Finally, the dev blog is up and running! Thought I would give a brief introductory rundown of what this game is and what our goals are. Currently Northern Heart studios is a small, Minnesota-based indie development team comprised of myself (art, design, production), James Krantz (development), and Robert Frost III (music, sound).
Pinbrawl is a head-to-head, couch multiplayer pinball death match, in which players control wacky physics-based creatures and tilt the table to manipulate the playing field and eliminate their opponents. At this point, I am not totally sure what the game’s journey through development is going to look like, but here is a rundown of everything so far:
- 2-4 Players, controllers needed
- Local multiplayer only – currently there is no plan for online play
- Will be on Steam Greenlight very soon
- Planning on an early access release on itch.io’s Refinery, hopefully around December 2016
- Full release sometime mid-2017
- Release will be on Steam, and possibly Ps4 / Xbox One
Currently we have only the hill-themed stage, but the plan is to have 3-4 stages for early access, and 7-8 stages for the final release. Each stage will feature the floppy weasel characters with the addition of a unique mechanic specific to that stage. For instance, there will be an airship level featuring bazookas taped to the weasel heads, but the core model and functionality of the weasels will remain the same, with slightly altered mechanics.
As for sound design, a soundtrack is in the works, courtesy of Robert Frost. What he has so far sounds fantastic, but it’s not quite ready to show. The plan is to start adding sound effects and music, and shortly after that we will start a push for viral marketing, hopefully getting Twitch streamers, YouTubers and video game media outlets to cover it. The game’s strongest attribute is that it is hilarious to play and watch. In a similar fashion to Gang Beasts, the physics-based nature of the game makes it very funny and creates uniquely stylish gameplay.
I think that’s all I have for now. We will keep this blog updated with all the latest Pinbrawl and miscellaneous updates! Thanks for reading, and make sure to follow @JasonPfitzer or the #Pinbrawl hashtag on Twitter to stay in the loop!
