Mommy's Best Year in Review: 2019

Hey all, welcome to 2020! 

2019 was a monumental year for Mommy's Best Games.
We finally,
Finally,
FINALLY
released Pig Eat Ball!

Completely! It was finally released to all major consoles: PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
(Yes, it's true that it was released in 2018 to Steam, but the nice news is, the super-duper balanced polished version is out everywhere now!)

Thank you again to all who supported us through the development of the game. I've been working on it since 2013. I've always been very excited to create a true "arcade adventure" game, one in which it felt like you were playing in an extended arcade universe--and I think I've hit the mark with Pig Eat Ball.

The reviews have been great too!
We've got an average 80+ on Metacritic across all platforms, which has me beaming.

Alright I did get ahead of myself though--Pig Eat Ball hit consoles on October 18th, but let's take a look some other months.

January 

We had a big month to start off last, year--we released the 'Speedrunners' update to Pig Eat Ball. This had lots of tiny fixes to improve the flow of the game for experienced players, but also added some nice polish in general.

The work that went into this paved the way for great ports to console, later in October.

February

Testing, testing, 1, 2, ...3 consoles??
February was all about more testing and fixing console specific bugs for Pig Eat Ball.
For instance, we had a nasty hitch for a while, on Xbox One when you registered Achievements. It would slow down the game when it popped certain Achievements. Finally got it fixed!

March

Continued testing for all consoles, plus all the "fun" of submitting announcement trailers and store information to all 3 consoles for release later on. It takes a lot of work to get a game ready just for the digital storefront!

April

Excerpt from my work log during a random day in April:

"Nintendo complained about the controller descriptions, and some of the localization was broken because umlauts and other special characters were broken by importing with Unity."

Porting continues through April! Had to keep those umlauts from getting me down :)

 

Also big for April - we officially announced Pig Eat Ball would be released to Switch!

May

I developed and shipped two games in May!
Yeah, hard to believe, but in the background, I took a contract job to develop two educational games for Legends of Learning.
One game taught and reviewed probability for 7th graders (I named the game "Probably Fun" :), and the second game reviewed Scientific Notation for 8th graders (this game was called "Gobble").

Contract work like that helped even out the money before shipping a bigger title later in the year.

June

I did lots of art and code for the next BIG MBG game! Pretty much for the whole month.
Might not use any of this art, but it helped pave the way for the future of the next game.

July

 Worked on launch trailers for Pig Eat Ball. Very close to approved for all consoles.

August

PS4 Europe finally approves the game this month.  Pig Eat Ball is now certified for launch on all consoles. It is sitting in the hopper.

September

I secretly start a new contract on TWO more games! Yikes!
These are mobile games for the company Girls Make Games. Except.. I'm not a girl? Turns out they had some prototypes designed by girls in their summer camps and wanted to polish them up for launch. Here I come!

I helped design and program "Yume" and "Good Dogs Bring Joy" for Android mobile.
Google even featured the games on their store and we had some cool blog posts!

It took 6 weeks but we developed and shipped these games in late October.
(Yes as PEB shipped!)

October

Hold on to your hats, and try not to barf in them--Pig Eat Ball launched this month!

November

I start level design contract work on a secret game for another developer!
It's a paid gig, and not full-time, so I am happy with it as I can work on my own MBG games too.

December

I begin in earnest on a NEW game for Mommy's Best!
This feeds off the research I did in June.
I also continue level design for the other game.

2020

What's up for 2020?
I have an exciting, MOMMY'S BEST ACTION announcement hopefully coming this year!
All fans of run 'n' guns are going to be really excited to see it.
Talk to you soon!
-Nathan

Console Release October 18th

Let it be known that on October 18th of 2019,
Pig Eat Ball will finally release to all consoles!
* Nintendo Switch 
(Nintendo eShop link)
* Xbox One 
(Microsoft store link)
* Playstation 4 
(Playstation store link)

Woohoo!

The Metacritic rating for the Steam version is 83!
And guess what? 

You can PRE-ORDER the game right now on Xbox One and Nintendo Switch!
Yes, please do pre-order as it helps me look better to the big, fancy console companies and publishers in the future! This means more wacky games from me if we do well here!

If you have already backed the game on the Fig crowd-funding we did, I thank you endlessly!
Your physical and digital rewards are scheduled to show up for you around the week of October 18th!

Who could have imagined I'd get to release a game on a Nintendo system?
Pretty wild!

See on October 18th!

Switch It Up

Pig Eat Ball on Nintendo Switch

The big news is Pig Eat Ball is coming to Nintendo Switch!
Yes, along with PS4 and Xbox One, you will get to play the biggest, weirdest, craziest action-adventure game on any console you want!
(Okay, not Ouya, but hey, we got the big 3 :)

FEAST your eyes on the Nintendo Switch gameplay reveal trailer for Pig Eat Ball!

We don't have a release date yet, but are working hard to secure it.
What stands in it's way?
Console testing!
Yes, for all 3 consoles, there are rigorous in-house testing and requirements set for all games.
The great news is--we have passed Microsoft Xbox One certification!
That means it's ready to go.
But before we can set a date, we want to get PS4 and Switch tests done as well.

Certification Agitation

Both Nintendo and Sony have issues with the game.
Like what issues you make ask? Crashes? Bugs? Level design problems?
Heavens no, it's silly little things, but hey, fixing these details will make a more polished game for you in the end.

For instance, for the PS4 version, when allowing you to remap the controller buttons, we didn't correctly refer to the X button as the "Cross" button.
And for Nintendo Switch, when the game tries to log your score to the global Leaderboards, if it can't connect to the internet, instead of our simple message telling you there's not internet connection, we are supposed to display the specific Nintendo error code telling you, that you can't connect.

But the BEST had to be when we found out we had unregistered UGC. As in "User Generated Content". Now keep in mind, we don't have the level editor on the console version. That's only available in the Steam version.
So how was anyone able to "make" anything on the console versions?
LEADERBOARD NAMES! Yes, because we have global leaderboards for each level, and because you have a username that gets shown, this is now technically "User Generated Content" in 2019.

So yeah, it's stuff like that!
So we're fixing it all, which takes some time, and then sending it back into review takes a lot more time.

 In the meantime, enjoy how cool Pig Eat Ball looks on a real Switch!

Summer Vacation

But fret not!
We are very, very close and have hope to secure a release date soon!

Mommy's Best Year in Review: 2018

2018.
Finally.
The year we finished Pig Eat Ball!
I started the game in January of 2013, as a game jam project for the Ouya.
And in 2018, after massive design changes, and growth for the game, we finished our biggest game
yet!

Sit back and put yourself one year ago, and let's look at the wacky details of what Mommy's Best Games was up to in 2018.

January 

A secret is brewing!
We are approved to do a Fig crowd-funding campaign! But we couldn't tell anyone yet.

The soda-pop cans could cause you problems, but you could also solve puzzles with them.

We spent most of this month working hard on polishing up World 4 in Pig Eat Ball.
There are 5 GIANT worlds in Pig Eat Ball.
Each world in the game has many necessary parts:

• 4 Overworlds
• 40+ action levels
• Boss
• Mid-boss
• 4+ NPCs and their puzzles
• 4+ Disguises in overworld puzzles
• Pillbug centerpiece gameplay/puzzle

For this month we were bouncing around, finishing up the NPCs and the bosses. Here's a detailed post I did about how I design each gameplay object to have at least 2 uses/puzzle elements in the game.

February

Work continued on World 4 "Kitchen Chaos".

And the big news internally was us getting everything ready for the Fig campaign to launch.

The Fig campaign had many tiers and rewards

It takes a long time to create all the art and assets for a crowd-funding campaign! I'm sure you've read that before, but if you're in development, believe it! It will hurt your development productivity on the main game. File this under "marketing time". It's a lot of work.
At the end of the month we launched our Fig campaign!

March

While development kept happening, there was a lot of "promotion and marketing" work this month.
The Fig campaign continued, and it was hard work asking for money and getting everyone excited to fund it.

I detail my ideas for a nice difficulty curve. It should not be smooth!

I traveled to GDC was selected to give a talk on Level Design and Difficulty Curves. It was very fun, and I loved getting into the nitty-gritty details about design. It takes a long time to get a talk polished and ready for a big show like GDC though! I think I worked on it off and on for a few months! Here's the full talk on the GDC Vault.

April

Great news this month--the Fig crowd-funding campaign was a success. We hit our goal!
I rested easy for a bit there.

I also showed the game at PAX East in the Indie Megabooth for the first time! That was a good connection to make.

Stylish picture of my PAX East booth

We continue work on World 5.
Turns out we cut a lot from Pig Eat Ball, as it was simply too big already!
There was going to be a World 6! It's about half done. Maybe I'll release it as DLC some day or in a free update.

May

As we finished up World 5 core work, all the details still left to complete come in to focus.
Localization is a huge amount of work, and I find it to be a pain. I tend to develop in a loose style, adding a new hint, or bit of dialog here or there, to improve the game. That won't fly if you're translating the game to multiple languages! You have to translate all those bits. We had thousands of lines of text to translate for Pig Eat Ball.

We spent a good portion of the money from the Fig campaign on localizing to 5 languages! And now thanks for another deal, the game is also available in Chinese.

June

"A level called Dead Space :) one of the challenge levels in World 1"

More details to finish in the game include: cut-scenes, and "challenge" clams. Gold "challenge" Clams are to ensure the game has extra tough levels once you beat the main game. I love that feeling a big, full action-adventure game. You've maxed out all your abilities, and now you want a REAL challenge! This month was spent making extra tough levels, and fitting them into all 5 worlds.

July

We were finishing up Achievements, balancing all level "medal times", and generally playtesting and polishing. Each level has a goal of eating all the balls, but they are also timed, with online leaderboards to give you great replay value. Each level has an amount of time to beat, to get a Silver and Gold medal.
We spent some time balancing all these times this month, and finishing up the challenge levels.

August

Alpha Pig!
We announce the game has officially hit the Alpha stage, meaning all content is in the game, and now only bugs remain.
It's a mad dash to the finish!

September

I travel to PAX West again with the Indie MegaBooth and show the game.
The decision is made to limit the initial release to PC/Mac/Linux, instead of also consoles. Keep in mind, this is the first time we've supported Mac and Linux for a Mommy's Best Games release! It is still 3 platforms and takes extra time to support.

 
Many more bugs were fixed, and on September 28, 2018, we finally release Pig Eat Ball to Steam, itch.io, and Green Man Gaming. Humble Store followed later.

October

Reviews are coming in...

...and they're loving it!
I'm so happy and excited.
Reviewers are coming into the game cold and loving it. This is amazing!
I continue marketing and outreach for the game.

Some players are getting through the game, and asking for some balance changes.
Early in October we release the first major update, complete with a new Disguise to reward expert players!

November

We finally end up with an incredible 83% on Metacritic!

I continue to promote the game, but now we switch over the console development.
John Meister and his team at Super Soul, in nearby Lexington Kentucky, work hard to get the framerate up and the load times down for the PS4 and Xbox One versions.

Meanwhile... a secret, new game starts development.

December

Most of this month was spent to continue optimizing the game.
It takes a lot of work and focus to optimize the game for consoles.
For instance, when the game launched on for home computers, the framerate was generally rock-solid for everyone, 60fps and better.
But for consoles, we had to work hard to get 60fps.

One type of optimization was with the breakable crates, of which some levels have hundreds.
Originally the crates would draw their shadow, then draw the crate. This was found to be slow. So I reworked the art for the crates so they now have the "shadow" built into a single sprite. This allows them to be drawn with one call to the process/graphics card, which is great!
Dozens of optimizations like this, allowed for the good framerate we now have on consoles.

2018 Wrapped

Thank you so much for the support! I'm thrilled to have finally released this massive game.
Stay with me, and please do continue to help cheer us on in 2019, when we'll be bringing Pig Eat Ball to consoles. PS4, Xbox One.. and maybe one more console!

Speed Runners Update for Pig Eat Ball

Click to enlarge, and then download this new art!
Perfect for a new desktop

Update Details

A new update for Pig Eat Ball is live in which plenty of "RNG / Random number generator" gameplay has been REMOVED, to ensure better replays of levels.

* For anyone just wanting to enjoy the game - regular gameplay is still great (there is still tons of variety).

* But ALSO now, for those wishing to climb the Leaderboards, and just trying to improve their fastest times on their favorite levels, things are much better now!

* Lots of enemies and events have had the "RNG/Random" elements made to be "deterministic". It means the levels are still crazy and chaotic, BUT when you reset the level and try again, balls, enemies, and hazards will all react the same.

* (Exceptions to this rule include: flying "Bot" bugs, bosses, and a few spots here and there still have some randomness to them, to ensure the max fun, and twitch skill requirements.)

* Hundreds of levels were slightly modified to ensure they are still super fun, but also easier to replay and get the same outcome, to make them more exciting to go for the fastest time.

* Note: Leaderboards have been reset. This is because the levels are now different from a speed-running perspective, they've been rebalanced and players will now get different times. So to make it fair, they've all been reset. I do not plan to reset them again. They should be ready now for serious speed-running.

*(Why did I have RNG in the first place? To require twitch-based skills in wild, chaotic levels. I see now though that it was *too* much randomness, AND I've found ways to ensure chaos, but with repeatability--the best of both worlds!)

50 Steam Reviews???

** Please make sure to LEAVE A STEAM REVIEW! (Positive or Negative, however you feel about the game).
Help us hit 50 Steam Reviews!
When we do, more of the systems on Steam will open up, and the game will be recommended to more people, which helps us make money on the game, to improve it, and make more games. Thank you!

 33% Off Sale

And for the next few weeks, Pig Eat Ball is on sale on Steam!
Grab it here for $10!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/339090/Pig_Eat_Ball/
A recent review said "there’s an astounding set of ideas on display" and loved Pig Eat Ball!

Make sure to leave a Steam review after you purchase. Thank you for your support!

Debug Mystery Theater

Thank you to all that have played it on Steam!

We are busy porting Pig Eat Ball to consoles.

In the process, we found a tricky crash, and a PS4 tester recorded this video.
Watch to the end, and see if you can decide what caused the crash.

Ready for some hints? 

Hint 1: The objects that cause the crash are on-screen (something off-screen didn't do it).

Hint 2: It's not just one object.

Hint 3: The player is indirectly involved.

Hint 4: The text that displays over the Toilets is not the cause.
(That's the fun credits level from the end of the game! Spoiler! Don't worry, it's super fun to play even if you know about it.)

Hint 5: The Pillbugs are mischievous, but they aren't responsible for this one.

Answer: 

Okay, it is a bit of a trick question. It involves 3 objects, not just one.

The Bomb, the Cigar, and the Pinata. When you spit a Bomb at the Pinata, it works fine. The Bomb explodes, and hurts the Pinata. If you spit a Cigar at a Bomb, that works fine. The Cigar lights the Bomb on fire and the Bomb explodes. When you combine all three, there was a crash.

Turns out, deep inside the code, I had a problem. I was not setting the "instigator" for each attack. If the player spat the Bomb, he was the Instigator. But when the Player spits the Cigar, which then lights the Bomb, the "instigator" was not being set in the Cigar. And when the Bomb asks "who lit me" the Cigar didn't tell it. So when the Bomb blows up the Pinata, and the Pinata checks for an instigator, it was "null" (empty) and it crashes!
NullExceptionCheck

The end of the mystery!
I've since fixed this crash (update soon for Steam!) and it will be fixed in the console release.

Make sure to get the game on Steam if you've not already!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/339090/Pig_Eat_Ball

Pig Eat Ball out now on PC/Mac/Linux

After 5 and half long years, Pig Eat Ball, our 8th indie game, is out now on computers!
You can get it on Steam, Humble Store, Green Man Gaming, and itch.iohttps://mommysbestgames.itch.io/pig-eat-ball.
Please do buy a copy, if you'd like to support our crazy games! Every sale really helps. And thank you!

Check out this launch trailer, which is basically just 60 seconds of gaming insanity :)

Reviews

The critics have been loving it!
 
We've had two Metacritic-rated sites that really enjoyed it.
PC Invasion game it a whopping 90/100!
Calling it "easily one of the best games I’ve played this year."

Hardcore Gamer gave it a 4/5 saying it was "incredibly playable".

And Tech-Gaming, a great all-around site, loved it as well!

Updates

We've also been fortunate to have some really dedicated players. On the Steam forums, some players have played through every nook and cranny in the game. While this definitely my biggest game, it's led to a few missed bugs. And not just Pillbugs, actual bugs :)
Thankfully I've been able to fix up all the little, tricky issues for certain Achievements and powerups, and on update #5, only a few days after launch, I think all new (and old) players are really getting a great experience.

Release Relief

Pig Eat Ball is out in all it's barfy, puzzle-solving glory. Grab a copy, tell some friends, and thank you for all the support!

Why Only Steam?

This Thursday, September 27th, after 5 and a half years in development, we'll finally be releasing
our newest, biggest game Pig Eat Ball!
You can Wishlist and Follow the game on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/339090/Pig_Eat_Ball

But it's only coming to Steam this week.
Why?

For starters, it will be on 3 different platforms: PC, Mac, and Linux. That's no small undertaking to support multiple platforms. In addition to Steam, we're releasing to the popular "Green Man Gaming" store, and we plan to release a DRM-free version on a smaller digital store called itch.io.

But it is true the game will only be available for personal computers this week, and not yet for consoles.

The PS4 and Xbox One versions of Pig Eat Ball are working great!
The trouble is tied up in some red tape and timing. When I made the decision to delay the console releases of the game here's why.

Certification and The Fall

I had to make the decision to "split the launch" months ago. I was pretty sure that we would not get through the "certification" process for each console with much time to spare to hit a release date in September. And it was possible that if we had submitted to review for consoles it could have forced the launch later than September.

This Fall 2018 for games is going to be big. Really Big. One reason is Red Dead Redemption 2 coming out in October. But there are other big games from here on to the end of the year that will take up players' and the press's time and attention.

We're releasing now on Steam in an attempt to come out before all the upcoming bigger titles (even though some big ones such as Spiderman on PS4 has already hit).
Pig Eat Ball does not have millions of dollars to spend on marketing, so it could be very easy to get lost in the noise if we're not careful. By coming out on Steam in the early Fall, and levering the great story-player combined with an easy-to-use level editor we hope to build up the community of players leading up to the console launch.

Time to Market

The other big reason was to ensure that both Sony and Microsoft's internal teams had some time to promote Pig Eat Ball for PS4 and Xbox One. Even if we did manage to squeeze Pig Eat Ball through certification quickly, the console holders like to have some time to promote a title.

If the game had finished certification and then come out within weeks later, it's unlikely that Sony or Microsoft would have been able to move and plan fast enough to promote the game properly. There are many games in development for consoles and one way each MS and Sony *know* a game is serious is when the game is actually finished the review process for each console.

My hope is to get Pig Eat Ball through the review process in the Fall giving the promotional teams time to incorporate the game into upcoming promotions.

Console Me

So when it's actually coming to console? Well I don't have a firm date yet, but I'm shooting for very early 2019. 
In the meantime be sure to grab a copy this week on Steam so you can play the single-player and start to dig into the awesome level editor!

PAX West 2018 Wrapped!

Sexy side-view with a lucky cat (he's in World 2!)

I spent several days this past weekend in Seattle at PAX West. The convention runs for 4 days, Friday to Monday. I didn't do it all, but got there on Saturday spending some time exploring the show floor.

Before the chaos starts.

Pig Eat Ball was accepted to the Indie MEGABOOTH which helped get it a good spot on the show floor, for a much cheaper cost to me.

Poke-4-Players

The Minibooth is a single kiosk station, instead of a 10x10 foot proper booth. I elected to stay in the "Minibooth" for a few reasons:

1. It costs me much less money.
2. It gets the game on the show floor and in front of people. 
3. You only get to show it two days (my set was Sunday and Monday). This sounds bad (and is since you see half the people), but it also costs me much less since I did it all myself. Getting a 10x10 booth I would have definitely needed extra help.
4. I was able to show it to some press. And I showed it just about as many people as I could as it was pretty much constantly busy. 
5. Great show floor position as handled by the Indie MEGABOOTH people.

Note the cool, extra-layer of signage I added to the top!

The cons of taking a Minibooth position include, of course, fewer days to show the game and fewer people playing, but also less room to do my wild "show" stuff. I had made some "photo props" for Pig Eat Ball, but with the kiosk space I didn't have enough room to let people take pictures with them.

Here's my new booth-mates from the game "EastShade" kindly taking a fun pic using the props! Most of the time people would play the game, but feel too crowded to make use of the props.

Made friends with another dev who had a glitzy booth and a cool platformer game called "Exception"!

I call this photo/cosplay "Attack on Pig" :)

I spent two nights at parties meeting other developers. Both were good events and I had several chance encounters that may yield important business in the future. I also met again with Sony and Microsoft reps which I find helps them to remember that "Pig Eat Ball is coming"!

I also dropped in on the Seattle Indies party and it was filled with lots of games being made in the area.

Good turn out for the local devs event.

By far my favorite game at the Seattle Indies event was an up-and-coming one (still early in the works) called "Fowl Damage". It's a puzzle platformer that reminds me mechanically of Escape Goat.

And finally, there's nothing quite like stickin' it to the MAN.

I'm pretending to punch AAA games. Does it look like it? No?
And why would I punch them? Because I'm indie! Okay I dunno why.

Pig Eat Ball is coming soon and still needs fixes, so I better get back to work!

Alpha Pig!

Pig Eat Ball has finally hit "Alpha"!
That means all the gameplay, levels, and characters are in, but there's still some things to rearrange and big bugs to fix. But that also means we're releasing the game SOON!


If you backed the game long ago, check your inbox, because I've emailed out all the Steam keys. If you didn't get one, check your Spam folder. And email me if you still can't find it.
Here's some art I did to encapsulate what going Alpha feels like. 

Yeah, that's me blissfully driving the spaceship while my tech lead, John Meister from Super Soul, is pushing this crazy thing :)
Now we'll see if the wheels stay on this jalopy as all the testers play the game for the first time!


You can complain about bugs over on the Steam forums here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/339090/discussions/
And we will be chatting with folks on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/q4fCzjs
Finally, for all those interested, please Wishlist the game on Steam!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/339090/Pig_Eat_Ball

And tell any friends about it too, it really helps. 
Thanks all!

Going for the Gold... Clam?

Goal Types

Pig Eat Ball has a large Adventure mode filled with a variety of action-puzzle levels.
Beating action levels are how you progress the story in Adventure mode.
There are 3 main 'goal types'.

1. Eat All Balls: every level requires that you eat all the balls to complete the level. It's sort of like a free-form 'puzzle' version of Pac-Man levels. There's no special restriction here, just figure out how to do it. 
2. Timed Eat Balls: You still have to eat all the balls, but now there's a time restriction.
3. Survival Eat Balls: You can only take three hits of damage, or you fail the level. The goal is still to eat all the balls.

You won't get to pick the mode; it will be particular to each hand-designed level. The levels in the game have been designed by myself and Andrew Curry. If a level is introducing a new enemy or level object, it will probably have the easiest goal which is Eat All Balls. Once you've seen a certain enemy, new levels with new designs will probably require tougher goals like Timed or Survival.

By the way, have you tried the Demo???
Check the "Download Demo" button on the right. 
https://store.steampowered.com/app/339090/Pig_Eat_Ball/
I encourage you to try the demo and Wishlist it on Steam!

Medals

Every action level is timed. Your "time-to-complete" the level is checked and you are awarded 1 of 3 medals. Bronze, Silver, and Gold.
Bronze means you completed the level. It's the easiest version.
A Silver time is a little tougher. And a Gold time means you completed the level pretty fast!
All of the Medal times are hand-designed and balanced. As we get closer to finishing the game, we're constantly playing the levels and looking at metrics to balance the Medal times.

We won the Pearl from this Royal Clam. It had 4 action levels to beat.

Gold Clams

Pig Eat Ball is meant to be a "good challenge". It's not supposed to be the hardest game ever, and it's not supposed to be a baby's game either. It will feel tougher than a Kirby or Yoshi game, but much easier than a Super Meat Boy or Dark Souls. I'm trying to hit the Super Mario Galaxy difficulty.

However, there are some tough challenges in the game. Getting a Gold medal on any given level requires some skills! And the toughest levels in the game are in the Gold Clams.

That Royal Clam (upper left) has four levels for you to beat. You can see the shadows of four medals under him.

Action levels are given to you by Royal Clams. If you get a Gold medal on every level in a given world, a new section opens up. This gives you access to the Gold Clam. The levels these clams have are pretty tough. If you beat all of the Gold Clam levels in a world, you get access to the special, custom Disguise with unique gameplay abilities!

Polishing the Gold

This is a level from world 1 Gold Clam, it's a tough but satisfying challenge!

That's where development is at right now. We're almost done designing all the Gold Clam levels, and actually almost done with all the levels in the game!
It's a very exciting time.
Pretty soon we'll be able to test the game from start to finish. I'm pumped to see that finally happen.

Word for Word

We're initially translating the game to French, Italian, German, and Spanish.
As such, I'm knee-deep in localization preperation.

That means I'm taking any and all English text in Pig Eat Ball and changing it out for a list-look up.
Basically there's a big spreadsheet of all the text in the game. Each text entry has a name. The list redirects to the language the game is set to be played in.

Here's a pic of the spreadsheet:


The column on the left is the look-up code word. The column on the right is the text to be used in-game.


Below is the C# code in the editor.
The red text in quotes is the special look-up word.
It then checks the spreadsheet to find the actual, translated text.




That's the C# code.

Below is what it looks like in the helper system in Unity.


We're using I2 in Unity to get the text into the game.
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/localization/i2-localization-14884

Agile is the Word

 Why didn't I just do this all from the beginning?
Well, that would take foresight. :)
But also it'd be a lot of wasted effort. The game changed a lot over the years. Even for a smaller game the design can change a lot. To be on top of it and have the look-up system already in place would be a good amount of work and commitment to a certain design. It's much faster to prototype things with English baked into the code.

I'm sure it's possible to make a game with the localization system in there from the start! I just don't think the design would be as agile, and I might be less likely to scrap work and make changes. That worries me as I could end up with a worse design, because I didn't want to waste earlier work.

Text Me When It's Done

In any case, we're almost done getting all the localized text ready.
After the spreadsheet is ready we'll send it off to the localization company to be translated.
Then all the text will just magically appear and be wonderfully translated in game!

I'm very excited to see all those languages be possible, and I can only read English!

Pig Eat Ball is getting close to finished. 
Please be good and Wishlist it on Steam, then tell a cool friend of yours!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/339090/Pig_Eat_Ball/
Thank you.  💗💗💗