I had my development environment, all I needed now was an idea for a game. The seed of this particular idea was sown one Saturday afternoon, 12th January 2019 to be specific. My son and I were at Bramall Lane to watch Sheffield United totally outplay QPR and he and his friends were playing a game on their phones, the object of which was to flip a piece of bacon onto various other objects. Us "adults" were discussing how pointless it was and I suggested it probably only took them a couple of weeks to put together and that "I could do something similar", so I resolved then to look for something that didn't take much effort, didn't have much meaning and could keep you entertained for a short time between going to work or trips to the pub. Actually sounds like the perfect relationship...
I came up with the actual idea for Hairball Henry whilst walking my dog the following day. I'd taken a break from thinking about what I'll do when I inevitably discover a body, as we dog walkers often do, and started thinking to myself why not have a cat sat on a window ledge coughing up hairballs for my character to head into a bin. I'm not quite sure how this manifested itself in my head, as anyone who has a cat will know the last thing you'd be doing with hairballs is heading them into a bin. Disgusting little sausages of fur and gunk, but that doesn't really trip off the tongue (unless you're the cat that is) so best not let reality get in the way of a good concept.
Once the actual idea had formed it just took some padding out. The basic gameplay was straightforward. Cat coughs up hairball, gravity causes ball to fall, player jumps at a time appropriate to cause a collision with said hairball that deflects it's path into a bin. Just needed to work out how to vary the concept level by level to make the experience last longer then the average teenage boy, and I was good to go.
Finally, accepting that nobody is going to pay for the privilege of, (I want to use the word enjoying but I'm a realist) experiencing the game, how do I actually make a penny from it to fulfil the ambition?????
Labels: ambition, bucket list, computer, game development, programming