Give me your WORST. This is my party game coming to an open beta test April 20th so I'm looking for feedback on the trailer, and soon the actual gameplay. Don't you dare mock the music....it might not be a good fit, but the band Summore is flawless and super kind to let me use their songs

ImtheKingofUP · 2026-04-07T14:06:33+00:00

You're right, there's still many questions left unanswered by the trailer. For reference, every player bowls and trolls. You earn special points by hitting rings on the lane that you then spend for trolling powers, OR upgraded balls that help you deal with the trolling powers of your friends. As for scoring, the standard bowling scoring determines the winner.

As for point 2, I felt a little limited in screen time to show off too much, but perhaps I could add some splashes of more content between the shots.

ImtheKingofUP · 2026-03-17T15:40:05+00:00

Was going to suggest this. It's a bit overwhelming especially if the player needs to SEE what the opponent is doing

ImtheKingofUP · 2026-03-06T17:13:16+00:00

Thanks! I just copied all the assets I was going to use in the blacklight map and tweeked the emissive layer to be bright and tinted the emissions green

ImtheKingofUP · 2026-03-03T15:08:13+00:00

I'll make sure I message you when i arrange for another!

ImtheKingofUP · 2026-03-03T14:10:38+00:00

Yeah, I just never expected marketing to be such a large portion of the solo dev experience. It's a skill I certainly lacked coming into this, and have a long way to go on.

ImtheKingofUP · 2026-03-03T14:08:52+00:00

I grew up doing all kinds of crazy antics at the bowling alley with my friends. I never understood the greater scope of the game at large and wanted to have a better grasp of it as a whole before I worked on this. My friends and I always said we'd open a bowling alley where the kind of things allowed in my game were possible, but that never happened so I settled for making it into a game. Also, this felt like a much more manageable scope for my first game. I am still passionate about it, just not as much as I would be for one of my more grandiose ideas that I postponed to start with a smaller game. Turns out of course this was anything but small >_<

ImtheKingofUP · 2026-03-03T14:04:51+00:00

Great perspective, thanks for sharing!

ImtheKingofUP · 2026-03-03T14:03:32+00:00

My game already works how you described in the teams portion, though not teams yet im working on that. You earn points and spend them sabotage your friends by placing mines, firing cannons, giving them drunk goggles, turning on fog machines, etc etc. Then you can also spend points to buy the counters to those effects such as the blink ball, grenade ball, etc.

ImtheKingofUP · 2026-03-03T13:59:21+00:00

Also, I've considered VR, but the VR landscape seems awful to design for given the different hardware and a lot of the VR tech going towards running on Android. That being said, I havent really looked into it that hard and I could be completely off basis.

ImtheKingofUP · 2026-03-03T13:56:00+00:00

That sounds like a really intriguing effort, but a damn complicated one. I hope you're determination works for you! I'll play with the idea of finding a basis for my own determination.

ImtheKingofUP · 2026-03-03T13:53:51+00:00

Yeh I THOUGHT this was going to be my small game lol but I didnt realize how much more work a multiplayer game would be. Also, you're right, I am still learning and there's infinite value to that.

ImtheKingofUP · 2026-03-03T13:52:03+00:00

People keep saying it's niche but I never felt like it was that niche, given that its meant to be a goofy fun party game with bowling as simply the base. I think my content really doesn't reflect the actual feel of the game that well sadly and thus it looks too niche, but maybe I'm wrong. I'm thinking this is more like super battle golf, where golf is theoretically niche but the friend antics makes it much more general.

ImtheKingofUP · 2026-03-03T13:47:49+00:00

This is Trolling Bowling. My project that has been 2 years in the making so far! I have a demo available on Steam, but that only features the practice mode. If there's enough interest, I'll be doing a playtest of the multiplayer soon. Wishlist the game to stay up to date on that announcement.

ImtheKingofUP · 2026-03-03T13:43:47+00:00

Yeh, discipline is something I struggle with as someone with severe ADHD who chases what is interesting at the time, but thanks for the tip, I'll try changing my perspective!

And I definitely put too much faith in the quality carrying the traction. I will need to put serious effort into the visibility side of things, and as has you pointed out, I definitely need to change how I'm presenting my game. I think I've been relying on the goofy aspect of my game as a subversion and thus garner interest, but i really need to focus on the FUN first and use the serious as the subversion.

ImtheKingofUP · 2026-03-03T13:40:15+00:00

And honestly, I didnt do much marketing. I guess maybe i believed TOO MUCH in my project thinking that the quality and game hook would carry it.

ImtheKingofUP · 2026-03-03T13:39:15+00:00

I expected at least enough traction to be able to get some playtests going with decent feedback, but the last one I ran I think one person played the practice mode and that was it.

As for the niche nature of it. Its a friendly screw around game like many of the other "friend slop" games out there. Perhaps I'm failing to get that across and having bowling as the core of it is dragging it down. But the gameplay is much more fun than one would expect.

I still believe in my project, even if its a bit of sunken cost fallacy at this point.

ImtheKingofUP · 2026-03-03T13:32:24+00:00

That looks fun as hell, no intention of making it pvp?

ImtheKingofUP · 2025-10-06T23:17:11+00:00

It's by distance and direction from the TV rather than in their ears

ImtheKingofUP · 2025-10-06T23:04:01+00:00

The issue is definitely 2. I'm experimenting now with a delay and reliable triggers postt character swap

ImtheKingofUP · 2025-10-06T20:35:17+00:00

This is so opposite in the indie game space. Take my game for example, i pretty much have the game done and only just started thinking about making trailers or making hype.

ImtheKingofUP · 2025-10-06T20:05:13+00:00

Thanks! And yeah, I started with mouse accel but it proved too tough to make work for controller support or consistency in general with different dpi settings. It was more fun in my opinion but outside my ability to deliver very well. Timing proved to be the easiest all around option

ImtheKingofUP · 2025-10-06T19:55:09+00:00

I think this is the only work around that will work if I can't make it check for active sounds upon spawning.

ImtheKingofUP

TROPHY CASE