Ba-Bomb!: Lessons learned (part 1) Introduction

One of the most highly polished games that I made at Studio Piña is Ba-Bomb!
Ba-Bomb! is the iOS sequel to my earlier Flash game Bombin'

I was incredibly proud of Bombin' when I made it.  I had set out once again to create an original puzzle game that could out-shine Bejeweled.  My previous attempt to out-shine Bejeweled was with my earlier puzzle game "Fusion Rocket".

What I created with Bombin' was a game that I thought was simple to pick up and play, intuitive and fun.  I was close, but didn't quite have that magic million dollar formula.  Though, at the time, I was seeing my game through rose colored glasses of self-satisfaction and couldn't really see the minor flaws that it had.

Don't get me wrong, I did create a good game, but many aspects of the game's presentation were sub-par.

While the core gameplay and the sounds were adequate, the graphics, user interface and game title were not.

The game's title is the one thing I could never really improve much for either Bombin' or it's sequel Ba-Bomb!  Yeah, the name's OK, but it doesn't really stand out, grab your attention and make you want to try it.  These titles were the only suitable names I could think of at the time that weren't already in use by some other game, as there are only so many variations or associations with "Bomb" in the english language.

For the graphics, I guess I was kind of lazy at the time, and focussed more on the gameplay and programming than on the art.  If the art looks rushed to you, then give yourself a gold star for having a good eye.

And for the UI, it was serviceable, but lazy as well.

It was about the time when I was mostly finished with Bombin' that my mother died.  I think the grief of that experience was one of the factors that contributed to some of the sloppy elements of the game, but I won't make excuses for the quality of my games.
Bombin' was a great learning experience, and I continued to learn from it's development as well as from the development of it's sequel Ba-Bomb!

To be continued...