COLEMAN ANDERSEN
Video Game Writer
The Setup
Undercover Speed Dating (with Wolves) is a visual novel where you flirt your way behind wolf-enemy lines. Your mission? To infiltrate wolf speed dating, pee on some fire hydrants and rescue the human they've got trapped in the kitchen.
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You play as Arnold, one of only a few humans left after the gruesome wolf invasion. There are 9 hungry wolf suitors, each with multiple ways their story can end. There are hand drawn animations, an original wolf-jazz soundtrack, a roughly 3 hour story and a wolf with a spray tan. No, it's not a fox.​
Lead Developer
For the past year I have been spearheading development on this game. I have been writing it, doing the social media marketing, programming and developing it in Unity, and coordinating with the several animators and musicians who are working on the game.
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As a writer, this has been a great experience. I am not just writing the game in isolation from all the other parts. I not only keep track of assets we need as I write, but I have a good sense of how to write in ways to minimize work for other people.
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Similarly, everything I write is not only a story consideration but also a marketing one. Will this scene not only fit with the story, but grab a viewer's attention online?
The Game's Philosophy
Lead Writer, Developer and Producer
The original idea was to combine polar opposites - the stupidest, dumbest kind of humor with subtle characters, with a complex web of branching paths and hard choices.
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This is reflected in how I approached each of the game's characters. Their first impression is stereotypical - the buff wolf, the paranoid wolf, the gambling wolf. But each of them, should the character choose to probe further into their psyche, reveals a more nuanced, suffering, perhaps gentler wolf underneath.
Swolf, for instance, is incredibly buff and scary at first, but you eventually realize that he suffers from panic attacks and is scared to death of most social situations. The muscles are to compensate.
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The core idea of the entire game is deconstructing first impressions - and how they can be useful or harmful as a social mask. Also, there are wolf puns up the wazoo.
