Origin
How it started
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The fan
After hanging out with some friends, I couldn't sleep, and I had an itch to build a game. I had just shipped Word Voyager, but I wanted something more strategic and casual, in the vein of Flappy Bird and Angry Birds. Lying in bed, staring around the room, I looked at the fan and thought: what if I pitched a ball through that? Then, what if it was a giant windmill you throw a ball through?
The all-nighter
I pulled out my phone and asked ChatGPT to find a similar game. Nothing good. I checked the App Store. Nothing good. So I prototyped it. I stayed up all night building a game where you throw a ball through a rotating fan blade, then two blades, then three. I tried it. I was addicted already.
A character
By morning, my ADHD hyper-fixation was in overdrive. I called a friend, showed him the prototype, and said: what if the ball had a character? A light form trying to pass through different obstacles. We spent the next couple of hours, with ChatGPT in the mix, coming up with a life of worlds and obstacles. After burning food I forgot on the grill, I sat down and started coding my way through the game.
Spark
What started as a ball pitched through some blades turned into Spark. A living ball of light, trapped on Earth, trying to jump through portals blocked by obstacles. It has one goal: make it back home to its planet, Luma.
Twenty worlds
I felt pretty proud. I worked on it for weeks. I started with 10 worlds, and after enough trial and error I was finishing the game too fast. So I doubled the worlds and threw in more obstacles: a vanishing portal, lasers in space, asteroids, and satellites you bounce off.