| Pear School + | 44 Levels | Avid Reader |
When I was around ten years old, our family didn’t have much money—but somehow, we ended up with an Atari 800. I can’t quite remember how that happened (I suspect grandparents were involved), but that little machine changed everything.
I spent countless hours trying to make my first game—a platformer. I even modified the Atari’s character set to include a player, platforms, and ladders. Two “bugs” in that early game ended up defining it: you could still move while falling, and ladders disappeared after you climbed them. Without realizing it, I had turned a platformer into a puzzle game where you had to plan every move carefully to collect all the diamonds. Looking back, that was my first lesson in game design—sometimes the mistakes make the game more interesting. Sadly, I don't have any images of that old game but I can still remember it like it was yesterday.
Fast forward a few decades to the early iPhone days, and I decided to take a shot at making a game for the public, a match 3 game called Pear School (no longer available) where you can match by either shape or color and the name itself is an anagram of "COLOR SHAPE".
Jump ahead again to today, and I’ve dedicated a full year to making games under 5 Ladders Entertainment LLC. I revived Pear School as Pear School +, and developed two new titles from scratch: 44 Levels and Avid Reader.
This past year has been an absolute joy. With the help of two talented artists—Hannah Miller and Danny Croland, both USC Animation and Digital Arts students—we built three games that share two traits: they’re all a little bit puzzly and a little bit cute.
A match-3 puzzle adventure where a little pear dreams of graduating. Solve your way through grades using color and shape to reach the podium!
Clear all the colored blocks to complete each level and help construct the City Block Project.
You just want to read, but distractions are everywhere—TV, food, even friends! Stay focused and read every book in this quirky platformer.
All of these games were made using the excellent open-source Godot Engine.
–Scott Updike (sole member of 5 Ladders Entertainment LLC)
Contact us at scottupdike@5laddersentertainment.com
