Gasketball

Last updated

Gasketball
Gasketball icon.png
App icon
Developer(s) Mikengreg
Publisher(s) Mikengreg
Platform(s) iPad
ReleaseAugust 9, 2012
Genre(s) Puzzle
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer

Gasketball is a basketball-themed puzzle video game for the iPad by Mikengreg, an independent development team of Michael Boxleiter and Greg Wohlwend. Players flick basketballs through 2D physics puzzles into the hoop in single-player, local multiplayer, and asynchronous HORSE-style online multiplayer modes. The game is free-to-play with in-app purchases. Development began in mid 2011 following Mikengreg's successful Solipskier . They were able to live from the earnings for Gasketball's two year development at their previous salary, which afforded them the stability to try new avenues and reject prototypes, though they worked 100-hour weeks. Towards the end of their development, they ran out of money and lived on the couches of friends. It was released on August 9, 2012, and the game did not reach their desired conversion rate at the time of launch.

Contents

The game received "generally favorable" reviews, according to video game review score aggregator Metacritic. [1] Pocket Gamer gave the game their silver award, and Tim Rogers of Kotaku named Gasketball his 2012 game of the year, calling it "the beginning of the hardcore social game genre". [2]

Gameplay

In Gasketball, players flick basketballs through 2D physics puzzles (with flippers, portals, circular saw blades, [3] and gravity switches [4] ) into a basketball hoop. Some puzzles include banking the basketball shot off multiple surfaces before making the basket. In the HORSE-style games, the player must match the exact setup of the opponent's shot, such as hitting the floor before entering the hoop. [5] In the campaign, players get more points for making the shot without retrying, [5] and have five attempts to make the hoop before moving to the next level shamefully. [4] Players are awarded medals for the quality of their performance at the end of each chapter. Gold medals unlock new modes of play in the chapter. Every chapter has a unique theme, such as a construction site or outer space. [5]

The game has local two-player multiplayer with a divided iPad screen, and asynchronous online multiplayer where players construct levels for their opponents to complete. [3] Players spin a wheel at the beginning of their turn to determine how many hazards they get to place via drag and drop. [5] A few of the items are unlocked at first, and more are available with progress through the game or in-app purchases. [4] Gasketball uses a colorful palette and features a cranky robot, [3] who provides a tutorial and resets the ball. [4] It was released as free-to-play with the tutorial unlocked, and four to five chapters available as additional paid downloads. [5]

Gasketball screenshot 2.png
Gasketball screenshot 3.png
Gasketball screenshot 4.png
Gameplay screenshots

Development

Gameplay trailer

Gasketball was developed and produced by Mikengreg, [4] an Iowa-based two-man team: Michael Boxleiter and Greg Wohlwend. [6] After releasing their first game, [6] the sport-inspired Solipskier for iPhone and iPad, [5] Boxleiter and Wohlwend lived off the profits for two years while working on Gasketball, [6] paying themselves their same salaries from their Adobe Flash development days but having the security to try new ideas. [7] Wohlwend made somewhat more income due to other collaborations, such as Puzzlejuice with Asher Vollmer, but shared his income with Boxleiter. [6] Development began in mid 2011. [8] Even though Solipskier was successful, the duo did not have a following comparable to indie developers like Team Meat and thus did not feel pressured to meet high expectations. Instead, their pressure was internal. [7] Wohlwend said he worked 100-hour weeks with no weekends or vacations while living on the Solipskier funds. When they ran out of money, Boxleiter borrowed money from his parents, and eventually they both went homeless, living on the couches of friends. [6]

It can get very nerve-wracking to think that you only have one shot at releasing each game, and every time you fail to reach your goals you get one step closer to having to quit trying.

—Boxleiter to TouchArcade, March 2012 [7]

In making Gasketball, Boxleiter and Wohlwend felt that their game quality had been improving over time, though designing for a million-person audience was "daunting" and Wohlwend questioned whether he could even recreate Solipskier's success. [7] The former game was designed in fits of creativity while the latter had no such moments, and took longer to produce. They discarded "everything" multiple times during their prototyping process with the understanding that anything less than what they wanted would lead to a subpar end result. [7] [lower-alpha 1] Boxleiter had difficulty accepting praise towards the end of development, considering the weight of having to leave the industry if the many 100-hour weeks did not pan out in an accepted product. [7]

Michael Boxleiter headshot cropped.jpg
Greg Wohlwend headshot full frame.jpg
Mike Boxleiter and Greg Wohlwend

Mikengreg first announced the game on March 1, 2012, [8] and it was later released for iPad [3] on August 9, 2012. [1] Mikengreg decided to release the game as free-to-play for the base game with in-app purchases for the extended content. Wohlwend saw that a quarter of the top-grossing games on iOS used in-app purchases (albeit with predatory practices) and felt that they could follow the model with a more ethical strategy: free to play, but pay once to unlock forever. Wohlwend later remarked that, "So far, humanity is proving to us that we can't have it both ways." [6] They were told by friends that the purchase function was too hidden, which they later fixed. [6] Journalists had noted the difficulty in purchasing the full version as well. [9] Gasketball had been downloaded 200,000 times in its August 2012 launch week and was briefly ranked near the top of an iTunes top downloads ranking, though it did not break the top 200 grossing chart. The game's conversion rate from its free-to-play base package to the paid version was 0.67%—lower than their goal of at least 2% of an estimated five million downloads. [6] The paid addition includes 100 additional levels and 10 new objects. [9]

Reception

The game received "generally favorable" reviews, according to video game review score aggregator Metacritic. [1] Reviewers noted the game's character [5] and creative vision. [5] Pocket Gamer gave the game their silver award. [4] Gasketball was Tim Rogers of Kotaku 's 2012 game of the year. [2]

Edge noted Mikengreg's deft ability with simple sound effects, citing their previous work with Solipskier. They praised the "sweet and personable" art design and the mix of "freewheeling creativity with arcade precision". Edge also praised the addition of the "decent" single-player campaign alongside the multiplayer. [3] Pocket Gamer's Harry Slater called the single-player "entertaining" but felt the asynchronous multiplayer was the highlight. [4] TouchArcade's Brad Nicholson called the game a cross between Amazing Alex and NBA Jam . While he found some puzzle designs imbalanced, Nicholson also felt that the interactions between the flipper and portal hazards were "surprisingly solid" and noted the game's lighthearted "welcome playground sort of feel" even as the easy learning curve reached Rube Goldberg-like complexity. [5] Tim Rogers of Kotaku called Gasketball the "inverse Rube Goldberg" and "the beginning of the hardcore social game genre, of asynchronous gameplay as meaningful as FPS deathmatches". [2] [lower-alpha 2]

Notes

  1. ↑ Wohlwend estimated about six "fairly polished prototypes" discarded. [7]
  2. ↑ Bennett Foddy of QWOP originally recommended Gasketball to Rogers after hearing about TNNS and Rogers's future game development plans. [10]

Related Research Articles

<i>Rock Band</i> (iOS) 2009 video game

Rock Band is a music video game released for the iOS. It was co-developed by EA Montreal and Harmonix, and was published by Electronic Arts and MTV Games. The game was released as a part of the Rock Band series for download through the App Store in several regions on October 19, 2009. On May 2, 2012, RockBandAide announced that EA intended to discontinue Rock Band with servers being disconnected and support being dropped on May 31, 2012. However, EA stated that the message was "sent in error" and the app would remain available to those who purchased the app. It was later announced that due to an expiring contract with Harmonix the game would be removed from the App Store. This occurred on July 31, 2012, and the game is now currently unavailable; though users who have previously downloaded the game can continue to play it.

<i>Final Fantasy All the Bravest</i> 2013 video game

Final Fantasy All the Bravest was a video game in the Final Fantasy series developed by BitGroove and published by Square Enix. The game was released for iOS and Android mobile devices.

<i>Sonic Dash</i> 2013 video game

Sonic Dash is a 2013 endless runner mobile game developed by Hardlight and published by Japanese game studio Sega. It is Hardlight's second Sonic the Hedgehog game, the first being 2012's Sonic Jump. The game was released in March 2013 for iOS, November 2013 for Android, and December 2014 for Windows Phone and Windows, along with an arcade release in November 2015 as Sonic Dash Extreme. It was initially released as a paid application, but was made free-to-play a month after its iOS release.

<i>The Room</i> (video game) 2012 video game

The Room is a puzzle video game developed by Fireproof Games. The game was originally developed for the iOS platform and released in 12 September 2012. The Android version debuted as part of a Humble Bundle in March 2013 and was subsequently released on Google Play. A free expansion for the title was released in August 2013. An enhanced version of the game was released for Microsoft Windows in July 2014, and for the Nintendo Switch in October 2018.

<i>Ridiculous Fishing</i> 2013 video game

Ridiculous Fishing is a fishing video game where players use motion and touch controls to catch fish and subsequently shoot them out of the sky for cash. The game was developed and published by Vlambeer—Rami Ismail and Jan Willem Nijman—and released for iOS on March 13, 2013, then later that year for Android.

<i>Threes</i> 2014 video game

Threes is a puzzle video game by Sirvo, an independent development team consisting of game designer Asher Vollmer, illustrator Greg Wohlwend, and composer Jimmy Hinson. The game was released on February 6, 2014, for iOS devices and later ported to Android, Xbox One, and Windows Phone. In Threes, the player slides numbered tiles on a grid to combine addends and multiples of three. The game ends when there are no moves left on the grid and the tiles are counted for a final score.

<i>Blitz Brigade</i> 2013 video game

Blitz Brigade is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed and published by Gameloft for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.

Action Button Entertainment is a video game development studio consisting of Tim Rogers, Brent Porter, Michael Kerwin, and Nicholas Wasilewski that has produced five games: Ziggurat (2012), TNNS (2013), Ten by Eight (2013), Tuffy the Corgi (2014), and Videoball (2016). The group convened in 2010 as Rogers worked on Ziggurat based on an idea he had while playing Angry Birds that he could not complete on his own. Porter joined Action Button after responding to a call for artists Rogers made via Twitter, and Kerwin joined based on a connection he had with Rogers from producing a mockup of a game concept Rogers outlined in his Kotaku column.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greg Wohlwend</span> American video game developer

Greg Wohlwend is an American independent video game developer and artist whose games include Threes! and Ridiculous Fishing. He originally formed Intuition Games with Iowa State University classmate Mike Boxleiter in 2007 where they worked on Dinowaurs and other small Adobe Flash games. Trained as an artist, Wohlwend worked mainly on the visual assets. As Mikengreg, they released Solipskier, whose success let the two take a more experimental approach with Gasketball, which did not fare as well. At the same time, Wohlwend collaborated with Asher Vollmer to make Puzzlejuice, and with Adam Saltsman to make Hundreds based on Wohlwend's first game design. He later released Threes! with Vollmer in 2014 to critical acclaim. His later games TouchTone and TumbleSeed were also the products of collaborations. Wohlwend was named among Forbes' 2014 "30 under 30" in the games industry.

<i>Solipskier</i> 2010 video game

Solipskier is a sports video game for Adobe Flash, iOS, and Android developed and published by Mikengreg, the two-person team of Michael Boxleiter and Greg Wohlwend. In Solipskier, the player draws the snowy slope for an on-screen skier to pass through slalom gates and tunnels. The character accelerates with downhill sections and can launch into the air to perform tricks and earn a higher score. The idea came from a brainstorming session about parallax scrolling with speedy action in the foreground and the ability for the player to "paint" the terrain. It was Boxleiter and Wohlwend's first game to receive public appreciation. It was released August 29, 2010 to generally favorable reviews and was a runner-up in the 2011 Game Developers Conference Independent Games Festival's Best Mobile Game category.

<i>Hundreds</i> (video game) 2013 video game

Hundreds is a puzzle video game where players touch circles to make them grow without overlapping. In the game's 100 levels, the player interacts with different types of circles to bring a counter to the number 100. The game was developed and published by Semi Secret Software in collaboration with Greg Wohlwend and was released for iOS on January 7, 2013, and on Android later that year.

<i>Puzzlejuice</i> 2012 video game

Puzzlejuice is a 2012 indie puzzle video game for iOS produced and developed by video game company Sirvo. The game is a combination of Tetris, tile-matching, and Boggle: players rearrange falling tetromino blocks into rows of similar colors, which turn into letters that are cleared from the board by forming words. The fast-paced game also includes challenges and power-ups. The development team consisted of three people; programmer Asher Vollmer initially developed the game alone, before reaching out to artist Greg Wohlwend for advice on the aesthetics. Composer Jimmy Hinson produced the game's music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asher Vollmer</span> American indie video game developer (born 1989)

Asher Vollmer is an American indie video game developer. He created Puzzlejuice and Threes. Vollmer also worked on Guildlings and Beast Breaker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mikengreg</span> American independent video game company

Mikengreg is an independent video game development team of Mike Boxleiter and Greg Wohlwend. Their games include Solipskier, Gasketball, and TouchTone. The two met in a game development class at Iowa State University and later began to collaborate on the Adobe Flash game Dinowaurs. When the project was funded, they founded Intuition Games with other college friends in Ames, Iowa, where they worked on small Flash games such as Gray, Liferaft, and Fig. 8 for Flash game sites such as Kongregate. Dinowaurs was one of the first games signed for the Kongregate platform. Their other games involved controlling the weather, influencing individuals in a riot, and riding a bicycle. Boxleiter and Wohlwend worked on several additional games that were put on hiatus.

<i>Cordy</i> (video game) 2011 video game

Cordy is an iOS and Android game developed by SilverTree Media/SilverTree Holdings LP and released on July 27, 2011. Cordy is a platform game with 27 levels.

<i>Robo Surf</i> 2011 video game

Robo Surf is an iOS game developed by Pieces Interactive AB and released on June 1, 2011.

<i>SpellTower</i> 2011 puzzle video game

SpellTower is a 2011 puzzle video game by Zach Gage in which the player creates words from a jumble of letter tiles to clear the screen before it refills. The game has several game modes and a multiplayer battle mode. The impetus for the game—the concept of combining elements from Tetris and Boggle in what was a prototype of the puzzle video game Puzzlejuice—inspired Gage to create SpellTower. The game released for iOS in November 2011 to generally favorable reviews. Versions for OS X and Android followed over the next two years. In 2017 SpellTower Minutes was released. This browser-based Flash game created special "blitz" like modes not found in the mobile releases. A new iOS version released in 2017 swapped out the unnamed dictionary and began using Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. French and Dutch language specific versions were also released. A 2020 release, SpellTower+, added new game modes, cleaner visuals, and a jazz soundtrack.

<i>TouchTone</i> 2015 video game

TouchTone is a 2015 puzzle video game for iOS devices by Mikengreg, a two-person indie game development team made up of Mike Boxleiter and Greg Wohlwend. The player monitors phone calls as part of a government surveillance program to find public threats. The player unlocks chains of emails by completing a series of puzzles wherein a beam is reflected around a room to a set destination. TouchTone's core concept grew from a two-day game jam immediately following their 2012 release of Gasketball, but only found its hacker theme following the mid-2013 Edward Snowden global surveillance disclosures. The tone of TouchTone's story grew from satirical to serious over the course of the game's development.

<i>Hitman: Sniper</i> 2015 video game

Hitman: Sniper is a 2015 mobile shooting gallery video game in the Hitman series by Square Enix Montréal. As the series' mainstay protagonist Agent 47, the player looks through a first-person sniper scope vision on their touchscreen device to assassinate several powerful figures who have assembled at a lakeside compound without alerting their associates. The player uses the environment to find creative ways to kill these targets, sometimes prompted by secondary objectives. Through mission progression, the player unlocks more powerful weapons and new weapon abilities.

<i>King of Thieves</i> (video game) 2016 video game

King of Thieves is a multiplayer PvP platform video game developed by ZeptoLab for iOS, Android and Windows Phone. The players must steal gems from user-generated dungeons and fortify their dungeon to protect against attacks.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Gasketball Critic Reviews for iPhone/iPad". Metacritic . Archived from the original on January 28, 2013. Retrieved May 25, 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 Rogers, Tim (December 31, 2012). "Why a Free iPad Game is Better Than Every Blockbuster Game Released in 2012". Kotaku . Archived from the original on April 9, 2014. Retrieved May 26, 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Edge Staff (August 16, 2012). "Gasketball review". Edge . Archived from the original on May 31, 2013. Retrieved May 25, 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Slater, harry (August 13, 2012). "Gasketball review". Pocket Gamer . Archived from the original on October 16, 2012. Retrieved May 25, 2014.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Nicholson, Brad (August 8, 2012). "'Gasketball' for iPad Review - Shut Up and Jam". TouchArcade. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. Retrieved May 25, 2014.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Kuchera, Ben (August 15, 2012). "Going broke with success: how an app with 200,000 downloads led to developer homelessness". The Penny Arcade Report . Archived from the original on April 24, 2014. Retrieved May 25, 2014.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Nicholson, Brad (March 23, 2012). "On Success, Expectations, And Brilliance: How 'Solipskier' Is Informing The Direction Of Mikengreg's Next Game". TouchArcade. Archived from the original on June 28, 2014. Retrieved May 25, 2014.
  8. 1 2 Mikengreg (March 1, 2012). "Introducing Gasketball". Mikengreg. Archived from the original on September 12, 2013. Retrieved May 26, 2014.
  9. 1 2 Nicholson, Brad (August 15, 2012). "So, This is What You Get If You Buy That 'Gasketball' IAP". TouchArcade. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. Retrieved May 26, 2014.
  10. ↑ Rogers, Tim (February 22, 2013). "Let's Talk About Touching: Making Great Touchscreen Controls". Gamasutra . Archived from the original on November 10, 2013. Retrieved May 26, 2014.

Commons-logo.svg Media related to Gasketball at Wikimedia Commons

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.