Anomalist Games is a showcase of game design experiments by David (the_monotonist).
All of my design work is crafted meticulously with emphasis on usability, minimalism, and abstraction. Learn more about me here and here.
January 25 2017
Last weekend I completed my 3rd year participating in the Minneapolis chapter of the Global Game Jam, hosted by Glitch. There were over 150 people, with 31 games submitted at the end of the 48 hour allotted time. I decided to go solo this year, so I could test my ability to take on as many roles as possible. I found that I worked really well this way, and was able to make progress at a faster rate with less stress. However, working solo has it’s own issues, mainly how I could only progress on one task at a time. The result was me spending at least 95% of my time writing C# code in Unity, meaning I was not able to add audio or animations to my graphics. In the end, I was happy with what I came up with. I also ended up with a massive set of notes of possible directions I could take this game, and learned how to strategically strip away features to meet a short turnaround without sacrificing the quality of the game. Try it out for yourself: Wave Save.
July 20 2016
Two years old today. It’s been a strange, mutating journey. I never thought I would find myself being paid to demonstrate VR technology to the public, but that’s what I’ve been doing the last month or so. I wonder when the ‘game’ part of Anomalist Games will finally surface? Here’s to another year!
May 25 2016
I’m pleased to announce that I will be volunteering 6 hours of my time to a Sundance Virtual Reality exhibit featured at Minneapolis’ Northern Spark 2016 (June 11, 9pm – June 12, 6am). If you’re in the area during the event, and are a fan new immersive media, stop by. I’ll be there starting at midnight, and am always up for a conversation about VR.
April 6 2016
Things couldn’t have been timed any better. I received my Vive shipping notification on my birthday, and now it’s set to be in my hands by the evening of April 6th. The hype felt across the internet is insane, and I’m very excited to be a part of the first wave of shipments. I have an entire room filled with lighting and green screen equipment in preparation for live streaming and capturing of videos. I know I’ve said it before, but this time I feel like things REALLY ARE getting rolling with Anomalist Games. Follow my streaming progress here: twitch.tv/the_monotonist and youtube posts here: youtube.com/channel/UC-DFm8CnyLqkNNDq5Pu0O6Q.
March 18 2016
There’s roughly 3 weeks left until I get my hands on my Vive CV1. Ridiculous amounts of excitement is felt through all of the early adopters. I’m almost done reorganizing my entire apartment in anticipation for it. I plan on doing a great deal of live streaming and video recording of my experience playing and developing for the Vive, but until then here’s the best documentation on its history yet: How HTC and Valve built the Vive
December 11 2015
Even though I’m disappointed in the Vive release date being pushed to April, I did recently have an incredible opportunity to finally try a Vive for myself at a local VR enthusiast event. Apologies for the terribly blurry photo…this always happens when I try to get someone else photograph me with my phone.
I only had maybe 5 minutes total playtime due to the big lines of people waiting to try it. I played Tilt Brush and an old build of Job Simulator. There isn’t a whole lot that I can say that hasn’t already been said about the headset. Here are some of the most significant things I noticed:
July 20 2015
A whole year later and everything is still ‘in progress’. It’s like, all about the journey, man!
March 11 2015
I got on a tangent recently regarding my motivations behind all the visual decisions I made and plan on making under this name, so I thought I would share them here. The tangent began when explaining my business card design:
March 10 2015
‘T.M.I.’: Preserving the suspension of disbelief through ambiguity Exclusive
THIS! I couldn’t agree more with the ideas discussed in this article, especially regarding the benefits of reducing information given to the player to encourage them to forget that they’re “playing a simulation”. Striking a balance between too much and too little information. Letting them think for themselves, and only stepping in when it’s absolutely necessary.
February 26 2015
I’m over the hump and finally putting serious time into game design. Here is a video proposal I put together of an upcoming project in hopes to be featured among other amateur developers at GlitchCon 2015.
This is the first version of a tiny little game that I made for the 48-hour Global Game Jam 2017. It was my first time coding in C#. The graphics were done by me as well. It’s extremely simple, but I learned a lot while making it and had a fun time. Currently supports Windows and Mac desktop.
Take on the role of a robotic crab as it attempts to clean up the beach while avoiding the threat of splashing waves.
