Here we are with Week 1 of my 10 Games in 10 Weeks Challenge.
Introducing Sticky Golf, where everything you hit sticks to the ball!
Try it out now on itch.io: https://switchbackstudio.itch.io/sticky-golf-10-games-in-10-weeks
This silly, silly idea was born from a nostalgic Wii Sports session and this video from 8-bit Music Theory. It basically checks all the ideal boxes for this challenge: goofy, eye-catching, and relatively straightforward. I knew right away that this would be perfect as my first game of the challenge.
I was pretty nervous about how the first week would go in general, but all in all I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. The initial prototype came together much more easily than I expected, and the gameplay turned out to be pretty fun, especially once I started mixing things up with boost pads, trampolines, and so on. I especially like the contrast of the highly precise and detailed aiming vs the absolute chaos that ensues once you actually hit the ball.
As expected, I’m learning some harsh lessons about scope. Initially, I had intended to have additional levels set in a suburban area, so that you could bounce around uprooting trees, ripping off rooves, and upending cars, but I quickly realized that was completely infeasible.
The biggest oversight in my planning was the time required to make various promotional material. Between the trailer, the “Making of” video, the store page, and various social media posts, I’ve spent easily a full 8 hours, cutting into my weekend substantially more than I was hoping. Whoops.
My plan right now is to try and spread some of that work out across the week. So, at the end of each day, I’ll take 20 minutes or so to add the day’s footage to the “Making of” video, for example. Here’s hoping that I can cut that 8 hours down to something like 4, so that I can still spend the weekends with my partner and our friends.
See you next week!
Switchback Studio 