Hi! I’m Ray Osborne. The twisted mind behind Pass the Anthrax and BIO, founder and sole operator of Daywalk3r Productions, artist, painter, designer, creator, musician, and resident blind dude. 

I know what you’re thinking, “Wait, if you’re blind, then how do you do all these visual things?”

Most people don’t know that only about 18% of blind people are actually totally blind. The rest of us are fortunate enough to have at least some limited vision. I’m down to less than 5 degrees of peripheral vision, but my central is still decent with glasses or contacts. How much is 5 degrees? To put it in terms you might understand, at this stage, it’s kind of like looking through a paper towel tube.

Around the age of 7 or so, I was diagnosed with Choroideremia. It’s a little-known genetic degenerative eye disease where the nerves in the back of your eye don’t get enough blood flow so they die off over time, progressively eating away at your peripheral vision. Because of Choroideremia, I have no UV (light) filter left, I have trouble distinguishing certain colors, I’m totally night blind, I’ve never seen the stars, I have less than 5 degrees of peripheral vision, I’ve stopped driving, my work opportunities are very limited, I use a cane for navigation, and I had to go on disability to make ends meet. 

When I went on disability, I did what a lot of people do. I drank myself into a hole, let the depression chain me to the couch, and developed an unhealthy focus on the growing list of things I couldn’t do.

As the darkness crept in, both visually and emotionally, and the list of simple pleasures most take for granted, but that I could no longer do continued to grow, I realized that I had reached a crossroads. I really only had two choices at this point:

1) I could be a burden on those I love and let the crippling depression rule my life.

2) I could use the darkness to fuel me. Stand defiant in the face of adversity, take my life into my own hands and try and use what little vision I had as efficiently as possible for however long it lasts.

So, instead of concentrating on what I couldn’t do, I started focusing on what I could do. I dove into projects I’d been working on for years and started finishing them. 

Pass the Anthrax was the first fruit of that labor. It put on display my understanding of game theory, my dark sense of humor, and my willingness to see things through. Then I finished BIO, another card game I created that recently had a successful Kickstarter and was released on October, 7th of 2021. I’m two games in now with no plans of stopping.

As I started developing my own games it became apparent that games played a much larger part in my life than I had realized. Thinking back I noticed that throughout my life there was one thing that consistently provided a release from the darkness and burdens of life. And that was gaming with friends. No matter how dark it got, gaming with friends always pulled me back to the light.

People always say if you could bottle happiness they’d buy it. After getting a couple of working games together and taking them to friends’ houses I began to notice that in an odd way, I had done just that. I had created something that gave me joy and that I had witnessed giving others joy, and I’d managed to put it in a marketable package. The idea of selling joy to others suddenly felt like a pretty good way to make a living. And thus, Daywalk3r Productions was born. 

Daywalk3r Productions will give you a place to buy my games, some merch, and to see what I’m up to. But more than that, it’s my lifeline.

The stuff you find here is what keeps me sane. It’s what keeps me busy, helps pay my bills, helps me feel like less of a burden, and will hopefully be a place that can give someone else that needs that spark of inspiration the push they need to start their own journey.

Thank you so much for your time, and thank you for stopping by.

I hope you have a dope ass day.