The Big Idea
One ball at a time
The idea seemed crazy at first: shoot only one ball at a time and, instead of simply hoping to miss or bounce smartly off the pegs, you had to hit all the pegs to light them up; next, you had to get the balls into valued holes. Your final target was a flying saucer. And to top it off, the level ended with a rousing rendition of "Ride of the Valkyries!"!
This level was much less like Pachinko and more like… well, like trying to hit pegs and earn some wacky rewards. But everyone loved it.
The new goal of lighting pegs brought new dimensions of aiming and timing to the gameplay. "This new level was really fun" says Brian. "I turned to Sukhbir and said, 'What if this was the game? Just one ball at a time, hitting a certain number of pegs, clearing them from the level. Throw away the fantastic physics engine — we're only shooting one ball at a time."
Sukhbir responded, "Maybe we're on to something."
They definitely were.
Brian took the level and ran with it. He designed a variety of levels to test the new game functionality (also called a game mechanic).
While making those levels, the team realized they still needed to make the game more player-friendly. So they took a tip from breakout style games (e.g. , AstroPop): they made the pegs disappear after being hit, so the other pegs could be hit more easily. "It's just a fact of life" , Brian jokes. "When you hit things, they disappear."
Brian also had a revelation late in developing the game. He wondered, "What if some of the pegs were special — maybe they'd be the real targets and the others just obstacles?" Enter the bright, shiny orange pegs of Peggle!
Level one complete
After months of prototyping, the game mechanic was finally ready… and packed with fun! It was just what the team had been looking for in the Pachinko game, yet in many ways, it was nothing like they first envisioned.
But everyone knew the game could be even better.
