Roadside Boardin'

Play the game here.

On January 26th, GallowJolt and I posted our game, World War Wizards as an entry for Pixel Day 2020. I had started working on it all the way back in January 2019, after being inspired by the Pixel Day entries that year. I knew I wanted to have something for the next one, so I got to work right away. Not long after publishing that, I realized I was still in a "game-making" mood. I had seen that the Phaser Jam was going on, but up until that point I had mostly ignored it. I didn't know anything about Phaser and when I started looking into it I was very afraid of making a complete game entirely in the abstract. But, I figured it would be a good learning experience and might teach me some things that I could use when I get back to working on World War Wizards.

So, I set to work. I had this idea for a game based on a thing I always did as a kid. You play as a 9-year-old, staring out the back window of your family's car on a very long road trip, and you imagine a little skateboarder doing tricks on all the passing scenery. I spent about 2 weeks working on the game, and by the end - I was feeling pretty good about it! But then...

Nobody seemed to get it... Only two people managed to get the kind of scores I was expecting to see, and one of those was my girlfriend, who I had explained the game to in person, so it doesn't really count. Now, let me be clear, it is not anybody's fault but my own that nobody grasped how the game was meant to be played. @HerbieG left me a good review (by which I mean good, constructive feedback), and included this sentence:

"Also: 10 000 points with these controls and all things I mentioned? Really?"

That's when I realized there was a serious issue here. 10,000 points in Roadside Boardin' shouldn't take more than a few minutes to accomplish. 5,000 points, the medal below the hardest medal to get, in my mind, wasn't going to be that hard and I had expected a lot of people to unlock it.

But like I said, that's my fault. I don't know exactly what the issue was - that I didn't explain clearly enough how the game was meant to be played in the description, or maybe because I didn't add any in-game instructions. I'm not sure. But I was feeling pretty bummed. I'm going to leave it up because... well... I like it. I'm still proud of it. I feel bad that I did a bad job of explaining it, but I still like playing it myself, and that's gotta be worth something. Maybe I'll get around to recording myself playing it and post it here so anyone who still wants to try it out could see how I had intended the game to be played.

Closing In

Play the game here.

So I went back to the drawing board. In one day, I conceptualized, prototyped, did the art, and made Closing In from the ground up. This game is much more simple and straight forward, and this time - I included in-game instructions. And, well, it seems to have made a difference. The scoreboards are looking a lot more like I had expected and intended, and I've received a reasonable amount of positive feedback. So, I'm happy. I appreciate everyone who played both games, and especially those of you who left reviews or private messaged me about them. Thank you, Newgrounds.