WISHLIST ON STEAMTeaser Trailer:AboutHi, everyone! I’m working on a game called
Smackball. It’s a fast-paced, competitive sports game for two players, inspired mainly by tennis, squash and air-hockey. The game has local multiplayer and single-player(player vs. AI) modes right now, with online multiplayer in the works. I created the initial prototype of the game during Ludum Dare 46, and back then it was called
Untitled Sport Game. Since the LD jam, I’ve been slowly expanding the game, and recently I’ve picked up the pace of development. I’m developing the game for PC(Windows & MacOS).
GameplayThe gameplay is pretty simple, but I’ve tried to make it so that there’s some depth to it. The basic rules/mechanics are:
- Players can only move in their own half of the court.
- Once the ball enters a player’s half, they have to quickly return it(shoot it back) to their opponent’s half, otherwise they commit a foul.
- Players earn points by either scoring a goal or forcing their opponent to commit a foul.
- Matches are played in a “race-to-X-sets” style.
- Players can increase their moving speed and shooting force by sprinting.
- Players have a limited amount of stamina, which is drained while shooting or sprinting, and regenerated otherwise.
- Occasionally, players switch their sides on the court.
You can score two types of goals: straight goals & bounce goals. You can also try to force your opponent to commit a timer foul. Each way of scoring is worth a different amount of points. These values, along with some other settings are customizable in-game, so that players can modify the game to incentivize different styles of play.
Straight goal(2 points):
Bounce goal(3 points):
Timer foul(1 point):
Art StyleI went for a clean and minimalistic look, since it’s the only look I can easily pull off right now.

I come from a programming background, and I’m not good at drawing/animating(yet). I think this style also matches up well with the fast-paced gameplay, because it makes it pretty easy to “read” the screen at any time.
Since the initial prototype, I’ve spent some time polishing the game’s visuals, mostly by improving the colors/animations, and by adding post-processing effects. Here’s how the art style has changed since the initial prototype:

TechnicalI’m developing the game with Unity and C#. I’m also using
ReWired for controller support(works great, especially for local multiplayer games), and
LeanTween for tweening. I’ll probably also use either
Mirror or
Photon for networking, but I’m still researching this.
StatusSo far, I’ve implemented most of the core of the game(including gameplay, UI menus, sound effects etc.), and things are in a pretty polished state. The bigger tasks that are still on my roadmap are:
- Implement online multiplayer: This might be a bit of a challenge, since I don't really have any experience developing multiplayer games. Also, since the gameplay is pretty fast-paced, I'm not sure how well I can get this to work.
- Experiment with some additional mechanics/game modes: I don’t have anything to share right now, but I have some ideas for additional mechanics which I think would add some depth/variety to the gameplay.
- The rest is mostly about polishing up/refining things and bugfixing.
I’m hoping to have the game finished in a couple of months, if things go well. I’ll try to update this devlog about once
a week every week or two. Any feedback is welcome and appreciated.
LinksI’ll also be posting updates about the game on my
website and/or
twitter.