Nathan Tornquist.com

Solo Defense

Solo Defense was the first game that I put on Google Play, and is the first game that I make in every new language that I learn. It was one of the first two games I released for the Microsoft Zune.

The premise is simple. Like Atari’s PONG, the goal is to keep the ball in play. In my version however, you control paddles on all four sides of the screen. The game starts with the top and side paddles reaching across the entire length of the screen and requires you to move the bottom paddle to keep the ball in play.

As the game progresses, the top paddle shrinks and eventually the side paddles shrink as well. Eventually, you’re controlling all four paddles. The top/bottom and left/right paddles are linked. Moving the bottom paddle moves the top one in the opposite direction.

This game starts pretty easy and gets very hard very quickly. Over the lifetime of this project I received about 5,000 installs. Pretty good for no marketing!