We applied for the jam dole to push Trips further! We have a few ideas and directions for this game, and we chose a few (seemingly) achievable ones to tackle in the next 2 weeks.
One of my personal goals for the year was to exhibit at playtopia, and once we reviewed our options, Trips seemed the most finished and visually exciting game to apply with. So getting to put in some solid work behind it before applications is a great opportunity.
It has a kick ass arcade, graffiti vibe with bright colors that would look great on an arcade machine, and because of the pedals, we had always planned to make some kind of painted board to stand on with instructions and tags. Whatever we have time for, there are some fun options for an exhibit. We purposefully built-in the ability to use a variety of controllers and inputs, so adaptation isn’t an issue.
Core game phases#
We’re gonna finish the last 2 game phases - these are called Choice and Chance. They’re 3 face down cards, and 3 face up, reserved for the end game. This takes some refactoring, but makes for a really fun, chaotic ending in multiplayer.
Custom art#
We’re adding more custom art, like some deck backs, and the cards’ power symbols, and updating the menus and overlays to match the new art style.
Guidance & controls#
Our demo players’ feedback confirmed that new players will need more in-game help, to explain the rules and how to play. We want to add a tutorial scene, and write an NPC script to interactively explain the rules.
Trips is a combination of an arcade game and a physical card game, both of these are really social, so we thought having someone talk you through the rules was a good design choice.
To start testing the multiplayer experience and prepare for Playtopia, we’ll implement Arcade mode, just using multiple screens and controllers on one computer to start with.
This will include a leaderboard with player character art, and their retro arcade-style 3 letter initials, using our completed Character creator.