 2010, Erik released his newest unclassifiable work, Strange Rain. The app quickly shot to #1 on the iPad Entertainment charts and was featured on CNN and USAToday. Fast Company called it, “A glimpse at novels of the future” and IGN awarded it with an 8.5 rating and their Editor’s Choice award. Playable in three modes (story, wordless, & whisper), Strange Rain is another examination of emotional minutia. Drops of rain fall onto the screen as words and music are manipulated by the player. As with Ruben & Lullaby, Erik was responsible for the music, programming, and design himself. Toward the end of January, I received a call asking if I would be interested in composing a new interactive score for Strange Rain. I picked up my acoustic guitar started writing the music that night.

The resulting composition, “Possibility In Amnesia,” features Philip Glenn on violin, Andrew Pompey on drums and cymbals and myself on acoustic guitar. “Possibility…” is my first interactive composition and I could not have been blessed with a better collaborator. Erik and I had so many ideas bouncing back and forth that the creative and technical languages seemed indistinguishable. After the music was recorded we spent two months beta testing, tweaking, and letting our kids and spouses tell us what they thought.

The final presentation is something that feels both surprising and natural. The experience is singular and I couldn’t be more proud of it.

Buy Strange Rain for iPhone and iPad on the App Store. It’s only $1.99.