Bouncy Ball v1.2
1,285
Published 2023-04-24
---Instructions---
Use the mouse to aim your shots, and click (or press any key) to shoot. Get to the top of the map, passing the many holes and obstacles along the way. You have a limited amount of shots (five); however, they get reloaded when you stop shooting. Use that to your advantage! The color of the ball represents the number of shots you have remaining. Red means 0, purple means 1, yellow 2, green 3, light blue 4, and dark blue 5. As you do more shots in a row, the power decreases.
If you activate cheats through the settings menu, press L for a list of cheats.
Recommended you play at this link: https://turbowarp.org/795488351?interpolate&size=640x360
---Hall of Fame---
To get in, finish the game
@4Mahoney21 (11:23.4)
@4Kroger24 (22:49)
@Pandyfilms (49:45)
---Hall of Fame+ ---
To get in, finish the game with all coins (turn on in settings)
@4Mahoney21 (20:24.2)
@4Kroger24 (1:20:12.2)
---Change Log---
v1.0: Shared
v1.1: Fixed settings menu, edited credits, turbo mode detection, edited pinball section
v1.2: Made pinball exit more accessible, edited thumbnail text, fixed the change-tab-and-when-you-come-back-you-can't-shoot bug (by removing some keys)
---Credits---
Griffpatch for the ball physics engine
Griffpatch for the scrolling background
Rasgola28 for somewhat brutal motivation
Rasgola28 for making me set a deadline
Me for everything else
---Development story---
Well, this was quite the adventure.
I started Bouncy Ball approximately 15 months ago. The project was originally going to be much smaller than the ending size. It turned out that the scope increased as I got better at coding and game design. I never imagined that I would get this far in the project.
This is by far my most ambitious project. 1,500 blocks of code are not small by any measure. And the map is just... huge. There are 184 different costumes required to build the level, which, in classic 4Mahoney21 style, are all completely black and undecorated. There is also a grand total of 20 different sprites, plus they aren't just copies of each other like most beginners seem to do. Do you really need a new object for EVERY PELLET IN A PACMAN GAME!?!?
I hope not.
At first, it was intended to be a small game. I had a basic engine going with simple scrolling. Note: Simple scrolling makes the game seem incredibly jerky, causing a few headaches. I didn't know how to remedy that, so I stuck with it and started on level design.
Ugh, level design. I often have trouble designing good difficulty curves, so this was an extreme nightmare. I was constantly tweaking and prodding at the level to make it seem fair. I've gotten told that in a good game, every mistake should feel like the player messed up. High-level game design is not easy.
After all of this, I was about 8 months into the project. That means procrastination time.
I worked off and on for multiple months, adding small touches like the background, timer, pause button, etc. That occurred for about 4 months. And then I went into true procrastination. Nothing happened except simply playing the game. Which doesn't actually get anything done.
It took multiple things to get me back on track. First, @HestiaHearth2504 shared how she lost motivation for her project and described it deeply. I realized that I had the exact same thing happening. I decided that I had to complete it, and I could have updates instead of sharing all the features at once.
Second, @Rasgola28, an in-person friend and a fellow band kid (although a woodwind, shame on him), helped out. He kept mentioning the idle 95% on my profile and asked when it would come out. I said February 10th, but I hit bedtime before I could put the finishing touches on it. Sorry for it being a day late.
That's it. This was quite the journey, and it's not over. See you in the next version.