Sploder Game but actually its about a Tetherball

The Idea is simple, move a box around with explosions to dodge hazards. Simple! A very quick thing to initially prototype.

Also a fun toy to just play around with. 

I like making things for my friends, if I can turn this into something my friends find kinda fun. I would call that a success.

Across the process of making this little game it changed quite a lot. Figuring out how to add challenge to this toy and the ways it very much ended up changing from the original idea.

To fix the weightiness I altered the animation to have the shadow grow and darken before the object actually falls, giving it the illusion of speed and the like. 

I also created a dustcloud particle effect to woosh out as it makes contact with the ground which honestly levelled up the obstacles majorly by itself.

I was working on a tetherball "modifier," one that makes the player move towards the mouse rather than depend on placing the explosions to move the player. I had once again found a fun toy to play around with, while doing so I noticed a kind of flow of trying to skirt around the obstacles which reminded me of playing games like need for speed and forza and their Near Miss mechanic

The Near Miss Functionality made me rethink of what this project could be. I still wanted to maybe do something with the explosion control style but maybe lean more into the skill expression if trying to hit the obstacles. I think there is something there.

The near miss combo system I prototyped made me want to really lean into that, I haven't made a combo style system before so I thought it was a fun thing to work on.

At this point the near miss mechanic is working by having each obstacle have an additional collider that does two checks, one on entry and exit. If the player collides with something it currently fires an event that deactivates any active near miss check at that point, which works for simplicity's sake. A more skilled programmer might turn up their nose at using an event this way, but events are cozy for me and it works. Next steps are making the near miss feel good. I am wanting to add a forza-esque point rack up feature 

Worked on making a simple scoring system with a simplistic level of feel. I really liked making it and its bringing me close to another playtest version, currently the score is standard across all near misses, it doesn't factor in speed or vicinity or any other variable aspect of a near miss.

For another playtest I could look into different methods of spawning obstacles (like potentiall making patterns of some kind that can spawn.) And adding a simple end point that shows their final score. So making the timer actually matter now! 

Second Playtest Ready!

I want to do something about the controls again, I can't put my finger on what I don't like about it, perhaps left click could retract the tether slightly, there is currently just an impreciseness to the movements.

Notes before playtest is adding preset groups of obstacles that can spawn, like patterns that are good for feel that can spawn now and then

Quote from player

"I really like this, having to chase the obstacles to get the near misses is actually really fun and adds a lot of depth to the challenge :p"

Notes from playtest

• Movement feels difficult to dodge on a dime

• Potentially add a reason to chase under the obstacles before they fall

• Works on mobile (unintended W)

• Getting stuck under obstacles is bad

I was noticing while playtesting that the obstacles can be a bit unforgiving with how pixel perfect it needed to be. I ended up thinking about how hitboxes work in most games and went through all the obstacles and made them more fair. Whether or not this makes it feel better time will tell but I have a good feeling about it at the least having an improvement that will be noticeable if only by direct comparison.

The player is able to get stuck under obstacles when they spawn. To fix this im thinking of adding a third collider volume to the interior of the obstacle, one that triggers it to break if the player touches it. This was a fairly easy fix to implement

A thought about the points system struck me. I want to test out speed and slow down functionality and have a kind of goal outside of the near misses to aim for, something that forces the player to move not just out of the way of the obstacles but like to try and maneuver in a particular way. I have thoughts about increasing the play area and making a circuit around the border area that gives points while the player stays in the border

There is a bug leftover from the explosion controls. For some reason the main player particle effect doesn't properly player but when it hits the edge and triggers the bounce effect the particles start properly emitting, now its not intentional but it kind of looks good when drifting along the outer. Time to turn a bug into a feature.

The game is in a pretty stable state overall, no major bugs that come to mind. Time to start working on the leaderboard. I expect it to take some time but once its all implemented i'll be moving on to audio and art.

The Next Day: Leaderboard seems fairly complicated to implement. It requires a lot of unity interface code. The tutorial I found seemed to lean more into doing it a specific way based on their set up as well which was more difficult to digest. Also when looking into unity's documentation mentions requirements based on the Digital Services Act, which sounds like trouble if I do something wrong when implementing.

I now have a bunch of pieces that work individually. The next part is honestly the hardest one. Making it all feel good. The easiest way to add feel is to add audio to everything that can have it and make art for everything that is placeholder and then go from there. The good news is mechanically, everything is working so nothing needs to be added in that department, any scripts from this point should just be simple event calls or things that are "looking" at a particular mechanic.

I really like the idea of the obstacles having some 2.5d element, or at least a perspective element to them. I know its going to be difficult, but I at least want to commit some time to doing it before I give up. I definitely want to change the rock sprite at the very least.

Made some really simple audio. The near miss sound is really tasty, its almost like sonic thwippy sound effect. The circuiting sound effect is a little upwards note that shouldn't be too annoying to listen too repeatedly. The playtrack itself is fairly simple, when it comes to making audio I just enter a vibe state. I don't really know how to reflect upon it outside of listing what I am thinking of when making it. The drumbeat ended up not being too bad but I just clicked semi random pieces and left it to stick and made the track to be more focussed on the drumbeat itself. I love slide sounds so the loop is completed by one.

Super simple fun little game. Mission successful. Its no steamworthy level of polish, but I am happy I made it. 23 total scripts.

Enjoyed working on this project for what it was, my friends enjoyed playtesting it so there is that, it really changed from the explosion control scheme I initially set out for. But I made something, which counts. It is just a prototype but I think with a little team and a dedicated programmer and a better digital artist to make the assets to make everything neat there is something really awesome here.

Still want to use the explosion movement at some point but thats a design challenge for another day.