Blog posting, commence! Its finally time to start writing stuff here about the progress of Swipecart. I’ve finally gotten around to setting up social media profiles for the project, as well as getting involved with promoting the game. I’m not afraid of the internet, I swear, just too busy. In other words, time to start whoring myself unceremoniously.

Clicking any of these wonderful buttons may possibly get you candy. Lots of candy.

Now for the part where I write about what Swipecart actually is. Its the crazy idea I came up with while waiting in the lines for rides at Disneyland. This was of course not the ideal time to brainstorm about a video game seeing as how I was on my honeymoon, but none the less as soon as I returned home I began prototyping a game about mine carts.

This is what Swipecart looked like after about a week of fiddling with box2d in Gamemaker Studio and finally getting the cart not to explode into a twisted mess with the wheels flying off at 200mph.

Note: Hitting lanterns, edges of track, angles larger than 15 degrees and anything else that may frighten the cart CAN result in the wheels deciding to detach sporadically and the cart to begin having seizures.

At this point it really wasn’t very fun. It was janky and pretty ugly to boot, but I thought the concept of building up speed and braking the cart at the exit could provide for some interesting gameplay and puzzles. I kept working for the rest of my post honeymoon vacation time, and even got my wife to help design the sprites that would become the basis for the entire concept. Once the cart movement had been smoothed out and the physics were actually starting to feel good, I knew there was something there. I should probably mention that this was the first video game project I had ever actually attempted besides the odd prototype, so I had no idea what I was in for.

Originally I had the notion that cute animals were the hot thing and the working title for the project was Minecart Moles. Each mole would have different abilities and allow you to complete harder and harder tracks. I don’t think people really like moles. I’m sort of indifferent to them, but besides having alliteration going for it, the concept was kind of weak. Then I had the idea to try and take the game semi seriously, and created the whole concept of a sport around racing mine carts in a tournament type setting. And thus Swipecart was born.

A year later, and this is where we’re at:

Stay tuned for more insights into how Swipecart got to where it is today, as well as updates on current and upcoming features being added.