Hi Astra!

I super appreciate you for considering me for the Astra Fund!  It would truly be life changing for me, and I feel I have a lot to contribute to the “Thinky Game” world. Here are some examples of my work:

Don’t Get Stranded

144 puzzles of pure puzzle awesomeness.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dont-get-stranded/id1063638582

This was a puzzle game I released to the App Store in the year 2016 (what a different time back then)!

I put a lot of work into achieving the most simple-but-hard puzzles possible, with a mechanic that I invented that was intuitive to understand, but led to countless brain-tickling situations.

As a monkey, you sit on a grid of rafts, separated from your mouth-watering bananas by the open waters. As you jump off of a raft, the raft moves through the water in the opposite direction until it hits something.

I hope someday to make the app work universally across all devices (Unity’s free tier, along with the other major game engines, didn’t support mobile games at the time of making, so I coded it in Swift — Apple only).

I’d also like to make some changes based on what I’ve learned about game design in recent years, mostly when it comes to creating an “overworld” experience that is both more fun and intuitive for the player.

Super Battle Pets

Link to the project: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/candybotgames/super-battle-pets 

My most recent project is not a video game, but it is certainly a “Thinky Game.”

Super Battle Pets is a Pokémon-like card game, designed with the help of over 100 kids. Unlike Pokémon, one pack of cards contains the entire game, and the rules are so simple that anyone who can read can play effectively.

Despite the simple rules, a chess-like strategy emerges as players find unexpected relationships between the different cards, and the game grows in complexity near the end of the game, when players must puzzle out chains of events caused by intricate animal armies.

Last year I launched a successful Kickstarter Campaign for the project, raising $15k. That was enough to fund the project, exciting me beyond belief, but still making things tricky when it comes to achieving a work-life balance, since I’ve still had to make sure I have money coming in from other sources to stay alive, trying to fulfill this project.

I just finished up all of the designs, and I’m about to have it manufactured and sent out to backers!

Shifty Shapes

A tiny little start to one of many ideas I have. (short gameplay clip sent through your google form)

Any fan of Rummy-O, Rummy-Cube, or or whatever else you want to call that game, will love this game.

You’re given a pile of figures to sort, each represented by 1 of 5 different shapes, and 5 different colors. Figures must be placed in sets of the same color, OR the same shape, and sets must have 3 or more figures each. No set can have figures that are exactly the same color AND shape (no duplicates allowed).

The same way you approach Rummy-Cube, you have to rearrange all these smiling little figures into a formation where they all exist in a legal set. The catch in this game? The code specifically designs a puzzle that has only one solution (that was hard to make, I basically had to explain to it how to strategically play Rummy-Cube and find every solution possible).

It’ll have you thinking in “circles” until you have that “a-ha” moment, bringing you to the one-and-only solution.

Thank You!

I have many other games I’ve completed or worked on as well, but I thought the above examples were the best “Thinky Games” to show you.

Take a look at the rest of my website if you feel you need to see more! (Or my social media profiles, at the bottom of this page)

I’d absolutely love to be a part of your fellowship, and I thank you for taking a look at this and considering including me.