What is Chromatic Isle?

Chromatic Isle is a first person classic adventure-puzzle game inspired by titles such as Myst, The Witness, Portal, and the Talos Principle. The focus of Chromatic Isle is building environments and puzzle reliant on sound. Players traverse the space, solving open ended puzzles combining auditory and visual elements to progress through the game. Each of the four puzzles is themed for a different season, prompting players to explore and learn about the world around them.

Role

Josh began working on Chromatic Isle in his final semester of graduate school, where he created several small audio toys in the course Music & Gameplay. After graduating, Josh revisited these toys, and realized there were several puzzles which could be made with them. With hundreds of ideas flowing, he set out to build a short, scoped experience, where he could quickly get his ideas across.

The bulk of Chromatic Isle was made in a weekend, with Josh building the majority of it in about 48 hours. Incorporating code and resources from his previous projects he was able to create all of the elements he needed for the game incredibly quickly. Josh would go on to give a talk about this process of game development at the EGD WG 6.0 Conference in Harlem, NYC. He called this process Aggregate & Holistic development.

Chromatic Isle was released in January of 2024 to a strong reception. Currently at more than 30,000 downloads, it remains Josh’s most widely known project to date. After its release, Josh was asked by several conferences to give talks about his process of puzzle design. Chromatic Isle has also prompted widespread interest in a sequel.