From Ki Blasts to Tapping Buckets

Baby Guardian Battle was the first game I made for my daughter.

At first, it was not a tapping game at all.

What I originally had in mind was one person standing in the middle, firing ki blasts at wine barrels.

But there were simply too many to shoot down. So I switched to tapping.

Thinking it over, wine barrels did not feel right either, so I changed them to buckets.

Then I thought: ten stages. Each stage would give her a time limit, and as time ran out, a Boss Bucket would appear at the end. It takes ten taps to defeat.

Then it felt boring to keep the same hero from start to finish. So why not let it evolve?

So every time you clear a stage, the baby evolves once, starting from the Mystery Egg: ten evolutions in all. Later, I took that same evolution chain and used it in ZenoWorks 2048.

Ten Stages I Could Not Clear Myself

I could not clear all ten stages myself.

But I believed someone out there could. So at the very end, I placed a mastermind. Who it is, only those who clear all ten stages will find out.

Later, I let my daughter try it.

To my surprise, after only a few tries she had gone further than her dad, all the way to stage nine.

That's my girl.

She has since made it to stage ten, but has not cleared it yet.

She has yet to unmask the mastermind with her own hands.