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Can I make a bouncy ball game DEEP & EMOTIONAL?
Key insights
5 takeaways- 01Minimalist mechanics, such as a bouncy ball physics loop, can effectively serve as a vessel for complex emotional themes like grief and parental regret.
- 02The project utilizes the Unity engine to build a 2D environment, employing a custom parallax script to create depth and immersion within a summer-themed setting.
- 03The gameplay loop is intentionally designed as a metaphor for the progression of life, with increasing difficulty levels mirroring the protagonist's struggle to process past trauma.
- 04Technical complexity is not a requirement for emotional impact, as the project demonstrates that vulnerable, autobiographical narratives can anchor simple, abstract interactive experiences.
- 05Emotional resonance is achieved by aligning atmospheric storytelling with gameplay milestones, using voice-acted segments triggered by specific player actions.
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Transcript
Is it possible? That's the question. That's what we've been all That's what we've been all wondering. Is it possible to make an indie game about a little bouncy ball and make it emotional and tell a beautiful story through that little bouncy ball? My name is Thomas Brush. I make indie games for a living. And yesterday, I decided, you know, I'm going to take that challenge up. I'm going to make a game about a bouncy ball. And I'm gonna make my audience weep and squeal with sadness. Is that a phrase? Squeal with sadness. Hopefully, guys, when we play the game at the end of this video, you will squeal with sadness. So, I started the game out with a very simple ball inside of this program called Unity. A lot of you know this. Unity is a cool tool to make games for fools. And then I added a bouncy physics material to it. And suddenly the ball is bouncing and it comes to life. Wow. Why not click the ball and it bounces in
a certain direction and you can sort of click click click click click click click and it will bounce into infinity. Right after that I went into Photoshop and I decided, okay, look, this game is not emotional. This game is very unemotional. Well, I'm going to jump into Photoshop and do my best to create some kind of atmosphere that makes me feel emotional. Well, it's crispy, dry, cold, boring winter in South Carolina. And so, my heart really feels warm and cozy and almost tearful thinking about summer. So, I created this beautiful summer landscape inside of Photoshop. I created this vibrant ball. I love seeing storm clouds in the distance in the summer. That's a really emotional uh image for me. I don't know why. So, I just brought this illustration into Unity and I just sort of pulled layers from this Photoshop file and created this parallaxed look as the ball goes up into the sky. So, I actually decided to use a parallax script that I've been using for my previous 2D games as
opposed to using a projective what's it called? Orthographic perspective. A perspective camera. So instead of a th three-dimensional camera and then sort of bringing the layers back in the Zaxis, it's all on one axis, but the layers are moving per the camera's position based on a script and it simulates a parallax. So I created that script. I put it in the game and voila, when you're when you're jumping up into the air, it feels like you're in this beautiful summer landscape. There was a mechanic, but there was no core game loop. And so what you want with a core game loop is a challenge. You defeat the challenge and you do it again and it's harder and harder and harder. The reason why core game loops resonate so much with human beings is because that's your life, guys. It gets really, really hard year after year after year until you die. And then finally, I wanted to tell the story. So I took a little trick out of the David Whe playbook. For those of you who don't know, David Why has a
YouTube channel called GameDev Unlocked. And David Whe has this great game called The First Tree. And in it, he just talks and does voice acting and tells a story through this very simplistic, abstract puzzle game. She was looking for her cubs. What did she do? She ran. I sort of did the same thing. So, I wrote out a story that really resonated with me. Guys, I'm a dad of two kids and I got to tell you, I feel sad a lot about the mistakes I make as a dad. And so I was, it was very easy, too easy to write out a very sad story. I wrote that story out and then I voice acted the story. Check 122. Thunder flickered through the trees as Samantha and I raced into the backyard and I cut those clips up, brought them into Unity, and then I told that story on every layer. The way that
I did this was I had little trigger zones after each level. And once the player or the ball would hit that trigger zone, it would start playing the audio and tell the story along with putting some subtitles at the bottom of the screen. And so guys, let's go ahead and play that game. This game was created in like six hours and I hope I've accomplished my goal of making you cry about a bouncy ball. [music] It was a rough day at the office. My little girl Samantha ran [music] to meet me at the door and started pulling at my hand. She had her little pink and green paw and was asking me to play with her outside. [music] [music] [music]
I made up some excuse. Told her it was going to rain [music] and that daddy couldn't play outside. It was a bright, sunny evening, but I just needed to sit down [music] for a little bit. Samantha was persistent, and I don't know what came [music] over me, but I shouted at her, locked the back door, and turned on the TV. [music] [music] Time seemed to stand still when my grandma got cancer. But when Samantha [music] got it, time flew by. One minute she wanted to play outside [music] with her daddy. The next she could barely move. Too sick to talk, [music] too sick to eat, too sick to smile.
[music] I'll never forget the night Samantha died. She had a strange energy about her. She wanted to run. She wanted to play. On this night, it was pouring [music] rain. Thunder flickered through the trees as Samantha and I raced into the backyard. [music] She splashed through the puddles, kicking her ball to me and shouting, "I'll get you. I'll get you." Her face was pale, [music] but not in a bad way. More like an angel's. There [music] in the pouring rain, Samantha collapsed softly in the grass, a smile still on her [music] face. I'll never forget that little ball. What that little ball gave to me. A
chance to write a wrong and one [music] last chance to play a game with my little girl. So, did I accomplish my goal? Did you cry? Let me know in the comments.
Summary
The primary objective of this development project is to determine if a simple, mechanics-driven game centered on a bouncy ball can effectively convey a profound, emotional narrative. By leveraging minimalist gameplay loops and atmospheric storytelling, the project explores how abstract interactive experiences can evoke significant emotional responses from players. The core thesis posits that even the most basic game mechanics can serve as a vessel for complex human experiences, such as grief and parental regret, when paired with a resonant, personal narrative.
The development process utilized the Unity engine to create a 2D environment, employing a custom parallax script to simulate depth and immersion within a summer-themed landscape. The gameplay loop focuses on a repetitive, increasingly difficult challenge, which is framed as a metaphor for the progression of life. To bridge the gap between simple physics and emotional depth, the project incorporates voice-acted storytelling triggered by specific player milestones. This approach draws inspiration from narrative-driven indie titles that use abstract puzzles to anchor heavy, autobiographical themes.
The narrative content is deeply personal, focusing on the themes of fatherhood, missed opportunities, and the loss of a child. By integrating these audio-based story segments directly into the game’s trigger zones, the developer creates a cohesive experience where the act of playing the game mirrors the protagonist’s attempt to process past trauma. The project demonstrates that technical complexity is not a prerequisite for emotional impact; rather, the alignment of atmosphere, pacing, and vulnerable storytelling allows a rudimentary bouncy ball mechanic to function as a poignant vehicle for exploring the complexities of human grief.
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