If you're heading to
GameCity Nottingham this month (which you should be, as it's amazing) please do have a peek at the Old Market Square on Thursday 25th and Friday 26th, where I'll be exhibiting
Galaxyball 2113 in its first public showing!
With the game still in development this will be a fantastic opportunity to test it out with the general public, so if you're there I'll be very excited to get your feedback. I'm particularly excited to see how different people find the multiplayer experience, so I can get a feel for which aspects of the game really buzz with players.
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| Greedy Bankers being played at GameCity 6 last year |
I demoed Greedy Bankers vs The World at the event last year, and the multiplayer was fantastically popular. Lots of people visit GameCity with friends and family, so it's a perfect opportunity to test out player-vs-player party games like
Galaxyball.
Galaxyball Progress Update
I've been working on the graphical side of the game over the past week, and building up the single-player gauntlets. That area's been particularly interesting, as by actually building it I've got a feel for where the excitement of solo play would come from. The solo arenas will be like giant pinball tables with a goal at the end - imagine the
Gauntlet round from Robot Wars with combo-based scoring and a penalty shoot-out at the end.
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| A basic single-player gauntlet being used in testing |
My focus with the scenery artwork is to give the settings a bit more life and character. While it may look a little spartan at the moment I'm working hard to make it feel vibrant and impressive, and to give the feel of a deadly futuristic arena. There'll be various arenas in different settings - asteroid mines, interstellar highways, volcanic death pits - and each one will have its own unique play variation. Anything from moving goals to wormholes to booby-trapped floors!
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| A multiplayer arena with new scenery |
With GameCity coming up soon, I'll be focusing my attention this week on making the multiplayer as rich and juicy as possible. I'll be adding in some of the traps and bonus rounds that haven't been coded yet, as well as building animation into the scenery to make it feel more alive. I really want to push the unpredictabity to the forefront of the design, so the GameCity demo will be a great way to see how well that's coming across!
