Totems of Tag

It's dodgeball, but without any restrictions!

All players enter an arena. Hit your opponents with balls to remove lives. Only one can survive.

Each arena is different, powerups force you to think on your feet, and unique ball types keep games varied.

Players can control their throw power (by holding longer) and curve (by rotating). To make matters worse, players can perform dashes and tackles ...

Playable by anyone who just wants some fun, but enough strategy and skill to stay interesting.

Controls

This game is playable on Windows/Mac/Linux with any combination of keyboard and controllers. It supports 2-4 players.

To play the game, you only need two controls — move around and throw the ball — making it accessible to anyone!

Mastering the game however, with all its weird ball types and curving shots, will take time. (And some more buttons, if you want to.)

The 1-week challenge

I love local multiplayer games. However, I tend to make projects TOO BIG, so I challenged myself to develop tiny ideas in just a week.

This is the third game made via this challenge. Below are links to the other games:

• A Recipe for Disaster
• I Wish You Good Hug

So yeah, this game was made in a week. It's fully finished, playable, and tested, but obviously has a limited scope.

This game started with the simple idea: "what if I just create the game of dodgeball (which most people know from high school)?"

In the end, because of the limited time frame, I wasn't able to create an extra mode that actually follows the common "rules" for dodgeball. Instead, there is only one "free-for-all mode". Additionally, after creating the whole game, I'm pretty certain it would've worked better in 3D. So I might still make that.

And ... well, this is awkward. The idea of "totems" barely made it into the game. I wanted to make the whole art style based on totems, but soon realized I didn't know how to make it look good (in 2D, drawing complex totems from all directions) within the limited time I had. So the updated version (in 3D) will probably actually follow the theme.

So this is the wishlist for version 2.0 (which will be another One Week Game):

• Fully 3D (although lots of art/graphics can be copied of course, like the UI)
• Extra modes that make it more like the real-life dodgeball or a "sport"
• Bots to play against and ability to team up
• Even more arenas and special rules to enable/disable. Maybe an extra button/mechanic?

For my full thoughts about this game and the development, read the devlog on my blog: Totems of Tag: What I've Learned