Hello everyone !

All recent posts were quiete tech heavy, weren't they ? To make it a little bit livelier, today, I will be talking about visual effects. And don't worry ! It will be more about how to design them rather than how to make them.

First, why do we need VFX ?

An obvious reason would be "to make the game look better". And that wouldn't be wrong in itself ! However, for the first prototype of Sur le Billard, it wouldn't be reasonable either to spend ressources on something not core to the experience. The reason why we need them is GAMEFEEL.

Indeed, as a narrative game, Sur le Billard is going to be pretty chill and relaxing. If you think about it, even if the player's choice have strong impacts on the game, these choices are very scarce over time : after having chosen angle and force for the strike, the game is only about seeing the balls move, be pocketed, and reading prophecies. No interaction until the player's next turn ! Yet, we would like you not to fall asleep in the middle of it all...

To keep the player engaged, we needed to spice things up even  during the passive parts. This implies sparkling and vibrant gamefeel !

Sur le Billard is about making balls collide.  We are making a narrative game before making a billiard game, and narration is triggered by collisions, so we think the most important event during the inactive parts of the game are not the balls pocketing, but the balls colliding. If we want players to try making stories, then making stories should be fun in addition to reading said stories.

That is why our first step in VFX was assigning a VFX to each ball and having it play every time it collides with another story-spinning ball.

Separate showcase

Health Ball

Nature Ball

Career Ball

Love Ball

Spirituality Ball

Friendship Ball

Finances Ball

Final result in game