Austin Heller

Hey! I’m Austin (they/them). I’m a designer and artist in Chicago who makes interactive media, music, and lots of stuff that falls somewhere in between:

Screenshot of Choicelab, an app for creating interactive branching narratives. A flowchart is visible with several nodes, and a right-side panel that shows editable properties for the selected node.

Choicelab is an open-source app I develop that lets you create multimedia-rich interactive narratives. Using audio, video, and text, you can tell immersive stories and then publish them to the web. It's still (very) early days, but my goal is to make interactive, game-like video simple and fun to make.

Every winter, The Advent Project brings hundreds of people brand-new, bite-sized art on the web, made by a variety of artists. Over the years, we've raised over $20,000 for various nonprofits, especially in the Midwest.

As the project's designer, I want our digital calendar to feel like a keepsake, and also be an effective fundraising tool for our charity partners. We go all out with art-directed posts, hand-illustrated icons and textures, and other niceties that make even a digital gift feel special and tactile.

Screenshot of The Advent Project's 2021 calendar. Tiles representing December 1–24 are on a parchment-colored background. Each tile is represented by an ink-toned icon that obliquely hints at the day's contents.
Screenshot of The Advent Project's 2022 calendar. Tiles representing December 1–24 are on an ombré background that goes from a dusky purple to a faint blush pink. Each tile is represented by a light-toned icon that obliquely hints at the day's contents.

I love interactive media and bite-sized games, and have even made a few of my own:

Screenshot of "The Light", a branching audio narrative game. A question reads: "Check out the mysterious fire? Or the strange music?", with two choice buttons: "The fire", or "The music".

The Light is a branching audio narrative about a scientist and her partner, looking for light on the shortest day of the year, in one of the most remote places on Earth. I produced visuals for The Light, and contributed to its production as the developer of Choicelab.

Written by Chad Eschman and Jessy Lauren Smith. Performed by Chad Eschman and Jennifer Rumberger. Sound design and music by Purple Urchins.

Screenshot of "A Frosty Crostic", a puzzle game. A grid of characters, separated by spaces, is partially filled in with the words "There must b". An onscreen hint reads "Tommy Tutone's Jenny had a famous one (2 wds.)".

A Frosty Crostic is a particularly fun example of the various puzzle games I’ve built over the years. Created with Jonathan Baude for The Advent Project.

Screenshot of "It's December", a branching audio narrative. A colorful vector illustration of a ghost hovers forlornly onscreen; two choice buttons are overlaid on the visual, offering the choice of "See how high I can fly" or "Go home".

It’s December, a multi-choice adventure filled with dragons, sea witches, dark jokes, and a longing for home. I developed It’s December, produced its audio, and composed the score.

Written by Jessy Lauren Smith. Animated by Mason Sklar. Performed by Adrienne Matzen, Nathaniel Andrew, Erin Austin, and Katie Markovich.

Screenshot of "Ho Ho Hiatus", a puzzle game. An illustrated Santa is standing in the cold, with only beach shorts on. He is freezing, indicatively hoping to find the rest of his outfit soon.

Ho-Ho Hiatus finds Santa, after another triumphant Christmas, ready for a vacation. But a new jetpack has other plans for Saint Nick. I developed a miniature JavaScript game engine for Ho-Ho Hiatus and implemented the game design.

Written by George Hufnagl. Art by Brad Oexeman. Santa voiced by Brandon Paul Eells.

Beyond the screen, I write and play music as a producer, and through my group Smallhounds:

The album artwork for Triangles, by Smallhounds. It illustrates a lakefront, with a small amount of beach visible—as if you were standing and looking out from this angle. As the lake hits the horizon, it reveals a number of abstract shapes that rise upward, fading into a night sky.

Triangles is Smallhounds’ debut album, released in 2023. Stream it on Bandcamp.

A monochromatic illustration of a mixtape against a light blue background.

For the Advent Project, I compiled a mixtape of all the original songs contributed by our pool of artists. Within the compilation, I wrote one song and produced two of them.

Songs by Rose Lewis and Coale Henderson, Chad Eschman and Alaina MacManus, Nathaniel Andrew, David Death, and Austin Heller (that’s me).

The artwork for the Pod Has Been Cast TTRPG podcast. Pixelated text that says 'The Pod Has Been Cast' sits on a pixelated dark purple gradient. Near the top of the gradient, stars can be seen in the distance.

I write music for The Pod Has Been Cast, a queer- and community-focused actual play TTRPG podcast. Their newest arc, A City Called Hate, is a southern gothic nightmare adventure, which makes it really fun to write for. Check it out.

The album artwork for $5 Whiskey Sours, by Smallhounds. A duotoned photograph of the back of a local bar, with the bar colored in a bright gold against a white background.

“$5 whiskey sours” If you want, if you want / I know a happy hour

The album artwork for Roll On, by Smallhounds. A vector drawing (from an isomorphic perspective) illustrates a window of a bright yellow house—into which looks a red floor, a blue rug, and a green table with some household items on it. Also, there's a small rocket inside the house. Meanwhile, A blue tube interweaves, vine-like, through the window panes. Outside the window is a mint-green bush with white berries. Blue, white, and red cones break up the leaves.

“Roll On” is the first Smallhounds single and pretty fun, as far as debuts go.

The album artwork for Novelty Songs, by Rose and Her Bros. A black and white drawing illustrates three people sitting on the floor, looking inside a guitar case with a few dollar bills. Above the drawing, lettering reads "Rose and Her Bros Novelty Songs EP."

The incredibly rare* twelve-year-old Novelty Songs EP is my first band Rose & Her Bros’ only release. I produced it, sang backing vocals, and played drums.

* Actually, it’s freely available on Bandcamp. But don’t tell anyone else, OK?