Rodents Sports: from 2 to 9 sports in three versions

How a volleyball and ping-pong game became nine sports, what went wrong with balance and how the AI learned to defend.

It all started with a simple request: volleyball and ping-pong with the same graphics as Rodents Chess. Today Rodents Sports has 9 sports and a cast of 24 athletes, including rats, squirrels and beavers from Ratudan, cats, frogs and Farmer Malaquias from Rodents Legends.

Version 0.1: the start

Beach volleyball (1v1 or 2v2) and ping-pong. The camera went diagonal, as in chess, because a fully side-on view hid the net. The interface was redone to match chess, and the AI-versus-AI demo in the menu was removed: the title screen became a still image.

Version 0.2: football, tennis and basketball

Football (2v2 or 3v3, on a walled pitch where the ball never goes out), tennis on a clay court and street basketball came in. This is where balance took work. Three lessons: the AI defender has to get on the goal side, not the wrong side of the player with the ball; the team taking the kickoff needs protection until the first pass; and nobody may catch a basketball that is still rising.

Version 0.3: badminton, hockey, dodgeball and bowling

+Badminton: the shuttle flies fast and falls slowly, with smash, clear and rally scoring.
+Frozen-pond hockey with no goalie, where the skates slide and you can pass behind the goal.
+Dodgeball: players who get hit go to a graveyard behind the other team and come back by hitting someone from there.
+Bowling with real scoring: a strike counts the next two balls, and a spare the next one.

Every sport has its own Cheese Cup, a ladder of rivals where whoever you beat joins your team. The game is paid and runs on Windows (itch.io), and its page shows every sport and screenshots.

Rodents Sportsgame9 sports in 2.5D — volleyball, football, basketball, tennis, ping-pong, badminton, hockey, dodgeball and bowling: Cheese Cups, quick match and 2 players on one device.see page →