SIPBLOG: Team Badgers on Bikes – 7/14/26

Team Badgers on Bikes

By Rose Briggs (Programmer) and Cooper Bulmash (Lead Artist)

Team Badgers on Bikes bonding in Unity Hall.

What’s that in the sky? It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No… it’s definitely a bird… it is James Bird!!

Going into the home stretch of SIP, team Badgers on Bikes is knee deep in production as we continue to push towards the beta build of our game Drop off Dragon! We are working out kinks, fixing bugs, and finalizing our last levels while we get more and more feedback from playtesters both inside and outside the program. Our game has come a long way in the last couple weeks and we are all incredibly excited to see where it will go in the coming two weeks before release!

One of our keys to keeping our development cycle moving is our team dynamic that thrives on bad jokes. We have a handful of running bits and jokes that have snowballed over the course of the whole internship, developing into the entire soul of the team. We have handled some of the most difficult roadblocks with ease by keeping each other’s spirits high and picking one another up when we stumble. This team dynamic has made the process of production great since giving feedback feels less like criticism of work and more like encouragement to make the piece as good as it possibly can be. Keeping it lighthearted and fun reminds us that this is a creative process and sometimes things need to be reworked.

Many ideas for how things in the game should work have come out of these inside jokes! For example, a joke character we came up with early in development named Skele-Tony came back recently as the collectables scattered around the level. Additionally, we made in universe versions of each team member which later became part of a credits cinematic. Adding both these elements and several of our other jokes to the game has gone a long way in adding soul to the world it takes place in! A family of Jane Wax here, a laughing Jake mirror there, and suddenly there is life and personality to the world and it is more than just an empty platforming challenge.

We are all so lucky to have this opportunity here at MassDiGI and are incredibly proud of the work we have done so far! With our release date rapidly approaching we are very excited to show you all what we have been cooking up with Drop off Dragon!!

Finally, a word from our producer James: “Bird.”