Ow My Balls! The game

So the playtest is tonight. We’re close to ready, but I’m cramming like mad on the code. So many little polish things that need to get done. Super excited but at the same time nervous. So begins a long day of coding and testing. Fingers crossed.

We’re facing a difficult decision. Gotta be serious here for a minute. Early feedback on the game seems to indicate that the backdrop is not wide enough. The original idea was that the character would fall more height wise than width wise, which is why we went with a thinner backdrop. But watching people play and getting feedback it seems that people expect it to be wider. Twice as wide in fact. Expanding the canvas is a tough decision because it means more objects, more collisions, more everything. But if it’s needed it’s needed. This is a really tough decision and we’re going to have to talk about it and think about before diving in.

Tim and I spent the day working together on the game at his place. Made monster progress. Lots of objects placed and animated now. The object animations are looking friggin wicked and the game is actually starting to be kinda fun. Check it out for yourself in the latest video.

More good progress today. Spent most of my time making the leveling system works. Here’s the basic idea. You earn more points, you get more farts, and you unlock more videos to watch. Pretty simple, maybe too simple, but that’s how it’s working for now.

Tomorrow Tim and I will be co-working all day on this game. Can you believe we’ve been remote almost this entire time? This will be the first time we’ve been in the same room at the same time working on it. I’m hoping it doesn’t explode cause you put together two minds like that and shazam it can be like crossing the streams in ghost busters. We’ll see what happens. In the meantime enjoy the latest vid, ya dig?

The pressure is on. We’ve invited a bunch of friends over on Sunday to playtest the game, which means we’ve only got a few days left to actually make it into a game. Pressure is good. Deadlines are good. Embarrassing yourself in front of your friends is bad. Unless it’s funny, which this might be. Anyway we’re cranking hard all around. I’m cramming on code. Tim is cramming on art. We’ll get there by Sunday.

Making good progress all around on the game. Dropped in the latest backdrop from Tim. Looking awesome. Can’t wait to get this thing done. This particular update is presented by Kid Killionaire. If you don’t know him yet, you will.

Today’s progress was all around gameplay. Gameplay is so important to a game. DUH. Heard from a Halo developer once that they spent a year getting aiming right. After playing with gameplay here a little bit I’m realizing it’s going to take quite a bit of time. So with that here’s the latest installment in the making of my balls.

My day job is as a product manager. That doesn’t mean I can’t code. Even if my friends tell you that they are really just joking. Doing product management during the day and iPhone development at night is heroing (that’s a word right Wordpress wants to change it to Heroin?) I’m constantly switching between two parts of my mind – the part that codes, and the part that products. I’m starting to get used to it but I don’t think my brain is happy with it. Maybe it’s time for a YouTube video to cheer things up. We’ll call this one Tae Kwon Balls.

Awesome day in the land of My Balls. Recorded a bunch of hillarious audio clips in the studio with JG. Tim got out the first backdrop. The game is starting to look like a game. Or at least one that was crapped out by a 5th grader. No offense to that fun draw kid.

Tomorrow I’m going to be heading into the recording studio with my good friend John Greene to record sound effects for the game. Surprisingly enough there just aren’t any sound recordings of people saying “Ow My Balls” available on the internets. SoundSnap, which is the dopest place to get audio clips, has tons of clips of men in pain. But none of them mentioning their balls. So John and I will rise to the challenge. Looking forward to getting into the studio.