Every journey’s gotta start somewhere, right? Pinbrawl’s is just getting started, but I thought it’d be fun to share the development process up to this point, and also add some clips showing gameplay and development, since the first blog post didn’t really offer much in terms of gameplay or context.
Not surprisingly, the original pitch for Pinbrawl was much different from what the game is now. The idea was that each player would have his or her own pinball table, with a the traditional ramp angle and physics, and opposing players would be able to manipulate different obstacles on that table to make the player lose. If the player was able to hit the ball up and safely out of his pinball chamber, the ball would return to a center arena, where it would get tossed around until it fell into someone else’s table.
I pitched this idea to my buddy James, who was entertained by the idea and said “yeah, I’ll maybe help a little bit.” My goal was to get something playable finished by Minnesota’s 2D Con 2016, where I could at least show off the concept. We only had two weeks or so to get something going, so we decided to drop the pinball tables off the side and just focus on the center arena, making a weird mixture between Hungry Hungry Hippos and air hockey. I drew up some basic schematics for the first stage, and with some help from James I started piecing things together.
Making some game schematics 😀 pic.twitter.com/23E8r22wkE
— Jason Pfitzer (@JasonPfitzer) May 10, 2016
Conveyors working, geometry for ramps and bumpers is in! 😀 #Pinbrawl #madewithunity pic.twitter.com/mlPeqsA9WD
— Jason Pfitzer (@JasonPfitzer) May 12, 2016
Making the stage and getting the physics working was actually really easy, thanks to Blender and Unity. However, even before we got controllers set up with ReWired, I realized that something about the game’s design was fundamentally flawed. It wasn’t going to be fun. I just knew it wasn’t. Almost none of the obstacles in the middle of the stage served any real purpose, and the only action the individual players were actually going to see was getting the ball out of their own zones. The stage was designed with 4-5 different ways of getting the ball away from you, but no clear way of deliberately scoring on your opponent.
I knew from that point onward that designing this game was going to be almost as challenging as making it. Finding the right balance of interaction vs. interruption was going to be a struggle while considering every new mechanic and stage design. I thought of an idea, and figured I wouldn’t know if it was actually fun or not until I tried it out. I went home that night and spent 6-8 consecutive hours modeling, texturing and implementing a new stage, designed to be the polar opposite of the one we were currently working with. It was just a hill.
Barebones of the Hill stage are in…cranked the whimsy up to like 1000% #madewithunity #Pinbrawl pic.twitter.com/H9jqFJfKbl
— Jason Pfitzer (@JasonPfitzer) May 15, 2016
The idea was that players could hit the ball hard enough over the hill to send it over the other players’ flippers. At this point we were just introducing a new tilt mechanic that would make aerial goals a bit more balanced and preventable, but even without that it was good that they sped up the game significantly. We were more consistently able to score on one another, and the game felt like it was really starting to pick up. I added holes on the stage that I wanted to design characters for…the idea was that they would pop in and out of the ground, as a controllable obstacle that enemy players could manipulate to mess you up. I figured just a little extra interaction with the stage outside of tilt would be good, so that the players always feel like they’re doing something, instead of waiting. Lastly, I added a river around the edge of the stage to keep the ball in motion at all times. It mimicked the functionality of the conveyor from the previous design, so it was easy to implement.
River visuals finished, camera script working as intended…it's coming together! #Pinbrawl #madewithunity pic.twitter.com/a8rgQ5hut7
— Jason Pfitzer (@JasonPfitzer) May 19, 2016
Tilt. Adding tilt changed everything once again. It also made the game way more entertaining, because it allowed players to gang up on players that were in the lead by tilting against them as a team. A solid mechanic for a casual party game.
Table tilt is getting there! Gonna be configuring controllers pretty soon. #Pinbrawl #madewithunity pic.twitter.com/7DfXEf3m6T
— Jason Pfitzer (@JasonPfitzer) May 23, 2016
After adding user interface, player lives and rechargeable tilt meter, the only thing left to address before 2D Con was the weasel characters. I thought that having them parked right in front of someone’s flippers was a bit on-the-nose, and not very creative. I decided instead that they should be able to burrow and move around the table at will, popping in and out of the ground to launch and block the ball. I also gave them a make-over to make them more stylized.
Can't wait to move this guy around the stage and block people haha #Pinbrawl #unity3d #madewithunity pic.twitter.com/j5SsGYxNvM
— Jason Pfitzer (@JasonPfitzer) June 2, 2016
With that, Pinbrawl was ready for its first convention. We got all set up at 2D Con and waited for people to start rolling through. We were lucky to be right by some other awesome local games, like Joggernauts and Astral Breakers. The calm before the storm was a little uncomfortable. Pinbrawl was brand new to everyone at that point, and even we as the developers had barely played it. Within the first hour of being set up, a group of teenagers came by, and before I could even explain the rules to them they were already having a blast. Not every group was like that, but it was clear that this particular group had played local multiplayer party games together before, and that’s kind of our target demographic. It was a long weekend, and there were definitely ups and downs, but the game’s overall reception was good. It was a motivation booster, although we were so wiped out after 2D Con that we didn’t pick development back up for a while.
Much to our surprise, Pinbrawl won an award at the convention for Best Visuals, which was cool for me personally because the game hadn’t been in development that long, and it’s my first foray into 3D game development.
Really cool work in progress called Pin Brawl by @JasonPfitzer and @krantz033 pic.twitter.com/dDS8JsDMXm
— Joggernauts (@JoggernautsGame) June 4, 2016
#Pinbrawl won the award for Best Visuals this weekend! Thanks everyone for coming out, and for trying our game! 😀 pic.twitter.com/X78mzde8Ri
— Pinbrawl (Game) (@PlayPinbrawl) June 7, 2016
Since 2D Con, we haven’t really had much of a deadline to work towards, but have been making steady and significant improvements to the game. The biggest is probably a change to the weasel characters. I gave them new faces, gave them a flexible spine, and then James programmed them to make them all floppy so they can slap the ball around instead of just launching it. This took a long time to get working just right.
.@PlayPinbrawl New weaselbear faces + anger management issues! #Pinbrawl #unity3d pic.twitter.com/BO2ajpGKkJ
— Jason Pfitzer (@JasonPfitzer) June 14, 2016
Armatures are so satisfying when you get them set up the way you want! 😀 https://t.co/0XyNeLGpzU
— Jason Pfitzer (@JasonPfitzer) June 15, 2016
And so begins the new generation of weaselbears. #Pinbrawl #Unity3D #madewithunity pic.twitter.com/PKyQhgQExA
— Jason Pfitzer (@JasonPfitzer) July 1, 2016
After that, we added sudden death for better pacing of matches, initiating once the game has gone 2 minutes without a player being eliminated. I also added a new title screen with an updated game logo. Lastly, I re-worked the UI completely, making it so that a bright color disk pulses out from your UI when you are using tilt, and the heart showing your life count animates when you lose a life.
New game logo! Goin' for a cartoony 80's retro sorta look. #Pinbrawl pic.twitter.com/1hGZS6bBP9
— Jason Pfitzer (@JasonPfitzer) August 23, 2016
Sudden death timer and bomb balls are finished! No more long, drawn out matches! #Pinbrawl #madewithunity #unity3d pic.twitter.com/aCfrt1Czux
— Jason Pfitzer (@JasonPfitzer) August 11, 2016
Weasels up/down is now toggled instead of timed. UI tweaks, including tilt indication! #Pinbrawl #screenshotsaturday pic.twitter.com/Lqg3ui6k0l
— Jason Pfitzer (@JasonPfitzer) August 27, 2016
And that is the game in its current state! Just thought I’d take the time to write this up and catch everyone up on our progress up to this point.
If you’d like to give Pinbrawl a try, it will be at Glitch‘s Play/Test this Friday at 5pm. There will be free beer and pizza!