Do you remember our review of a small galaxy puzzle game you can download on your iPhone right now? Today we would like to share our interview with the artistic developer of this not only unique, but incredibly challenging puzzle game!
If you have yet to check out our review of Anamorph, you can do so here!
Before we start we’d like to thank Steve Snyder for participating in our interview and for answering all of our geeky questions! Thanks!
…and without further ado, our interview begins…
The Interview
Thanks for taking the time to talk to us about Anamorph! Could you kick-start this interview by telling us a little about your studio, yourself, and what drew you into the gaming industry?
Thank you for your interest in my latest game Anamorph. I’m married to my beautiful wife Amy and we have great children and grandchildren in our family.
As far as a developer, I’m a one-person studio that decided to start making games about 5 years ago. I’m a career Nuclear Safety Engineer and a graduate of Penn State University. I’m also a fine artist that works in traditional oil painting. So yeah, I guess I work from both left and right brain. I think that’s what really attracted me to game development – it’s both logic and creative based – so I decided to teach myself how to code and here I am 5 years later.
Cool! Let’s start talking about Anamorph… What are the highlights of your latest release?
The major highlights are the new controls and the 2 play modes. At the initial release, I was dealing with controls that seemed to invert when rotating the 3D art. Well, I heard about it from player reviews (and rightfully so), so I corrected that issue and at the same time added an “Easy” and a “Hard” play mode.
In the easy mode if you get an individual color perspective correct it will snap and hold it in place. For the hard play mode, the player doesn’t get this assistance which really makes solving the puzzles a lot more challenging.
What was the core idea or inspiration behind Anamorph? And perhaps more importantly, where do you find inspiration for your games in general?
As I said I’m also a fine artist so I’m always interested in what’s going on in the art world. I saw this one article on how people couldn’t get enough of experiencing anamorphic art, and I thought “discovering” the anamorphic art image could make a really interesting game.
In general, for me, inspiration for games just happens. You just need to be aware of what’s around you. For example, everyone, when they were kids, played with a bat or broom and tried to balance it for as long as they could on their fingers. I was showing this to my 4 yr old grandson and thought “this could make a fun game”. And that’s how the idea for my game Balance the Beam” came about.
How long was Anamorph in development for? And are there any interesting and/or exciting moments or experiences you would like to share with us from that time?
It was probably in development for about 5 months and by far the most labor intensive was creating the 40 individual 3D anamorphic art pieces. Balancing family and work is the most interesting (challenging). But I’ve got a wonderful wife who’s a great support.
What software, developer-tools, or black-magic(?) did you use when making Anamorph? Is there anything you would like to share with the developers who read Edamame Reviews?
I used Blender for modeling the 3D artwork and Unity3D to make Anamorph.
Is there any secret “developer-advice” you can give our lucky players who read this interview?
The key to solving the puzzles is while you’re rotating the pieces all of a sudden you’ll feel that the spheres are starting to align in an “ordered” fashion. If you sense this you are probably close to the right perspective 😃
What can we expect to see in Anamorph or from Steve Snyder in the not so distant future? What do we have to look forward to next?
Well, I’ll definitely take note of player feedback and keep making improvements to the game where needed. I’m also planning an expansion pack of new puzzles at the end of this year or the beginning of next year.
Lastly, is there anything you would like to say to our awesome team of Writers, Developers, and Patrons who keep Edamame Reviews up and running?
I really want to thank you all again for your interest in me and my game and I hope I was able to shine a little light on what it’s like for me to be a game developer. I love doing it and I hope I can continue to make games that people enjoy.
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