After many months of development, it’s time to unveil (or should I say unleash?) what I’ve been working on with the help of several talented friends. Sparky the Road Clown is a game for iPhone and Facebook and will be released this summer. The premise? Well, Sparky the Road Clown is an ex-rodeo clown. A tough old bird that has gone a little bit cuckoo, if you will.

Sparky the Road Clown Title

I mean, sure, clowns are funny when they’re making balloon animals at the party, but what about at 2am, in a dark alley?

Good thing you brought a car.

Here’s a first look at our antagonist and an early screenshot from the game…

All the graphics, from the initial clown concept art to the finished, rigged 3D model of the clown as well as the car and buildings and textures were done by Chris from Fuse9.com — Here’s an illustration and two shots of the model.

Clown Images

Here’s an early screenshot from the game — and I do mean early, like Alpha stage.  We’ve since completely revamped the car and the buildings and everything will be a lot more detailed.  I’ll have some new screenshots up soon.  Basic gameplay is that Sparky the Road Clown taunts you, dares you to come run over him, and you oblige.  Your score is based on how far you knock him and how many pieces of the car he hits in the process.  Sure, you can just drive and hit him and you’ll get the front bumper and maybe the hood, but you get a lot more points if you swing into him from the side, tagging him with the passenger door (among other things), for example.

Ingame Screenshot of Sparky the Road Clown

And while it’s clear that the above is not going to end well for our clown friend, never fear — he’s pretty tough.  You can’t kill him, in fact.  But eventually he gets bored and goes home and the game is over.  But don’t expect him to just stand there and take it — those are long, colorful sleeves and he’s not above pulling out a trick or two from them.

On a final note, this game is being developed by myself (Greg Dunn) along with Chris Magee doing all the graphics and Rick Tarrant as the voice of Sparky the Road Clown.  It’s being developed in Unity3D and will be unleashed on the iPhone and Facebook in summer 2010.