Circadia. Unbelievably simple. Devilishly tricky. A visual masterpiece.

This was my first solo game release. After completing my MFA at Parsons in Design and Technology, I decided to start my own game dev studio. Times were simpler back then? I’d probably disagree with myself then considering I was fresh out of grad school with 100k in student loan debt.

The current mobile games at this particular time were very cartoony and bubbly in design. Skeuomorphic design was at an all time high with games like Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja dominating the AppStore. UI buttons had gloss on them and even the Apple OS featured an automatic option to add a glossy sheen to any App icon.

Little did I know how minimalism would soon come into focus.

While at Parsons I had developed a small demo for a game as a final project for one of Zach Lieberman’s classes focused on programming particles. I fell hopelessly in love with John Whitney’s work when Zach presented his work (which I had never seen before).

I meticulously learned about his process and style. How all his animations were done by hand. It was astounding, the amount of work that went into these complex visual formulas.

While playing in this area I created a prototype based on these and other works. Circadia was born. The final class project featured 3 levels, extremely basic, but proved the concept around such a minimalist game mechanic. Tap a button, release a wave, make all the waves converge on the white dot.

After leaving Parsons I started Simple Machine, my game studio. After considering all the different games I could make as a solo dev, I figured Circadia would be the one I would start with.

The development took 2 months. I learned everything from how to market a game, to icon design, to localization. It was during this development I learned one of my first real life game design lessons.

While working on Circadia at the Starbucks around the corner I asked a gentleman in a suit if he’d try my game and give me some feedback. He reeled in disgust, “I don’t really play games, I don’t have time for this.”

I pleaded with him that it would really help me out, especially the fact that he wasn’t a gamer, since it would give me insight into how a distant but potential player might see my game.

He agreed.

I put him on the title screen, which featured the name “CIRCADIA” and a white dot and a blue dot.

A big fan of immersion, at this point the title screen was designed so the player would have to tap around, eventually hitting the blue dot which released a wave that would automatically complete the title screen.

He fidgeted with the iPhone a bit, tapped a few times on the screen. Then he looked at me and handed it back. “Sorry, this isn’t for me.”

Heartbroken, I thanked him.

Here I thought I was being clever, but really I was just wasting people’s time with having a title screen that gave players zero ideas on how to play.

I immediately changed the title screen to automatically release the wave after 2 seconds, and after that, no one I encountered, self proclaimed gamer or otherwise, had any problem with the game.

This in turn taught me to think about the player’s experience and truly listen to them. And also, the Starbucks playtest, which became a staple at Simple Machine and continued to be one of the roughest, but most humbling and effective playtests for the games I would go on to release.