Upon learning the theme, my first instinct was to dive into Google for inspiration.  One of the first things I saw was Piet Mondrian’s Composition No 10, and my mind immediately jumped to a game that utilized this aesthetic.

Some further digging led to a GDC post mortem for Osmos, in which the designers defined what a minimalistic game consists of.  One part in particular stood out to me:

“Expose only the meaningful actions provided by the system.”

Essentially, I’ve decided to experiment with Unity’s physics engine, which in the past I’ve avoided using.  While a minimalistic puzzle game might be a “low hanging fruit” for some, I’m expecting it to be a good technical and design challenge for me.  I currently have a scene that the player can rotate by clicking and dragging, and a sphere that bounces around the scene.  Now that I know I can do something like this, it’s time to start brainstorming further on the design end.

Best of luck to everyone!