MUMBA MAIL #3

Art by the super duper talented @Broly!!!

(Read the last Mumba Mail here where I wrote about the first game created for the collection)

It’s mid-September already, which means it’s time for another Mumba Mail! I got back from my trips to Michigan (with family) and Alaska (with friends) just a couple weeks ago and I’ve been back to work since then. I also picked up a part-time job so I can make a little extra cash on the side while I continue developing this game. Anyways, I debated with myself for a while over which part of the collection this post should focus on since some of the games in it are larger than others and there’s certain things I’d prefer to keep more under wraps. But I think that, ultimately, sharing stuff in the order I developed it is what makes the most sense for these posts, which is why this post is going to focus on…

PLANET PINBALL (working title)

So this game is, as you can probably tell, still in need of some finished artwork. Despite that, Planet Pinball is a feature-complete, fully-fledged exploration/adventure game where you fling Mumba (magically transformed into the shape of a ball) across a bunch of colorful and interconnected boards using some strategically-placed flippers.

It’s sort of a frustrating experience by design. When I got the idea for a game that kinda blends pinball with Zelda 1 or Metroid and began sketching map blueprints and concepts for upgrades and equipment, I realized pretty quickly that there was sort of a Bennett Foddy slant to the whole thing that trying too hard to alleviate would muck everything up, because unpredictability is part of the appeal of pinball. So it’s admittedly a tough game to get used to and it demands a good amount of patience, but once you get the hang of getting the ball to go where you want it to, Planet Pinball opens up a whole lot.

The game features a pretty sizable world map! The above screenshot is just one little region in the whole world. I did post a screenshot of the entire map last year on Twitter and you can dig that up if you’d like, but I’m more hesitant to share such a screenshot now because I’d prefer to keep it a surprise. That said, there’s a large variety of regions to explore and little optional powerups and trinkets to uncover and I’ve gotta say that I’m especially proud of how a few of these areas came together on an aesthetic level. Take a look at the city and the caves!

The city features some funky little rat enemies and cannons that you can fire by hitting an action button while the pinball is rolling over it.

The caves, on the other hand, feature moles and crystals as enemies and the main gimmick of the area is these buttons which let you propel the pinball in whichever direction you choose.

Designing all the screens in this game presented a unique challenge for me because every single one of them had to be constructed around the stipulation that the pinball would have to be able to free itself from any obstruction and naturally end up back within range of a flipper. PLUS, I wanted to give each region its own unique gimmick and I wanted to heavily incorporate those into the level designs. With that in mind, I made a point to avoid repeating screen layouts as much as I could and I wound up with a lot of asymmetrical and zany screens as a result.

If you were unable to tell from previous gifs and screens, the main artistic influence for Planet Pinball is the NES’s library of games and the limitations of that hardware, and in-universe it’s supposed to have been released in the early 90s, putting it a good bit after the Ugby Mumba demake that I shared last time. I am trying to maintain a certain chronology and in-universe consistency with all of these games, but I don’t wanna get too much into some of the overarching lore stuff I have in mind for the collection.

The game has a good number of NPCs who’ll help guide you and sell you some upgrades and stuff too! Again, @milkyace is responsible for the art for all of these fellas. Adding a bit onto that consistency comment, I want all of the games in the collection to have sort of a rotating cast of characters. Not every character in every game will show up more than once, but there’ll be quite a few repeat guests across all the games - including Faith here, who appears in three of the four games completed so far. More on that eventually.

That’s about all I feel like sharing in regard to Planet Pinball for now! This is the biggest game we’ve worked on so far for this collection, but I think there’ll be one or two more games later on that’ll top this one. We’ll see. I still haven’t started properly working on a fifth game beyond some conceptual pre-production stuff and I probably won’t for a little bit, because right now my sights are set on having a presentable demo completed and ready to share (not publicly) before the end of the year. Lately, my focus has mainly been on polishing up the collection’s hub area, which MIGHT be the highlight of next month’s Mumba Mail. We’ll see! It just depends on what I feel like writing about.

Sorry about how long this post took! In a perfect world it would’ve been up a week ago, but I’ve admittedly been putting it off ‘cus I’ve had a bit on my plate lately - nothing bad, I was just away on trips for most of last month and now I’m working my new job and trying to regain momentum on this project. I also got glasses. Anyways, thanks for reading! You’ll hear from me again next month!