Charles Ali
@Tanuki_Suit
Programmer @BossaStudios
Hi all, I’m Chaz and I’m a programmer on I Am Bread. My job is to make all the fun/awesome/stupid things in the levels work, and to fix as many horrible bugs as I can (and occasionally I chip in with some level design stuff here and there). I’m also the resident show-off-developer-wot-is-good-at-the-game, and you have me to blame for the game being full of puns (all of them amazing, obviously). I’m known in the office for pulling off silly trick shots and not letting myself be outdone by the community and their bread skills.
Over the past couple of weeks myself and the Bread team have been working hard on a bunch of new content including the much awaited free roam mode! Now you lovely people can fling bread around to your heart’s content, with no fear of edibility loss or running out of grip (despite our grip meter having been extensively fine tuned). We’re also introducing the Rampage mode, where players take control of our new bread, the baguette, and must smash as much stuff up as possible to get high scores. The baguette isn’t as reserved as the other breads: it’s bigger, faster, stronger and a ton of fun to play as. It also doubles up as a pretty good catapult.
Last but most definitely not least we’ve been working on a new level, the Garden! We’re finally taking the bread out of the house and into the outside world. This level is of course playable in all games modes, and cheese doesn’t half end up in some weird places!
A big challenge for the team this update was adding not one but TWO new game modes. Setting up just the one new game mode is a long enough process, that involves creating a bunch of new states, scenes, UI, etc etc, as well a whole new bread which needs all of its physics set up, a new 3D model, new textures. And that’s not to mention setting up the new game mechanics and rules for each mode. Free roam mode sounded like it would be easy, yeah just take out grip and health, but then we needed to let you play as all the bread types and bread selection threw up its own unique challenges.
Once a game mode is set up, it needs rolling out across all the levels and then everything needs balancing, testing, rebalancing, retesting, then something breaks, then we fix it, which breaks something else and on and on and on, until that magic day when it all works! Then we sigh contentedly, relax for about half a second, and then Malford comes and tells us something else is broken. Back to work.
The hard work pays off though, and I’m really excited to see people play Rampage mode, mainly because it’s bloody hilarious, but also because having seen the amazing feats of bread agility the community has come up with with our more cumbersome breads, I can’t wait to see what you lot can do when your bread has a little more oomph. I’m also excited to see the crazy high scores the hardcore Bread players are going to post. I like to think I’m pretty good at the game and I can get some pretty good times, but some of the times and scores I’ve seen in the wild on Youtube, Twitter, Twitch etc are pretty mindblowing. Be warned though, I’m a pretty competitive guy, so whoever shouts about their high scores better watch their back!
Right then, I best be off, I have gifs of baguettes piloting skateboards to record.
Chaz.
Join club bossa!
