Jugglers - An independent action game of skill
History
Jugglers came to existence during the Game Programming project at the Technische Universität Berlin (winter term 2007/08). The original "better than work" team comprised Felix Frank, Jakob Tonn and Georg Zabel, with contributions from Julian Bischof.
The project was conducted and supervised by Dr. Andrew Nealen, who also acted as lead tester. The first term of development was thus accompanied by the Game Programming project team. Through constant testing and criticizing, our fellow students helped us refine the core mechanics and designs.
The original design comprised the map editor, a crude tutorial, the Free-for-all game mode (for 4 players only) and the Precision mode as a gimmick. Time Attack mode, 3 player Free-for-all and 1-on-1 modes were additions by the current "better than work" team, which consists of Jakob and Felix. Other additions are support for non-XBox360-controllers, queued matches, the Hall of Fame, a better tutorial and tons of little improvements.
Credits
| Active Team Members | |
|---|---|
| Felix Frank | game design, gameplay programming, voice acting, voice engineering |
| Jakob Tonn | graphics programming, game design, map editor development, map design, graphics design, installer scripting |
| Original Team Members | |
| Georg Zabel | design ideas, code contributions |
| Julian Bischof | original sound effects, audio implementation |
| Special Thanks | |
| Andrew Nealen | for keeping us on our toes for half a year |
| The Game Programming Project | for tons of useful inputs |
| Magdalena Hoppe | voice acting for the tutorial |
| Jeff Weber | creator of the Farseer Physics Engine |
| Peter John Ross | background music courtesy of Sonnyboo.com |
| Rich Gast | for his Black Wolf font |
| All our testers! | |
The Game
Jugglers is essentially a physics game that burrows elements from Pinball and space combat sims. Players juggle one or more balls using fixed paddles in a confined map. They steal balls away from each other and try to keep their adversaries from juggling correctly. By keeping a ball in midair between her two paddles, the player raises its energy load level gradually. When hitting an obstacle, the ball looses half its energy load.
In it's main mode, Jugglers is played by up to three or four players and mixes careful juggling and precise attacking of one's opponents. There's a 1-on-1 mode that has the players constantly shift between defending themselves, nagging the enemy to make her loose her balls and then trying to keep those balls and juggle them flawlessly. The single player modes are meant as training and let you hunt high scores. There are multiple maps (fields) for each mode of playing.
Jugglers was said to be quite addictive. It's laid back and intense at the same time. It's not hard to pick up but there are multiple levels of proficiency which not even the developers have yet mastered.