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I finally managed to put together a few quick YouTube videos of the current alpha version of Bank Shot (AKA OddBall). These 3 videos contain a few glances of some of the gameplay features I've been developing for the game so far. The videos go by pretty quickly and may be confusing without a bit of description, so read on for more information.
The first video above shows the use of the moveable cannon shooting the bouncy red ball and trying to score it in the "basket" area. I've actually made some updates to my design and theme lately and the "basket" will soon be changed to a different type of goal, but the idea is still the same (you will eventually be scoring the balls in something else). I will talk more about this in a future blog posting. These videos don't show the mouse cursor (on the iPhone the mouse will really be your finger on a touchscreen anyways) however, dragging the cannon is done with your mouse/finger. The white blocky thing underneath of the cannon is actually a 3D "fire" button that you press and hold to fire the cannon (the longer you hold it, the more power the ball is fired with). Like everything else, this button currently isn't textured so it just looks like a blob of whiteness. This first video mainly just shows a few attempts at scoring the ball (the current "basket" is another white blob near the middle-right of the playing field). This video also gives you a peek at the HUD layout (currently without finalized grpahics) and some of the physics behaviour of the bouncy ball.
The second video below shows the yellow spunge ball in action. This ball floats more and bounces less because of its light spungy material. This video continues in the same vein as the first one but also shows a couple of the ball powerups in action. Since the red ball has already been scored, there are 1000 points that can be spent using powerups. The 4 buttons on the bottom-right of the HUD are the powerup buttons. Currently they are all using placeholder graphics and aren't distinguishable from each other (I just happen to know what order they are in for testing). Eventually they will each display the corresponding powerup graphic and the cost they require to use. Clicking on a powerup button will activate it on the currently active ball. The ball will stay in that powerup mode until you press the same button again to remove it. You will see the "boost" powerup used in this video (again, currently with placeholder graphics for what will eventually be a rotating arrow that helps the user choose what direction to "boost" the ball in). You will also see the "sticky" powerup used (which currently works, but will eventually have "spikes" coming out of the ball to show it sticking to surfaces).
The third video below shows the heavy metallic ball in action. This ball falls faster and acts heavier in general. This video shows how 2 balls can be in play at once (although they aren't really interacting much with each other here). The 3 buttons on the bottom-left of the HUD are used for selecting the active ball. Only one ball is active at a time. Whenever you press the "fire" button, whatever ball is currently the active one will instantly become loaded in the cannon and begin firing. So once you've fired a ball into play, you can quickly and easily re-fire it this way. This video also shows the "anvil" powerup in action. This powerup basically turns the ball into a very heavy anvil that falls straight down. It can be useful for scoring when you overshoot the ball (as seen in this video), and will also be useful for breaking certain obstacles/doorways and for holding open interactive buttons in some levels.
All 3 of these videos also show the beginnings of the menu system. Each video starts off in the "menu" mode with the large black box that displays the "loading" text. This area will eventually be filled with menu buttons. When you press the "M" button in the top-left of the HUD, the menu closes (or opens if it is already closed) and the black box shrinks (or grows). When the menu shrinks down and the game is in "play" mode, the black box resides at the top-middle of the HUD and will display text messages relevant to the gameplay and story. Yes, there will be a story for this puzzle game. Not the most in-depth story, but a story none-the-less. The game will also pause while you are in menu mode. This is all currently a work-in-progress, but the basic building blocks are now coded and ready to be tweaked as I continue development. While some gameplay and GUI code still needs to be done, most of the work ahead of me is graphics related. So as I continue adding more videos as development of the game progresses, they should start to look prettier. You can view all of the Bank Shot videos here, and all of the Velvety Couch Games videos will eventually be located here. For reference, these are all listed in the Games section of this site.
This entry posted by Graham
in OddBalls
Tags: Game Development, Youtube Videos
Overshooting + Anvil = win