The Art of Peggle
Bells and whistles
After the art is in place, the extra-special touches — such as music, effects and the in-game story — are next on the to-do list for finishing up the game's theme.
Brian and fellow programmer Eric Tams shared the duties of gathering the soundtrack and sound effects and then plugging them into the game code. The real trick to this kind of work is to closely synchronize the audio with the action, so that, for example, a Free Ball gently clicks into place the instant it lands in the Ball-o-Tron, and a fiery flame roars at the exact moment Lord Cinderbottom's Fireball scorches the pegs.
Eric and Brian also designed and coded the dazzling visual effects. Sometimes they took the artists' work and animated it, like each Peggle Master's movements. At other times they designed new pieces (such as explosions and fireworks) that matched the artists' style for a given level.
Stephen Notley, PopCap's technical writer, also went to work on the characters' "voices" to help draw players a bit deeper into the world of the game.
While they don't have audible voices, each character's greeting at the beginning of his/her stage needed to be unique — from Splork's alien vocabulary to Jimmy's outdated skater slang. To get to know the characters, Stephen invented back-stories for each one, coming up with tall tales of how each Master rose to Peggle greatness. From there, he honed the stories until they were the simple, punchy greetings in the game today.
Secret to success
So what's the trick to creating the theme for a game as odd as Peggle? "You try to go off the deep end a little bit" Walter explains. Going as far out as possible makes it a lot easier to see what works and what doesn't. "And then" he continues, "if you need to, you can reel it back in. Fortunately, we didn't really have to reel in a lot."
