The Making of Clash Cup Turbo!

Welcome to Indie Spotlight!

Today we have a top tier candidate for ridiculously fun party games – Clash Cup Turbo!

In essence, Clash Cup Turbo combines the crazy fast-paced physics of air hockey with arena-style combat, where players take control of an avatar with a paddle. Each player has their own goal zone, initially lined with a protective (and destructible) barrier. It’s your job to score on the enemy goal before they make it to yours!

Each playable character has a unique special power that can be used during a match, such as creating a black hole to manipulate the puck’s movement or spawning a body double to cover more ground. Striking goal barriers and parts of the arena (like bumpers) will randomly spawn energy orbs. Pick up enough of these and you can unleash your powers to sway the game in your favor.

This game has everything you need for a fun gathering. Matches are scored on a first-to-three basis. The puck speeds up as you go, so eventually someone has to miss. You’ll be on your toes every second fighting, yelling and laughing with friends. It’s easy to pick up, hard to put down.

I had the chance to speak with CCT artist Mike Odum about the project. Here is some behind-the-scenes information:

NC: How did the idea for Clash Cup Turbo come about?

MO: The inspiration for Clash Cup Turbo came from a weird place — it was sparked by a Hello Kitty game called San Rio Smash Ball. It was brought out at a party as kind of a joke for everyone to play, but it turned out to be a lot of fun to the point where people (including myself) ignored other games at the party to play it. After quite a few rounds I thought “Man, this gameplay could really go a long way as a party game with more features.” I jotted down a couple ideas to that effect like “up to 4 players,” “special moves for each character,” etc., and it just snowballed from there. About a month later I showed the team a video of SRSB and presented the Clash Cup design. The next day we started working on a prototype.

NC: Have you faced any big challenges during development?

MO: We’ve definitely faced some challenges during Clash Cup‘s production, the biggest of which I think has been getting the core gameplay to feel right. Early on we got a lot of comments from players about the general speed and duration of matches. A lot of people felt the game was slow and that the general hype of a match didn’t escalate to a satisfying conclusion. We had all kinds of wild ideas about how to address these concerns but many of them conflicted with the simplicity of play we wanted to maintain. After some trial and error we eventually, arrived at what we showed in the MAGfest build, which we feel is very close to what we and players want gameplay wise.

NC: We’ve seen the demo at MAGFest 13 — what else is ROOT 76 planning to
add/change in the game?

MO: The build we showed at MAGfest highlighted most of the primary game features, like local multiplayer, special moves, and unique characters, but we still have a lot to add in terms of content. We plan to have a good number of playable characters, at least 18 stages (of 6 different themes), and a few more modes of play. A lot of UI will also probably get re-designed based on some great feedback from players.

NC: What’s your projected release date?

MO: We are looking to release the game this year, but don’t hold us too hard to that, a lot needs to come together and we’re perfectionists. Something, something, indie dev.

NC: Anything else you’d like to throw out to your current and upcoming fans?

MO: Just thanks to everyone who’s played Clash Cup thus far, keep the great feedback coming, and stay tuned for updates on Twitter and Facebook @ROOT76Games!