Blogs

It’s 2am in the dark of a parent’s loungeroom. AVCon 2016 opens in 6 hours, and a barely working game is compiling for deployment. Pat leans over the dark table, lit only by dim monitors, “Hey Frosty, let’s do this again but with a full game, we’ll be prepared now”. Sam takes a minute to process in his half-asleep state, “Yep, let’s find a team”.

Melonhead Games began with a simple drive. We love working on games and we love unique experiences, so let’s make some! Pat and Frosty started pitching to other student developers at their course, soon enough we were a team of four. First joined Alex, a great artist with a keen eye for style and detail, then George, who's technical mind has pushed our blueprints much further than we could have hoped to achieve on our own.

After working on some smaller projects together we entered the 2018 Global Game Jam. A challenge to build a playable game prototype in 48 hours. By the end, while completely exhausted, we had our first build of Rooftop Renegade. A party game with one player running through a level while others shoot the track ahead of the runner to stop them.

We managed to grab a great office at GamePlus Adelaide, and over the next few months experimented with various directions to take the idea. This included a mobile endless runner, and an online multiplayer experience. Quite by accident we found a single player challenge mode was just as exciting as the multiplayer (Pat needed a way to test without distracting the rest of the team). Rooftop Renegade pivoted to a challenge-based platformer, with the party mode still included for local fun.

We managed to get both singleplayer and multiplayer builds ready for AVCon. This was the first time anyone had seen it since it was a Game Jam prototype and we were incredibly excited to get people playing. The reception was amazing, the enthusiasm from players was exactly what we needed to keep motivated after a huge semester. Not everything was perfect though, we somehow managed to end up in the wrong carpark after a rushed pack up. Pat and Frosty waited impatiently for Alex to come rescue them and get them home. Thankfully, he came through!

Since then we’ve taken Melonhead Games through NEIS, a government program to help small businesses get started. We’ve established a company and have been chipping away at the backend of Rooftop Renegade, making sure the gameplay is as tight and fun as possible.

We're plugging away at a build for our next playtest event and can't wait to show you all how far the game has come! Get your kicks!

Much Love,
The Melonheads