According to Matty Matheson's character Fak, Ballbreaker is a fictional "Norwegian knock-off of Mortal Kombat... a fighter and a f***in' scroller!"
I was contacted by Senior Post to design and animate all of the visuals for Ballbreaker, working from notes from production director Sam Lisenco, the show's writers, as well as the script. We needed some more passive screens to not be too in the way as the game ran in the backgrounds, shot on-scene rather than inserted in post, as well as some more active screens both for cut-ins during Carm's stressful moments and bits of gameplay. We settled on a short attract mode sequence that included the game starting up, a character select sequence, and a few fights. They wanted an almost broken look to the game, with choppy animation and general low-res jank.
I made the sequence using a mix of software - I animated the sprites using Adobe Photoshop, choreographed them into the larger animated sequence in Adobe Animate, then exported and added some of the machine-flicker effects in Adobe AfterEffects. I had coloring help from Erin Lux.
This was really a dream project for me - I grew up playing Street Fighter II and Streets of Rage with my brothers on Sega Genesis, and I worked in a high-stress restaurant for some time after college. I looked especially to Streets of Rage for the city backgrounds, palettes, and overall vibe of the game -- while looking more at fighting games like Street Fighter for the surrounding screens and game UI.
