Particle Effects and Other News

We have been working on adding a few new things, and trying to get the overall look a little more polished. This includes a new power bar, new particle effects, and some new sound effects. We are hoping to finish particle effects and add a speed run mode soon, so we can update the demo.

The new particle effects include a little cloud of dust when the ball bounces, a little trail of dust when the ball rolls, and little water droplets and ripples when it hits water. We are still working on adding little specs of dust that float in the wind, and leaves that fall from trees. These will hopefully be both aesthetically pleasing as well as a handy indicator for players as to the winds strength and direction. All of these effects are fairly subtle, but combined will hopefully make for a much more detailed and polished experience.

We are also currently working on contracting someone to write an OST for Ballf, so this will hopefully be underway shortly. We are hoping to begin releasing tracks in our demo within the next month or so. We are trying to make sure this happens on time, as we will hopefully be launching or Greenlight campaign some time in early October. The reason we picked the beginning of October is mainly because we are hoping to be doing a hands on demo of Ballf at a local gaming convention in Ontario.

We've also added/reworked more levels, bringing the current total up to 20. We will be adding more levels to the next update, in order to give a wider variety of course types. We are considering adding the level editor shortly as well, however it is not completely user friendly yet, so we may still hold off on this for a bit. We've also tossed around the idea of creating some kind of competition when the editor is released, in which the top user created map gets to be featured in the full version of the game.

Here's a shot of our newest level, in which the standard golf style hole has been turned into a hoop that the ball must pass though!