History

The History of Lunar Ball

Posted: 1-15-11 by Zachary Rich, Lunar Ball Admin
Updated: 6-26-11

How It Came To Be
About 3 years ago, Lunar Ball did not exist and was not an idea of mine until my Information Technology teacher assigned the class a project of working on either one of three programs: Alice, Adobe Flash, and Scratch. At first I did Flash and attempted to create a Flash animation, but it never caught on. I went to Scratch to create a Mario-like game, but a classmate was in work with the same idea. Instead, I thought of creating a game much like the Internet sensation, Scary Maze Game, and the very first thought of Lunar Ball was formed. After hours of programming and many trials-and-errors, the first Lunar Ball came out on October 22, 2008 and became an instant hit with my classmates. A month afterwards, I completed work on Lunar Ball Challenge, the second game that featured a 2-minute time limit to race yourself through the hard maze. (see below for all the Lunar Ball games) {Picture above was the advertising poster designed for Lunar Ball V5.0}

The Gaming Sensation Continues...
After a full year passed since Lunar Ball Challenge was released, I began designs for Lunar Ball V3, which would have not one, but ten levels to the game with traps blocking the route. Lunar Ball V3 also featured a different color of Gravity Ball and the return of the original Lunar Ball level as Level 10 in the game. Lunar Ball V3 was completed on October 17, 2009 just before work on Lunar Ball V4's programming started. Lunar Ball V4, which was upgraded to include newer levels (the "Impossible Levels" debut) and a Portal to replace the Sun sprite used in the previous games, was completed on December 17, 2009...before Winter Break began and was premiered two times: the first before Winter Break at a class party and the second at a carnival as the first "digital" game at the carnival for use as a promotion for the Career Ed class that the game was created in. After becoming a huge hit at the carnival, work immediately began for Lunar Ball V5 (completed on April 15, 2010) and made its premiere at the carnival that hosted Lunar Ball V3 the previous year. After Lunar Ball V4 & 5 were created, the collection of 5 Lunar Ball games were uploaded onto the Internet for the world to play, and was instantly set off as a challenging game (as of now, no one has OFFICIALLY beat Lunar Ball V3, V4, or V5) and was later placed on its own website ( www.lunar-ball.webs.com ) with links to download the games and the program used to design Lunar Ball. Work on Lunar Ball V6 did not begin until August 7, 2010 and took two months to complete (the other games completed within 2-3 weeks) and was oficially dubbed "FINISHED" on October 5, 2010 and premiered on October 7, 2010 to be tested by the BETA Testers (my friends). After many years of work, the name "Lunar Ball" is a game likely to succeed.

Enemies & Future
On April 22, 2010, Lunar Ball V5 was premiered at the same time as another game was in the same location, WARP. WARP, created by my colleauge Eric Morris, is almost like Lunar Ball, but there are no mazes and there are two moving spheres flying across the screen and walls along the edge that you must deflect the spheres away. At the same time, a game on the Scratch website (the home web page of the program that was used for both Lunar Ball and WARP's design) was premiered that featured nearly the exact same features as Lunar Ball. This newer game, called Gauntlet, was created a year AFTER Lunar Ball V3 was uploaded to the Scratch Website. There is only one version of WARP and Gauntlet to my knowledge, and 8 Versions of Lunar Ball so far, and likely there are a few more Lunar Ball games coming out before it officially is stopped.

As college is being planned: two new ideas are being worked on as well: the next Lunar Ball game and a new website that the game will finally exist, ultimately removing its precessing websites and adding newer content, such as links to the game, video, a new Forums, and much more! However, work is underway to change the name of all the games for there is another game that is also called Lunar Ball (a game downloadable for the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad.) Unlike my Lunar Ball, the Apple App Store's Lunar Ball game (created by app designer Zach Winkler) hosts 35 levels requiring that the player draws walls that the ball bounces off of the walls to get to the portal. My Lunar Ball, however, requires you to move the ball through the maze to a portal to advance and without touching the walls. One friend of mine (who also serves as my game critic) claims that "You copied off of that Zach's Lunar Ball and should be sued." However, my Lunar Ball is not similar to each other at all, except by name and objective (get the ball to the portal). With hopes of a name change, I can one day present the games to become Apple Apps.

You can view the title screens and/or levels of each Lunar Ball below or see the entire games in the Games section of this website.