Devlog #1 — From a Low Poly House to a Playable Prototype

Hey everyone,

I thought it would be fun to start writing devlogs and document my game development journey. Even if nobody reads these, I think it’ll be nice to look back at them in a few months and see how much progress I’ve made.

A Small Blender Project

Today started with a simple goal: spend some time in Blender and improve my modeling skills.

I ended up making a low poly house. Nothing too complicated, but it was a good exercise and helped me get more comfortable with Blender. After finishing the model, I rendered a few screenshots and made a cover image in Photopea.

Once everything looked decent, I uploaded the asset to both Sketchfab and itch.io. I’m trying to share more of the things I make instead of leaving them on my hard drive forever.

Working on Anomaly Shift

Most of my day was spent working on my current project, Anomaly Shift.

The biggest achievement today is that the game is now fully playable as a prototype. It’s still far from finished, but all the core gameplay systems are working together now.

Today I added:

• A difficulty selection screen
• An instruction scene explaining how the game works
• A win screen
• Sound effects

I also spent some time searching through FreeSound and found several CC0-licensed sounds that fit the game pretty well. It’s always surprising how much difference audio makes. Even a simple prototype feels much more alive once it has sounds.

What Is Anomaly Shift?

The idea is pretty simple.

At the start of the game, you choose a difficulty level. The harder the difficulty, the more days you need to survive.

Your job is to watch your surroundings and figure out whether an anomaly has appeared.

If you think there is an anomaly, you interact with the bed.

If you’re right, you move on to the next day.

If you’re wrong, your progress resets.

If you think there isn’t an anomaly, you interact with the clock instead.

Again, a correct decision advances the day, while a wrong one resets your progress.

It’s a simple concept, but I’m hoping the increasing number of anomalies and the pressure of not wanting to lose progress will make it tense and fun.

Plans for Tomorrow

Tomorrow I’ll probably focus on the game’s presentation rather than adding new features.

The plan is to:

• Create a proper cover image
• Put together a short trailer
• Get the itch.io page ready

Overall, I’m pretty happy with today’s progress. A few days ago Anomaly Shift was just a bunch of separate ideas and systems. Now it’s something I can actually launch and play.

Still a long way to go, but it’s nice to finally have a playable prototype.

See you in the next devlog. 👋