Welcome back to another Patchkins Party devlog.
Today, we are talking about one of the most important parts of the game: the drawing system (Codex).
While we have the traditional game mode where you can pick 1 item to grief place on the map to make life difficult for your friends, we focus on why we put so much soul into the drawing system.
Think fast, but draw faster!
At the start of each round, every player gets a short window to draw an object.
Sounds simple enough, right? NAHHHH!
You need to sketch the shape of the object you want before time runs out. If you succeed, that object is yours to place anywhere on the map. If you fail, you will have to race without it. (And look like an ass, literally.)
Why Drawing?
We wanted players to participate before the start of the race, so we experimented with different ways to include drawing and other preparation.well
Being able to rapidly draw a trap, place it on the game board, and watch your friends panic and change their strategy because of your evil plan fills you with a feeling of pride and accomplishment.
It also creates some of the best moments in the game.
Why Timing is Important
If there were no timer, everyone would just draw very carefully, then move on, but with a timer, all of a sudden, everything becomes very frantic.
There is pressure on you to make a decision, create a drawing quickly, and save yourself at the last second.
The addition of a timer to an existing mechanic makes it something that can be comedic and unpredictable, but also stressful to create quality drawings under the same pressure.
Making It Feel Right
The drawing system went through a lot of iterations.
Early versions were either too strict or too forgiving. Sometimes a good drawing would fail to register. Other times, the game was a little too generous. Finding the right balance was important.
If you'd like to read more about how it started, we went into detail on it on our 2nd Devlog, where we show the prototype version of the drawing system:
View game page
Final thoughts
We quite enjoyed working on this feature, which is what Patchkins is at its core: Enjoyment and a love letter to the genre of game we love playing, and embedded in it, the kind of moments we want to create for you. The players.
We are proud of how the Codex system turned out and can't wait to see what players come up with in their runs to cause as much mayhem as possible.
Thank you for reading!
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