This was one of those amazing weeks of progress that doesn’t often come when you are 1+ years into development. I got a ton done AND took the demo to IbashoCon in Raleigh, NC! More on this below.

I got 8 new perma-boost tattoos into TORSO TENNIS this week, most of this was done in one 8-hour period I dubbed “TATTOO JAM”. On a whim, I decided to add MOUTHS to all the torsos in the game to give them more character and I am so glad I took the time to do this.

Day 1 - TATTOO JAM Added 8 perma-boost tattoos to the game

• Cheez Critters: critters have a chance of serving cheezballs
• Impatient: serve while moving and returning
• Reckless: Reload time is 0 until you return a ball
• YOINK-maxxing: every time you YOINK increase max health by 1
• Counterfeit: Identical Limbs activate Type Bonuses
• Guardian Angel: ONCE PER RUN - prevent a loss and return to max health
• Deep Pockets: If no shop actions are performed, activate the first pocket as a limb
• The Gathering: 75% chance to “Gather” balls from adjacent tiles when returning.

Day 2 - Adding Mouths

• Tattoo bug fixing (there were a lot, due to the hasty nature of yesterday’s jam)
• Draw and implement placeholder mouths
• Group mouths into sets of open/closed and trigger them at different points in gameplay

Day 3 - Prep for Convention!

• audio SFX slider fix and merge with Video settings panel
• Adjust enemy generation for better onboarding
• Fix RIPs (weak points) descriptions and mechanics

Day 4 - Ibashocon Day 1

• Discovered that the new tutorial is working VERY WELL for onboarding new players
• Found a few tiny UX things to fix, but no major bugs

Day 5 - Ibashocon Day 2

• Nice day of chatting to people and further confirmation the game is feeling close to ready to launch

Overall this week very much helped me feel more excited for releasing TORSO TENNIS in the near future. After putting the demo through the ringer at Ibashocon, it’s feeling nearly ready for launch.

Adding 8 tattoos in one week gave me a tremendous feeling of confidence that I can keep up with community requests if I were to do an Early Access release. The pipeline for putting new content into the game is feeling very quick and efficient!