A Unity media company has released a new computer game called Dudelings: Arcade Sportsball, in which players control a team of two-dimensional athletes who must use a simple set of moves to direct a ball into a goal.
While the gameplay is deliberately simple and old school, the release of Dudelings stands out because there appear to be few Maine companies that are putting video games out into the world — although the state has been the setting for a few successful games over the years.
It’s the only game that’s been released by the media production company Heavy Element. It took about a year-and-a-half to develop Dudelings, according to Gardiner Bryant, the company’s president. It can now be purchased for $4.99 and played on Windows PCs, Linux and the Steam Deck console.
The basic object of the game is to score on an opponent’s goal, using digitized, foosball-type figures who are lined up on the bottom of the screen. The opposing team can be controlled by another player or the computer.
“Pong was a big inspiration,” said 35-year-old Bryant, referring to the classic arcade game inspired by table tennis. “It’s essentially Pong, except instead of each player controlling one paddle, you control guys at the bottom of the screen. It’s like pong meets foosball, and those are the two big selling points.”
So far, the game has received modest but growing player counts since it came out in May. As of June, it was averaging 51 daily users, Bryant said at the time. As of Wednesday, it had received 17 positive reviews on the online gaming platform Steam, and no negative ones.
“If you’re like me and have been yearning for something to play that can instantly transport you back to that nostalgic era where REAL competition occurred with two friends on a couch elbow to elbow, battling for supremacy, and probably drinking all their mom’s soda … This is for you,” one reviewer wrote.
“Even if you don’t dig the retro-style graphics, stay for the game itself,” said another.
The game was developed based off of a prototype that Bryant’s younger brothers made. It was originally named for the doodle-style drawings that were used to design the characters, before becoming “Dudelings.”
“We actually stuck with ‘Doodlings’ for a while, but we changed up the art style to look more like Super Nintendo, so the ‘doodles’ didn’t really make sense anymore,” he said. “We leaned into the tongue-in-cheek arcade sports aesthetic.”
While Bryant has found he has a knack for designing and programming video games, he said that his day-to-day web design work will continue to pay his bills.
“My game is like, just kind of the cherry on top,” Bryant said. “It’s probably the quintessential game that I would want to play. It’s simple to learn, hard to master, fun from the start, and has a nice aesthetic to it that’s not too over the top.”
