Entry: Family Pizza

sparkes

Family Pizza.
The first game I’m planning on doing out of an improbably long list of potentials all with outlines worked out.

Doing these in my spare time between the games I try and make a living from so don’t expect miracles :)

Game Blurb
You play as a teenage roller skating pizza delivery girl in a 1980’s midwest american town as seen by a japanese developer via the movies of John Hughes and John Landis. She lost a full scholarship after being seen kissing bad boys in cars and now needs to deliver pizzas in a revealing red dress on roller skates while avoiding the traps set by frat boys who want to see her fail.

Avoid the obstacles to get to the end of the level and successfully deliver the pizza. Pick up litter and deliver quickly to earn tips and pay off your student debts.

Drop three pizzas and the game is over and your only choice is either working for a delivery firm that insists you wear a bikini or drop our of school and become a pizza chef ordering bikini clad delivery girls around (This is covered in the old school equivalent of DLC the quickie graphical makeover cheaply made cash in sequel ;) )

Technical Stuffage
It’s going to be done in pixel graphics which I’m doing myself and will have an aspect ratio of 16:9 but a pixel height of 240 (like the NES) giving a width of 427. So it’ll have the pixel density of an old school game but the aspect ratio of a modern tv.

The colour scheme is in keeping with the box art (hopefully, if I can pull it off).

The game has a single button control scheme and is developed with usability and assistive technology in mind expanding the range of potential players.

Developed in Unity3D I’ll supply Windows, Mac and web player versions with iOS and Android possibly being made publicly available depending on if I can find the time to test them properly.

Other Games
Yes I’m mad but in a two hour session yesterday lunch time I produced 15 game ideas based on the carts and have a number of others in reserve that I might work on.

Games with more than a page of A4 and game play sketches
Family Pizza
Vector Planet
Crazy Messenger in NYC
Getaway to Nowhere
Walk or Die
Burp’n’Shoot (two versions kiddie and adult like Tapper was split in arcades)
Effect Panic
Pose
Meteor Night
Climb the Big Wall
Simon (obviously quite a straight port with few twists other than accessibility tweaks)
Boom Box
The Baggage Man
Line
Spy v’s Sniper

Games that I have some ideas for but aren’t fully fleshed out yet
Collectable Game 007 - Orange
Fat Boys (which is a bit fleshed out but I might contact the Fat Boys first since the deceased member is a big part of the plan and I don’t want to upset friends and family)
Never Maguro - the shooter (made for Rob Fearon ;) )
The Secret Society
D.O.T - Dot Order Tie (have a super simple idea that might be a spin off from line)
BioRhythm - just like the old biorhythm toys of old, not really a game.
Family Watch - Again a toy rather than a game
Bullet and Cigarette
Chicken Race

Dismissed after initial thoughts with reasons why
Buddha Army - Buddhists are involved in too many civil wars and armed uprising for me to feel comfortable with this title.
Soul Boxing - couldn’t do it justice in an 80’s japanese style (which it begs for) without blaxsploitation feeling more like racism to me.

I guess I’m just too sensitive sometimes :)

If anyone picks one of the above titles and their ideas are anything like mine (and only a few of them probably will be) I’ll step back and let them take them on but if their ideas are sufficiently different from mine I’ll go ahead with another from the list when Pizza Family gets close to completion.

TarTarSauce

Nice! Reckon we could see some graphics mockups? I’m really curious about what this game’s going to look like :-)

sparkes

Well right now I’m busy attempting to get 1D Sports finished for release next month (at least the PC/Mac ports) but if you can imagine Atari Paperboy as a side scroller with a bit of a Canabalt thing going on you’re pretty much there.

At the moment I’ve only got paper sketches as I don’t want to do any pixelling before the event starts or I might get carried away and cheat. Also I’m not an artist so what I imagine it looking like and what it actually ends up looking like are probably two completely different things :)

TarTarSauce

I can imagine that looking pretty cool! Are you going to go for the more subdued colours of Paperboy, or try to emulate the more lurid ones on the cart? Personally, I think the cart’s colours have the potential to come out really nicely - but then again, they could also end up as a blinding mess of neon colours! :!

sparkes

I really want to try and follow the carts colours but I’m not sure I can pull it off so it might end up a complete mess. That’s the joy of doing something you normally don’t do isn’t it :)

The reason I’m thinking about putting the character in a short red dress rather than the stripy top and white mini skirt on the cart is because I know I can’t do white pleats and stripy top but I’m pretty sure I can make a red dress look at least a bit 3d, pretty sure.

KBlaney

sparkes said: if you can imagine Atari Paperboy as a side scroller with a bit of a Canabalt

I can imagine that and something like Canabalt would lend itself to that art style pretty well. The answer, of course, is that if you make the character really small on the screen, but then show the character’s stripes and pleats in a static image in between levels or on a menu screen, the player’s brain can work to fill in a lot of details about the main character. One of the reasons Canabalt plays so well is how much attention was dedicated to the character’s run animation, but also the automatic scaling of the jumps so that you are rarely ever in a situation where you can’t make the jump if you have proper timing. If you nail those two things, I think it’ll go a long way towards making Family Pizza very replayable.

matt

Sounds great - good luck!

Drexegar

Pizza Family was one of my choices, but you got the right idea for the game and can’t wait to see when its done.

I was going to use unity for my game, but i’m learning it right now, so im going to stick to MMF2 to get it done on time since I already know that. I think you are going to be one of the first designers to make a totally 2-D game in unity! I hope for the best and cant wait to see the results!

sparkes

Cheers guys. Just got to magic up some time to work on it during the competition window now ;)

@Drexegar, there are loads of 2d games done in unity. I understand what you mean though lots (like the 2d gameplay example and Snuggle Truck) are 3d games restricted on a single plane rather than ‘proper’ 2d but there are a few. I’ve got several half finished games that use unity and are fully 2d in presentation and gameplay using flat planes and an orthic projection.

SugarPillStdios

Sounds terrific! Your original description (along with the cover) made me think of Paper Boy and Jet Set/Grind Radio: both terrific games. It’s funny… I remember most of the old case art, but don’t remember seeing this one during the last compo(?). Good luck, I look forward to seeing what you do with this.

matt

This cover is from Famicase 2010, you can pick a cover from any Famicase and indeed any other fictional game artwork from anywhere else (see Mire Mire)

sparkes

Still not managed to do any work on this :(

I should have got a different game out to beta but it’s currently waaaaay off alpha so I’m just generally behind.

sparkes

Still struggling with time management and have decided the way I really want this to look I’d need Unity Pro so that’s knocked my motivation a bit.

I’ll be taking the art in a slightly different direction so it won’t currently look as I want it to but will with a few lines of code if I can afford Pro later down the line.

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