Since my feeble attempt last year at making a game a month, I’ve learnt a lot about games development. From C I went to C++, I built PixelKit, my own small engine, I’ve taken part in Global Game Jam. But I want to get better at game design. Programming is not the hard part of making 2D games. Designing a set of rules that make the game fun to play and pushes player to go for “just one more round” is the part that’s really important.
So this summer, instead of making a game each month, I decided to try something new: each week, make one day a small Game Jam. Twenty-four hours are too short for me to obsess over graphics or clean code and should leave me an open way to experiment with alternative ideas and new mechanics.\
Gravity Pong
YouTube video: el0yDilNfJI
For the first week, I decided to remake Pong, with some added twist: each player can place a black hole that attracts the ball for a short amount of time. I created a simple AI for one player to play against because it was easier during development, but the game is really meant to be played against someone else, where dirty tricks and near-losses will be funnier.
I need to clean the code up a bit (read: add comments) before I publish it, and some of the controller handling could really do with some polishing, but you can get the game as it is after a day of development on itch.io for any amount of money you want (starting at a whole £0).