I love doodling. Drawing unique characters, interesting landscapes, and mysterious artifactes from the blank page is, to me, the raw essence of creativity. All things are born from the blank page. I wanted to make a game that allowed you to express yourself in a fun and casual way — no expecatations. Most importantly: You don’t have to be good at drawing to play Balloon Art!
I’m writing this design journal late in the development cycle for this game, so first allow me to catch you up on a bit of its history.
This game started as an ant colony building game
It was titled Yes, My Queen! You played a queen ant who needed to build a thriving colony to endure the hardships of nature. It had its good moments, but ultimately the drawing aspect was difficult to work with, as you had to draw tunnels to connect chambers that were dooddled in the shape of what you needed ants to do. For example, if you were being attacked, you’d need to draw swords, shields, guns, or other weapons to stave off the threat.
It was a neat idea but had several clunky bits that interferred with the core fun: doodling weird shit.
From Ants to Balloons
The current iteration of Balloon Art has you doodling requests, generated through a combination of D6 rolls and a choice from twelve concepts, on balloons without lifting your pencil or exceeding the bounds of the balloons.
Changing the theme of the game, while a dramatic pivot, felt right. And it plays better!
Instead of you trying to draw chambers to respond to challenges, you’re drawing different prompts. Not only do you have some limitations to how you can draw, you also must choose a flair that will make drawing even more challenging! (In a fun way, I promise.)
Your goal is to get a high score and become a Balloon Art celebrity! You’ll amass more points by picking more difficult flairs (like the ones pictured above) and drawing in smaller balloons. But be careful! If you violate one of the drawing rules (draw outside the balloon, don’t draw the request, don’t connect the lines of your drawing, etc) then the balloon pops and is worthless!
What does a physical copy of this game look like?
This game is designed to be printed on a sheet of letter-sized paper. I’ll probably also make an A4 version of the game.
Balloon Art is going to be available to purchase as a print and play, available for purchase on itch.io and the Mutant Pizza Store. The game will release with a bundle option that includes five categories, or you can buy individual categories. The bundle will be the best deal (I’m probably going to charge $3.00 USD for it). Each individual category will be priced at $1.00.
Looks neat, what’s next?
There are a few things that I need to work out here, such as do I want to turn the flairs into a multiplier instead of its current additive function. This would encourage you to draw in smaller balloons with more challenging flairs to gain more points and reach that celeb status.
Right now, it’s in portrait, but I’m going to play with a landscape layout to see if that feels better.
I’m toying with the idea of offering a free promo copy for people who buy any of my games at the PAX West Indie Games Market. That’s only if I’m able to get a playable version ready by then (which is in four days, ahhh!); we’ll see.
Mutant Pizza 