destino

You can click on balls anywhere to get them moving, this can get them unstuck or to shift order in the funnel

Welcome to Destino, a progressive pachinko game. It’s simple: make sure you meet your debt to continue. Simply keep clicking in the spawn area to get the balls through. That’s how you meet the debt.

Sho, I really wanted to participate in this jam. Since the 2023 one I had been thinking about what to build if it ever came again. I had tons of ideas in the corner pocket, all cool ideas, I think, but all pretty complex. But when this year’s was announced, I just wasn’t feeling it. Between work and other commitments, I just didn’t feel I had the energy.

But I thought about it and figured I had a simple idea: a basic pachinko game. Couldn’t be simpler. I even got a little motivation over the first weekend. I felt I got 90% of the game done and was feeling good, but predictably, Monday rolled through and the motivation disappeared. I just couldn’t work on it until the weekend again.

Even then, it was tough. Just a bit of a slog. That last 10% that I felt was just juice turned out to be more like 60%. Juicing the game was way harder than I expected, just lots and lots of repetition. And I had tried to pre-plan the game and lost the plot halfway through, so I dealt with a lot of silly bugs.

I definitely hoped the game would have been more exciting and interesting than this. I managed to get only one of the balls sculpted. I wanted all the special balls to be really unique, like the Devil’s Head, but next time maybe I’ll make a game that’s actually short lol.

On the good side, I did all the 3D assets myself. I had wanted to make everything myself, but that quickly became a pipe dream. I’m glad with how proficient I’m getting in Blender, and it was a lot of fun to make the Devil’s Head (even though it took me like an hour). One day I will make a game where I spend the majority of my time in Blender, not Unity... one day.

Still glad I got it out, and glad we have a chance to fix the game for later. Maybe if I get the motivation, I’ll make all the special balls unique.

Just so you know, I love making these as a little blog to document my game dev journey. Thanks a lot for reading, I appreciate it.