Bumper Kart Hockey… and more!
Bumper Kart Hockey has been submitted to the App Store! I’ve really enjoyed working on this game these past few months, and I’m looking forward to seeing it go live! While the app waits for Apple’s approval, I thought it would be interesting to share the roundabout way that this game came to be, and also give a preview of what’s coming in the future.
This all started because I saw a lack of fun kart-style battle games on iOS. There were plenty of racing games, but I wanted something with more direct interaction between players, like the classic Mario Kart Battle Mode. I wanted something casual but competitive that anyone could pick up and immediately enjoy playing. I had an idea for a “king of the hill” type of game where the primary interaction between players would be bumping their cars into each other. Each car would be disc shaped and the physics would be extremely dynamic, akin to driving around inside a pinball machine. Players would zip around the arena, bumping into obstacles and trying to knock each other out of the “hill”, designated by a small circle on the floor which moved every 30 seconds. It quickly dawned on me that I could create lots of different game types based around the same bumper car free-for-all concept, and that it would be a fun way to do a casual kart game! Bumper Karts!
“King of the Hill”
After lots of work (and several helpful tutorials on box2d physics and peer-to-peer networking), I had a prototype of my bumper car idea, with “king of the hill” plus four additional game modes. One of the game modes I implemented was “hockey”. Trying to create a 4 player free-for-all hockey game was… interesting. In my version, players earned a point by being the last to touch the puck before it went in an opponent’s goal, and they lost a point for knocking the puck into their own goal. After playtesting with friends, it was clear that my hockey mode didn’t really cut it as a 4 player game. But, with only 2 players, it worked beautifully!
That’s when a new product strategy clicked. I knew that my biggest risk was that I could spend a considerable amount of time building a large multiplayer game, and then not attract enough players to reach the critical mass necessary for online play. I decided, then, to build a smaller game first, focusing on one game type (hockey), optimized for 2 player matches. And, I would ensure that this game would be fun to play offline by including computer (AI) opponents. I would later add timed “challenge” modes, with leaderboards that allowed for asynchronous competition.
Finishing Bumper Kart Hockey took longer than expected, as it almost always does, but I’m really proud of the result. I was able to integrate some great features, including MFi game controller support, and video replays via Everyplay. Below is a replay of one of my matches against the “Hard” AI. You can watch more clips that my friends and I have already shared by going here.
My long term plan is to develop a Bumper Kart “brand” by releasing more Bumper Kart apps featuring other game types. Until I have a large enough player base, I plan to stick with game types that don’t require more than two players to be fun. I haven’t decided for sure what game I’ll do next. I’m leaning toward a Bumper Kart racing game, where the races are short sprints, on narrow tracks full of crazy obstacles. I’m excited to start working on it, and I expect development to go much faster this time around. For now, though, I’ll be focusing on a successful launch of Bumper Kart Hockey, vanguard of the Bumper Kart franchise!