SPORTBALL - Global Game Jam 2014
It was the Global Game Jam this past weekend which meant that most of Toronto's fantastic game dev scene came out, formed teams and made game over the course of a weekend. It was, as always, so amazing to see 300 people come together and build a community as well as some kick-ass games in 48 hours. A million thanks to Troy Darc and Randy Orenstein and their supporting cast for making TGGJ happen and making it feel as good as it does.
This weekend, I made a game called Sportball. It's a multiplayer game where you try to coerce a lot of coloured units into pushing a ball into your coloured net. The game was made with gamepads in mind but it can also be played with WASD and arrows keys on a keyboard. It's very easy to lose your units but they are constantly respawning so you just need to make sure you don't lose as many as your opponent while you're trying to score a goalpoint.
The concept was inspired by the Double Cherry item in Super Mario 3D World. It duplicates the character you're controlling and I thought it was so fun that I wanted to make a game where that was the main mechanic. My team on this project was Erica Gregory for art and Maggie McLean for music. They both did a fantastic job and this game wouldn't be nearly as good without them.
Downloads:
One thing I'm trying is to distribute this game (at least initially) through StackMachine. It's a very clever little website that packages, updates and gives error reports on your game. If you make anything using the Love2D framework, I recommended checking it out.
Grab a friend and try out some Sportball!