What are the rules of Calvinball? You decide!

Just kidding. Here's a couple small games that you can play with your buddies C&H. Demonstrate excellence in the first two games to unlock a more difficult bonus challenge! Mastering all three gets you a whopping 9 stars!


Controls:

  • Left/Right/Up arrows for Toboggan
  • Mouse for Baseball (hold all the way for a full swing).
  • Mouse for the bonus challenge

Calvin and Hobbes is the property of Bill Watterson. This is fan content, not for money, etc.

Game/Art/Piano by Joel 'cajoled' Michelson

Music (compositions):

  • Excerpt from Sleigh Ride by Leroy Anderson

  • Excerpt from The Gardenia by William Bolcom

Fonts:

  • Calvin and Hobbes Normal by Martijn Reemst

  • Comic Sans

Scripts used that existed prior to this weekend:

  • scr_pathPointClosestTo - bojack29

  • draw_path_sprite - ticedev

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  • Lady Gigi
    Lv. 1

    https://youtu.be/C10877geZA0

    i played your game its quite fun i love calvin and hobbes ever since i was a kid reading the comic books and once i saw there was a calvin and hobbes game i knew i had to play this :) fun game. i got a few hits from baseball game.

    • Cajoled
      Lv. 20
      Cajoled Developer of Calvinball

      6yrs ago

      Wow, thanks for the feature. I'm glad you had fun! Seeing a game I spend a weekend making be played for 35 minutes really highlights all its flaws.

  • Jupiter Hadley
    Lv. 13

    Neat minigames! I included it in my GM48: One Tool, Many Uses compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/xLRwFoQlSuM

  • Fachewachewa
    Patron

    I can't even hit a ball once :(

    Toboggan was good tho.

    • Cajoled
      Lv. 20
      Cajoled Developer of Calvinball

      6yrs ago

      When my friends played, I had to tell each of them to swing earlier to hit the ball, since the animation is a bit delayed. After that they all got the hang of it, so I really should have put some kind of advice thing in the game about that. It also could have used sounds so there would be an auditory cue for the rhythm, as others mentioned.

      Thanks!

  • Problematicar
    Lv. 37

    Liked the minigame concept, could've tied it a bit more to the theme though, toboggan was really fun, while the baseball game was a little too tight on the timing and made the player wait unnecessarily.

    I couldn't manage to unlock the last game because of how hard the baseball game was, so that's a shame, but I still had a ton of fun with the first minigame, could've made something a lot nicer if you focused on that one probably.

    • Cajoled
      Lv. 20
      Cajoled Developer of Calvinball

      6yrs ago

      Originally the game was just the first minigame, but I got distracted by Calvin and Hobbes, and part of me has wanted to make a Winnie the Pooh Homerun Derby knockoff at some point. The last game was just a harder version of baseball, so not that exciting (no way did I have time to make a fully fledged 3rd game).

      Thank you for the feedback!

  • SirTotallyAverage
    Lv. 15

    Love the art and music. Fits perfect. A+++ I got the 3 stars in the sled. Took a while, but managed. Gave up in the baseball game. Got two stars, but could never quite tell what the correct position / timing was. Was hoping that the last challenge would unlock with 2 stars on each, but alas.

    Also, as others have stated, not really sure how it fits with the theme. I do really love the progressive mini-game concept though.

    • Cajoled
      Lv. 20
      Cajoled Developer of Calvinball

      6yrs ago

      Wow, thank you so much! The music was the most last minute thing, I couldn't get anything working on my computer the way it was supposed to. I have issues with playing in front of people, which is why the songs (particularly the Gardenia loop) are so short; I kept messing up and starting over until I realized (at 15 minutes before the deadline) it had to be incredibly short to prevent my shakey fingers from making me restart again.

  • Kwis
    Lv. 67

    As previous feedbacks stated, the sledge game was better. Also, same as Baku, I tried for a while to get the 30 seconds mark on the sledge but could never make it. As for the baseball game, it's very weird to play because I could never tell what was the right position. I managed to have the "feelings" on how I could slap that ball but despite how consistent I was, I only got one star. I did not try further cause that game is slower (sometimes Hobbes takes forever to throw the ball) and less exciting. It didn't matter anyway cause I needed the third star of the sledge game...

    Too bad, I wanted to see what the last game was...

    I found the soundtrack appropriate but the loop is short, so at some point it gets repetitive (rather quickly)

    I didn't see the theme there neither, (it's several tools, several uses here)

    • Cajoled
      Lv. 20
      Cajoled Developer of Calvinball

      6yrs ago

      I find it very challenging to get 30 on the sled. The final speed balancing was not sufficiently tested, but I'm glad it turned out to be possible.

      Hobbes definitely needs to throw the ball faster. And yeah, the theme is definitely reaching.

      Thank you for the feedback!

  • baku
    Patron

    Nice art. The gameplay was a mix of very good, and very frustrating lol. I tried for 20 minutes but couldn't for the life of me get below 30 seconds or more than 2000 points, so I unfortunately never got to the bonus challenge :(

    How does this game relate to the theme?

    • Cajoled
      Lv. 20
      Cajoled Developer of Calvinball

      6yrs ago

      It doesn't really, without a stretch.

      I personally find the sled to be way too difficult and the baseball to be a bit too random feeling, although there isn't actually any randomness in the swing-hit calculations. I think I should have made the hit window around twice as long, but with larger angle margins, so it would be more clear what the player does wrong.

      For an actually good version of that game, I recommend Winnie the Pooh's Homerun Derby (seriously) if you haven't heard of it.

  • Joseph
    Lv. 4

    I feel like you should have just focused on the sled game and polishing it up, as it was much more fun than the baseball. I couldn't even get one star on the baseball game, so there was no chance I was going to get to see what the bonus game was.

    That said, the sled game was almost addicting, I played it several times trying to get the three stars but finally gave up with a best time of 31.83 seconds.

    Overall, enjoyable. Would have liked to been able to see what the bonus game was. Maybe if it had required 4 stars instead of 5 I would have been enticed enough to try to unlock it. =)

    Parum
    Submitted

    Parum

    • Cajoled
      Lv. 20
      Cajoled Developer of Calvinball

      6yrs ago

      Thank you! I kinda addressed most of the things you mentioned above. In hindsight it feels like only a small amount of balance could have vastly improved both games, but the end of the contest was more of a panicked rush to get in all the missing content.

      Originally it was going to be a rhythm game where you sled to "Sleigh Ride" and pick up musical notes along with the melody. If you mess up, the notes speed you up to get you back in time. Sled physics ended up being way more convoluted than I imagined and it didn't seem like there would be a good way to make that game happen.

  • Rohbert
    Lv. 13

    So unique. So wonderful. So charming. Great job man.

  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    6yrs ago

    I really like Calvin and Hobbes so i was happy to see someone use them as a theme for their game. The gameplay itself isn't bad, but its a little bit unforgiving. The choice of instruments for the game's soundtrack is not great, and i would have liked to see some whoosh sound effect when you swing and maybe a "hehe" from hobbes when you miss with your bat. The sled game was definitely better, but i liked the baseball as a concept more.

    Overall not bad, but definitely has some problems.