Welcome to Making the Game, our new weekly dev diary! Every Thursday for the next eight weeks we'll show you a piece of Baseline Boss: The Basketball Manager: straight from the game, with short clips.

We're starting with the feature that makes us grin every time we test it: the half-time insult duel.

Basketball is played with the hands, but it's won with the mouth. At half-time your coach comes face to face with the opposing coach, and things get personal. Your rival fires off an insult; you pick your comeback from eight answers. Find the one that really fits and the crowd goes wild: your fan reputation climbs. Miss, and the whole arena laughs at you, and your fans lose a little faith.

The catch: at the start of your career you only know a few real comebacks. The rest of your list is filled with the stuff your school kids used to shout across the playground. "Rubber, rubber, it bounces off!", "My dad is stronger than your dad!", and of course the classic: "Look behind you, a three-headed monkey!"

Every confirmed success in your season, like a first home win, unlocks a new comeback. Each one pushes a kids' answer out of your list. ("Your free-throw percentage is a case for the police!" Now that one deserves a real comeback.)

Don't worry: the duel never touches the scoreboard. It's all about pride and your fans, never about the result on the court.

Coming next: more rival coaches, each with their own voice and their own insults, among them the ice-cold ex-sprinter Margot "Ice Age" Kessler. (The game is still in development; the UI in these clips is German, English localization is on its way.)

Next Thursday in Part 2: The Story Expands. A look inside our motion comics.

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