Cyber Truck: Save the Globe (CT:STG) is easily the most polished and well-rounded game I've made under 9 Cent Games so far. Thou, It was not an easy road to get the game to where it is now... If you haven't played the game yet, check and out! I'm always eager to hear user feedback and if you have anything to say about the game please drop me a line here on our website or on Instagram @9centgames! We love criticism, suggestions, or just nice comments if you simply enjoyed the game!
CT:STG started as a joke in a text message. "Wouldn't it be funny to have a game where you drive a CyberTruck through the arctic to save the penguins from melting ice caps?"
That simple sentence turned into me prototyping endless running generation, finding penguin & CyberTruck artwork for download and jumping full steam ahead into production which I did for the entire summer of 2020!
It all started basic conveyor belt generation mechanics & simple left to right movement which exists in the game to this day. During production, the idea of the Penguin Island dawned on me and it seemed incredibly nature that the meta game would have players growing a persistent island of penguins! This then lead to the customization of penguin names and wearable hats and things. Fun stuff, right?
After roughly 3 months of work, I shipped the game originally in latest August of 2020. Very quickly I realized how much more work the game needs before I can feel confident in doing real marketing work. The penguin island progression was half baked at best, the graphics were mediocre featuring art that remained from the original prototype, no tutorial, so on and so forth. This was the first mistake but extremely fixable through future updates.
At this time, my goal with 9 Cent Games was to ship tiny games in the fastest possible way, so in that sense I was very successful. A 3 month development cycle as a solo developer was a very short amount of time we especially considering I also work a normal job selling cell phone plans to pay the bills. I was definitely proud of the end result at the time. However, shortly after the initial launch and a short vacation from development, I was back at it aiming to release a massive update to improve the game in its entirety. I gave myself a one month turn around time on this update which was relatively successful except for the fact that I basically neglected the progression / meta-game entirely which I only truly realized at a later date and after an 8 month production cycle on another game, Mush Rush...
When you're shipping games solo, it's basically impossible to gage the quality of the game. For me, in part because of a lack of external testing. This was mistake number 2 and a challenge I still face to this day. Due to a simple lack of unbiased play testers, It's hard for me to visualize the actual quality of the experience of the game. So for a second time, only once I shipped the update did I realize how much more work the game needed and how much head room I still had to improve it!
Unfortunately for CT:STG, I was scheduled to start and finished an 8 month production cycle on Mush Rush. which took my full attention. Only after the completion of Mush Rush was I able to finally jump back into CT:STG for the 3rd time to bring it to the state it currently exists in today! This update cycle ran for about 2-3 months and included tons of new features! All new ways to customize the CyberTruck, graphical, gameplay, UI, & UX improvements all around, new achievements and more!
And, get this, I STILL need to publish another update cause I'm still not entirely satisfied! I also got some very valuable feedback from some users this time around in respects to how the game plays and it's general quality. So that'll be coming in the near future...
All in all, CT:STG has and will continue to be a flagship title from 9 Cent Games! I can't wait to continue updating the game and bringing it into the future! Maybe one day, we can even get Elon Musk to play and or tweet the game... Who's with me? đ
Hope you enjoyed this insight into the development of CT:STG! Stay tuned to 9 Cent Games for more games, updates, art, and fun stuff we having coming down the pipeline!
Cheers