Abal Chatton

Written 2026-06-03

Last edited 2026-06-03

Abal Chatton was my first game jam entry. It was made for Acerola Jam 0 in a time span of 1 week. The jam actually lasted 2 weeks, but I felt like I already finished the game, so decided to upload it a week earlier.

The most important thing I learned while making this game is how the design of your game will change over time. The eventual game deviated quite a bit from the original idea. It made me realise that game development is an iterative process in which you constantly have to adapt your scope and project. If you've got a deadline, you'll have to lessen that scope creep if you want to finish your project. If your game isn't having the effect on people that you expected, you either alter the game or alter the goal of it.

In this case, the original idea just wasn't very fun. So I changed some things around and made the game more safe and predictable, in order to make it more fun.

In the final build, you create a group of cannonballs, each with their own properties, and use them to protect you from the enemies. In the end game you pretty much have a whole swarm of them surrounding you. The controls are really simple too. Press left click to shoot a ball towards your mouse, and hold right click to create a portal around the cannon that would collect loose balls.

Originally, the game worked a bit differently. I wanted to make a game in which you're kind of a planet who shoots out balls into its orbit. You would then have to 'catch' the orbs if they touch your surface. If you didn't catch them, you'd take damage. There was no 'portal' mechanic to collect the balls, you had to constantly track the ball you were shooting. Additionaly, instead of just clicking to shoot, I wanted the player to hold to charge your shot. And I wanted the ball to get momentum from the player flicking their mouse about.

Most of these things got removed from the game because I thought it made the game more stressful and boring. Catching balls you shoot that are orbiting around you felt really clunky. Charging your shots made shooting multiple balls really slow, and giving your balls initial tangential momentum was a bit complicated.

The game ended up in a pretty low ranking in the jam, because I was too shy to interact with other game developers. I didn't play any other game from the jam.

Play it here!