In 2013 I made a quick prototype based on an idea I had for a mobile phone game. It was a sliding puzzle game with a difference. Each tile in the puzzle would have it’s own physical layout and physics properties and the goal would be to guide a bunch of bouncing balls from their spawn points to an exit point. I wanted it to be a simple game, accessible to casual players, with mechanics that could be built upon to provide potentially endless content to the player.
I made the initial prototype in Unity 4. It included 8 levels with a handful of mechanics and was running on Android and Unity WebPlayer. The artwork was completely placeholder and there was no audio but it was a demo nonetheless. I put it in the hands of some friends and had some fairly positive feedback. Then life happened, as always, and I left it on the rather crowded backburner for over a decade.
This week I needed to brush up on Unity because I’ve barely touched it for a year and I’m currently job-hunting, so I decided to resuscitate the old prototype and see whether it was actually any good.
The project needed upgrading to Unity 2022 which caused a few headaches, but thankfully the prefabs and properties were mostly intact. I spent 3 days on the upgrade, refactoring the UI to use Unity UI (it was using legacy GUITextures), adding some basic SFX and VFX and tidying up some of the materials and the colour scheme. I think it looks much nicer than the poorly lit brown and grey original.
I also added music and noticed that the game was actually pretty closely synced to the 120bpm song that I happened to choose. So, I decided to add some simple beat tracking so that the spawners were all synchronised to the rhythm of the music and it added a whole new layer of life to the game.
Here’s the final result:
The gameplay is almost identical to the original prototype but I have a bunch of ideas for new mechanics, including different types of ball and new box types and mechanics. I’d like to try adding some character to the balls too. Beyond that I’d add some kind of progression path, introducing new game mechanics periodically and providing a set of unique levels as each mechanic is unlocked. Oh, and a level editor, preferably in-game so that it could one day be used by players to share their own dastardly creations!
Maybe in another 11 years, eh?
Music by Jérôme Chauvel: https://pixabay.com/music/modern-blues-happy-swing-no-guitar-solo-200087/
SFX From https://www.soundsnap.com/