It's a Blast!

Inspiration

My last competition entry for Horizon Worlds I did something pretty out of left field... a predominantly single-player, retro JRPG turn-based battler. It was fun to push the limits of Horizon into doing something it clearly wasn't meant to do. But this time, I wanted to do something that I could see people really enjoying on what's really meant to be a social platform - a party game. Something fast-paced and frantic where you can scream or laugh with friends and then turn around and go again.

What it does

It's the classic, crazy Bomberman style gameplay in Horizon Worlds! At the start of a round, each player has 1 bomb at a time they can place and a short blast range. As you destroy the destructable blocks, working your way toward the other players, you gain powerups until it becomes all-out mayhem as you're trying to catch each other in your explosions, before they get you, or worse, you get yourself!

How I built it

I started out using the new Gen AI tools. While I later went back and made models for everything (myself even! see below), they were a super powerful and enabling way for me to go from nothing to something and get to making the game without being able to make excuses about not having what I need. I knew the gameplay well from [note-to-self: insert less depressing number here] years of playing the Bomberman games so it just came down to doing the work. I needed an arena, some blocks I could blow up, some blocks I couldn't, and of course powerups. And then a lot of objects to manage. Like a LOT. There's over a hundred blocks that are dynamically placed for the arena. Hidden powerups placed around that. A pool of bombs for each player (that they can change at will between rounds, so they need to be dynamic), an even bigger pool of explosions for each player (that again, can be changed between rounds and need to be dynamic).

Challenges I ran into

I think the number one challenge for me was time. My work schedule has been incredibly hectic so I was only able to start working on my entry on April 26th (also known as: a month and a half after I should have!). I tend to work alone since a lot of the fun in these competitions / hackathons is pushing myself to see how much I can get done, which meant until it was at a point I was ready to show others, I also had to come up with some AI that didn't immediately blow itself up and end the round so I could actually test. Given it's intended to be a game for real people to play against other real people, I spent far longer on a workable AI (that still isn't very smart or challenging...) than I probably should have.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I'm traditionally a programmer / scripter, but this is the first game that I've also done all of the in-game art for. When something needed a texture I either found a usable (properly licensed) texture, or made it myself. When something needed to be modeled, I busted out Blender and some tutorials and made them myself. While the art is pretty basic by function of needing to be small and still recognizable on mobile, it's still something I'm proud of and has helped level up my confidence going forward.

What I learned

Blender isn't as scary as I thought. Party games are hard to test by yourself. Trying to make an entire game in less than two weeks is A LOT.

What's next for It's a Blast!

Hopefully people play and enjoy it?

First priority is definitely more powerups. Especially the ability to kick or throw bombs as that really amps up the chaos later on in games. Then I'd love to make a bigger arena for 8 people to play in instead of the current 4. I've also been thinking about a Bomber Royale mode where multiple arenas take place at once and you narrow down from a larger number of players to a final round.

And I'd love to add a lot more customization. Given the extremely tight schedule I was only able to get a few options in for bombs, explosions, and hats. Ideally there'd be something for everyone and people could really have fun with it.

Built With

• horizon
• typescript