A chubby mother who looks like a cross between a Pikachu and Kirby bounces her way across the screen, picking up her equally chubby babies and throwing them from platform to platform. If this were The Real World, someone would call child services and charges would be pressed. Thankfully, this is Video Games.
Offspring Fling is an indie platformer coming to PC and Mac by Kyle Pulver. When we met Kyle, he was demoing his game on a laptop in a room where others were showing their games on huge projector screens and HD TVs. What Kyle lacked in hardware, he made up for by having one of the most charming games on display.
“The original idea came from a game jam that took place on Mother’s Day,” Kyle said.
“The theme of the jam was motherhood, and I like making platformers so I decided to take the theme and make it into a platformer. I thought it would be awesome and fun if you played a creature that was picking up its babies and throwing them around the level to solve puzzles.
“It’s tough love, but you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.”
Kyle designed everything in the game but the music, which was by Alec Holowka. The first version of Offspring Fling had 15 levels that were based on the exploration of a single mechanic or idea. The game has since expanded to have more then 100 levels.
“I put a bunch of objects in the game that I thought would be fun: there are deflector pads that will ricochet the babies around, there are platforms that will sink if you carry your children around on them and there are enemies in the games, and they all interact with you in different ways,” he says.
“Every level is a single idea I got from mixing and matching those objects, so some levels are just about dodging an enemy, others are about getting your children around by sinking a platform but not too far because if you go too far you get stuck. Every unique idea you could think of, I made a level out of.”
Kyle says he likes to think of Offspring Fling as a Super Super Nintendo game.
“I hope it’s an enjoyable experience for platformer fans,” he says.
“I’m a hardcore platformer lover myself so I put a lot of content into the game. I think the ultimate goal as a game developer is to just have people have fun with my game and enjoy the experience.”
Offspring Fling is coming soon to PC and Mac. You can sign up to the mailing list to be notified when it goes on sale.
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