Created by: Polly
Music by: June Flower
Testing and Ideas: John, Sayara, Ghosty, and After5

Well, I had no idea at the time that on February 22nd, 2022 (2/2/22!) that this would be the beginning of what would become a bit of a signature style for me.

This was an idea I'd had kicking around for a long time. The reason I made this game (and any of my other games that involve use of the keyboard) is because I just genuinely enjoy the act of typing. I always have. Ever since I set my hands on an electric typewriter for the first time in 9th grade and proceeded to be at the top of my both of my Typing classes. That's really where these games come from.

The idea had been kicking around for a few months, but I didn't really start messing with it until February 17th, 2022, which is the first recorded date of me having sent John an early prototype to play for feedback.

You can give it a spin for yourself here!

ASDF 2/17/22 Build (2.31MB)

It's...not quite there yet, but the pieces are in place.

Rather than starting with all four columns containing Boys to collect or avoid, they started with only one and gradually began filling up over time. It was too slow and not exciting, so the first thing I did was change spawning to what would appear in the final version of the game.

During our chat, John had also initially recommended trying to add a musical aspect to collecting Boys as well as zazzing up the backgrounds a bit. The musical idea never quite came to fruition beyond the sound effects I chose for collecting Boys (which is just a simple EDM/techno kick drum sample), but I did add randomized background colors and random color changes as well as transparent floaty shapes that'd bounce around in the background to add a little excitement to things. These background elements have persisted to this day in all of my Boys games.

Once the look and feel had been settled on, all that really remained was to pace out the game's progression and how quickly the tempo would pick up. This is easily where I spent the most time and would record multiple playthroughs with a LiveSplit timer open to gauge how the game was feeling the longer you played and also kept variables for Boy speed and spawn frequency on screen to fine tune things in real-time.

I also made absolutely sure that I could play the game at its highest difficulty for at least 15-20 seconds in order to gauge how 'fair' it felt. Maybe not the best testing method in the world, but it seems to have worked out okay.

I added the one-time Bomb item, which was an idea I sorta nicked from one of John's games, Into the Vortex, fairly late into development. The bomb also lowers the difficulty by a set percentage, slowing the pace down and giving you a chance to get your bearings.

This added a completely new layer of strategy to the game that I hadn't even intended at first. I just wanted to have a bomb because blowing up a bunch of things at once is fun! (Seriously, I'm not a genius game designer, I just do things that feel fun or cool to me and somehow they just end up being cool mechanics sometimes!)

The last bit that needed to fall into place was the music. I wasn't really having much luck finding anything that I felt suited the game, so on a whim, I commissioned an original piece from June Flower who did a fantastic job of picking up on what the game needed and literally delivering on a banger in about an hour's time. It just feels perfect for whatever pace the game is going at. I really felt like that'd be a problem, but June's tune really did manage to be a perfect fit.

A small bit of trivia is that when the Get Ready prompt is blinking before a new game starts, a string of binary runs down both sides of the screen. This is a small hidden message that serves as a dedication to a dear high school friend I'd recently found out had passed away the previous year. Weirdly, both ASDF games ended up being dedicated to people. A little morbid, but that's life sometimes.

When the game released, I was honestly surprised how many people played it and how many actually put in time to achieve scores that were far beyond anything I thought any one person would aim for. This would further strengthen my love of creating small quick-fix score attackers as you'll no doubt notice as we march further into the next era of my gamedev journey.

A little over a year after this game released, I would do a functionally similar, yet obviously very inspired gag re-release named FARD (though it started out named FART) as an April Fool's joke.

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