A Suki Game! (12/25)

Hope everyone's having a happy holidays! I've been hard at work this past week, and if you've been following me I'm sure you already know why that is.
Introducing A Suki Game! A Suika clone where instead of merging fruit, you merge a colorful assortment of characters from Mabo, myself and a few other friends, all blown up as big bouncy balloons!

This game is one that Mabo pitched to me as a collaborative project. It's been in the works for a while now and is very much still a work-in-progress as you can see from this UI, but I've been working on it all week with the aim of finally getting it ready for playtesting. In this post I'll be covering just a few of the unique features you can look forward to when the game is released. The first is one you may have already noticed: all 11 characters in the game are rendered in stunning detail with hand-drawn art from Mabo, including Suki herself (who replaces the watermelon at the end).

The next unique feature has to do with the physics of the game. As soon as you start playing, you'll notice that the characters are far more squishy and bouncy than any fruit. For this game I came up with a customized physics system that allows the characters to be squished and bounced off of each other like... well, balloons! They even visually get squished against each other when put under pressure to really sell the effect, something I'm particularly proud of. And lastly, they float up like balloons too.

Lastly for this post, there's a charge mechanic! When enough pressure is available, you can hold the button, charging up and inflating a character bigger than their normal size. Let them go and that pressure sends them flying at high speed, squeezing through gaps they may not normally fit through and bouncing into other characters with a ton of extra force. All of these features come together to make for a really fun and unique take on Suika, and Mabo and I both can't wait to share it with everyone.

As for when the game will be ready for release, that's still unclear at the moment. What I can say is that once it is complete, it'll be released for free on itch for anyone to play, but until that point early access to the game will be reserved as a patreon exclusive reward for both my patrons and Mabo's. It's not quite ready for that yet, but it will be very soon! Shortly after Christmas I plan to offer it as my first reward for being a patron, as well as discord access. There people will be able to chat with me directly, see the progress on my projects as it happens, offer their own feedback and suggestions and more. All of these will be available in just a few days tops, so if you are at all interested in supporting what I do financially there's your excuse. I know I'm still pretty new to all this, but your support really does mean the world to me, and every little bit makes it more likely that I'll be able to see my weird little games to completion.

And so, with all of that said, I'll be heading off for tonight. No post next week, as between this, discord and the holidays I don't expect to get enough done to justify writing up another devlog. Once again I hope you all have a happy holiday, and I'll see you next year!