Dev Update #8 - Basketball Sport Showcase

Basketball was the third sport mode that we developed for the game and this really added a whole new dimension to the way players play the game! In Volleyball and Football, you were largely playing a horizontal focussed sport with large goal areas. Basketball introduced much more verticality and more precision in aiming. The goal areas are much smaller so players need to get the right arc and power on the ball in the hope of landing a perfect slamdunk!

We often see a lot fewer goals in this game mode, however, the intensity builds as the ball stores more velocity! (explained in our Volleyball showcase post!) The anticipation of the goals builds player excitement and the ball pings around the scene like a pinball machine, squishing anything it comes into contact with! This creates really heated matchups and again gives that great euphoric result when a player does manage to score!

To help players with the precise there is some ‘code magic’ centered around the goal area that essentially helps the ball into the net if you hit it into the right area! This will be unnoticeable to players, however, if it wasn’t there you would be frustrated at the actual level of precision you would need in reality. We want our players to have a positive experience so we worked carefully on this bit of ‘behind-the-scenes’ magic, testing regularly with players to make it just right so that those Basketball games feel fun to score in!

Below you can see the initial prototype of this sport mode! There are actually quite a lot of changes that have been made to this early prototype. We actually raised the goals significantly to really drive up that level of verticality in Basketball’s playstyle! It shows again how our core concept and design of characters can be experimented with in new ways to create a representation of a Sport that everyone is familiar with!

Again in this sport mode, you will need to think about what character has the best shape for your playstyle to help hit the ball vertically and arc into the hoop! Do you prefer rounded characters like Circle, Heart, or Egg; do you prefer characters with angled edges like Triangle or Trapezium or do you prefer the flatter edges of Hexagon or Square? Think about these carefully as well as what special move might help pick up for your shape’s shortfalls!

We hope you enjoyed reading a bit more about the design of Basketball sport mode and how we designed this to bring variety to the sports collection that is - SQUISHY SPORTS!

Stay tuned for more showcase posts soon!