Barnyard Blast at GDC

[L. Spiro]

http://www.dsfanboy.com/2007/03/07/barnyard-blast-swine-of-the-night/

Original concept, design, some programming, and name: me.

Originally we only planned to borrow some technical concepts from Castlevania, but one of the other programmers added the whip.
I was a bit worried about how that would be taken and originally said he could not have that in the final product, but finally allowed it to stay (I used it the most).

I was also worried about using a pig (even though it was my idea) because no one likes pigs.

It seems it worked out better this way, because it is now being viewed as a parody, and the pig makes it more parodical/“funny”.


In most ways the parody aspect is coincidence.
My original idea was on a farm, killing other barnyard animals (hence the name).
The boss liked it, but I was soon second-guessing myself, thinking the locale was in dire need of change. No one likes pigs. And no one likes the farm life.

After discussion we changed it to a nightlife with zombies.
In fact at that time my inspiration was Donkey Kong Country. When you roam the jungle in the first stage, at the end the colors change and it becomes night.
The second stage is in the night with rain and lightning.
I wanted to add these effects but we were short on time.
And instead of Kremlins we would use zombies shapes as fruit you would find on a farm.

But changing to a night scene, then not adding the rain and lightning, and changing the Kremlins to fruit zombies, and making the stage into segmented parts, all things were in place to be mistaken as a Castlevania rip.
Adding the whip pushed it over the edge, but made everything work.

We had searched for a way to make a pig interesting.
No one likes pigs or cowboys.
But accidentally being taken as a parody of Castlevania has turned out to be the answer to making the cowboy pig more interesting.


The direction of the game from here will change considerably to reflect the way the audience perceived it.
This is the high point of making a technical demo (all it is at this point).
Now we can see what the audience liked and get a much better idea of where they’re expecting the game to go.
Then we can go in that direction, hopefully adding more and more to keep them surprised along the way.


エル　スパイロ

[WhiteHat]

My girlfriend likes pig very much... She said : "He's sooo cute !" when i showed her the link...
And since it is in DS, would there be any touchscreen controling involved in this game ?

Great work !

[L. Spiro]

Not much touchpad now.
I wrote a touchpad class for another game that is able to recognize patterns you draw on the screen.
I just gave that to the main programmer on the project and we will see what ideas we have for things to do on the touchpad.


L. Spiro