What changed, why, and what it broke. Numbered checkpoints, newest first. Nothing here is a promise.
The ball in the game has been temporary since the beginning, and I have struggled to get a look I like but also works in game, and keeping the circus theme as the core in the game. But i feel this works, getting it implemented better now.
Its always so easy on paper, but so many things are linked here, spaghetti alert... I hav emanaged to get colors to work at least :D
Netcode is finally smiling at us. A lot of celaning up from tests and prototyping now. In a few weeks, I hope to share a demo.
Past weeks, and coming weeks will be focused on netcode, what solution can work for this crazy spinning game, with so much freedom and so many interactions happening :O - testing 4 systems now, all with benefits and painful cons. It is just a very complex area of gamedev, also a killer for game ideas. I have an approach now that works really well, with some minor cons, which I hope to smoothen out, I hope - more soon.
Wishlist is possible here: Spinball on Steam Now I will work on a demo version, just added a stadium and stuff for surroundings.
I have tried a lot of different approaches, seeing the game evolve around the spinning and acrobatics, more colors found its way, not exactly models being in game anymore, but its a part of the road.
Its all about spinning, alle directions imaginable :D getting there, lots of finetuning and optimizations being done now.
Speaking of the devil, now they approved my page, and I finished a rough first iteration, just to get the approval process going, now making a demo page as well.
Spinning bats, spin yourself, kangaroo jumps, by accident, the game evolved into more crazy mechanics I never intended to design or even knew the game needed. :D
I started in html, java, to create mech tests and get an idea of where I wanted this to go, if any. Fun to look at. This is from early 2026 :) I have been waiting for my Steam page for 12 days now, this process just takes soooo long, come on...
This one is really pushing me, kill or let it live. I made it without any geometry, only code creates the geometry so I can autmomatically create more levels fast, levels being diferent setups of shafts you need to close by hitting the ball inside, which is cool by itself, but the skill level needed to play this, is insane. The detection of the gola plates in the shafts has been a pain as well, however they work ok now. This mode I am thinking of several ways of playing it with leaderboards, for the demo.
Well, I am not a skilled developer, used Danish words, way to many, and last 3 days have been a nightmare translating to english. Note to self...
The start screen had grown a button per mode, which does not survive a game with casual, ranked, four team sizes and a solo list. PLAY now opens two screens: how you want to compete, then who against.
Ranked is drawn, not built. Matchmaking does not exist yet and neither do the ranks.
Boost and jet used to be two bars in the same orange, which read as one thing split in half. They are now a single unbroken bar: mint when it is available, gold while you boost, a lighter gold while you jet.
Needs a change in the game: two drain constants have to become one resource.
The key bindings screen gained a second device tab. Same three columns, same seventeen action names, same order — only the label inside the cap changes.
