Reflectopong

• 

  An example of a level

Inspiration

As the theme for the game jam was "a twist on a classic", I decided to go as classic as I could, back to Pong from 1972. This game inspired me with just how much could be done with its simple mechanics (and meagre graphics).

What it does

The player is presented with a typical tower defence scene, however they cannot move the towers. Rather, the player must strategically place and remove "paddles" to manoeuvre the towers' projectiles so that they can hit the enemy. So, it borrows from Pong the mechanic of reflecting balls off paddles.

How I built it

The game was built using the Defold game engine.

Challenges I ran into

The biggest challenge for me was coming up for the initial concept; it had to be something novel, yet with enough depth to lead to complex and compelling gameplay. Aside from that, I found it difficult to design interesting levels as I am not accustomed to puzzle games.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

The game just works - there aren't any major bugs I've had to work around - and I feel that some of the levels are in fact difficult.

What I learned

Ensuring that levels in a puzzle game are unique is surprisingly challenging, and necessitated a significant amount of dev time.

What's next for Reflectopong

From here, complexity could be greatly improved as with any puzzle game, such as introducing new types of paddles. This could massively diversify level design, which did somewhat wane through development.

Built With

• defold
• lua