Let’s talk about some of the things that we are working on!
We are a fairly small team working on Trailmakers, but we have big ambitions for the game. This week, I’d like to let you in on some of the things we are working on or have planned for the future of Trailmakers! Some are coming soon, some are coming later, and some are coming sooner or later.
SUPER IMPORTANT NOTE: Some of these features are more speculative than others. Some are being implemented now, others are on the drawing board, and some might be scrapped if they end up not being fun.
Treasure Hunt
Coming soon!
One of the core elements in Trailmakers is exploration. We’ve been working on something tentatively called Treasure Hunt that will lead you on a small mission for some new blocks! It’s an experiment to see if these mini-expeditions can be fun to add as recurring content. A Treasure Hunt is most fun if it’s shrouded in secrecy, so I wont say too much about it except I think the treasure will blow you off your… seat.
Ocean Updates
Coming later!
From the very launch of Trailmakers, one of the most requested features has been improved water physics, graphics, and vehicle parts to go along with it. In coming updates, we are going to get our hands wet, and give the area an overhaul.
When we launched the Alpha Demo, you could already make something that acted like a boat, due to the wheels having a bit of upward buoyancy. Stack wheels all around a vehicle, and you had a “boat”. It was a fun one-off, but not satisfying to play with at length because the water wasn’t very realistic, and the vehicles looked like floating cars.
The Ocean Update will be not be one update, but several. The first one will overhaul the graphics of the water so it looks better from above, and even when you stick your head under. This update will also add a few blocks that supports building water vehicles.
In the second update we will change the way water behaves when you interact with it. This will hopefully enable fun creations like hydrofoils, and make sure your speedboat actually skims the water.
The third update will make the water “come alive”. We want to make sure there are waves, currents, splashes and foam trails from the boats. When it comes to making water physics over network, it can have scary implications on overall performance, so the scope of the third update is very much up in the air.
Challenge Editor + New Biomes + Prop Blocks
Coming sooner or later!
We’ve mentioned the Challenge Editor before, and it’s still in our plans for the future. The Challenge Editor will be a way for players to make their own courses in the game by placing props like checkpoints, ramps, loops etc., and even making rules and restrictions for their challenge. The Challenge Editor will NOT be a level editor in the original sense, but a way to modify the existing terrain to make your own race courses, expeditions or engineering challenges, and then play them with friends. This feature is still on the drawing board, but we’re really excited about it.
As an addition to the Challenge Editor. We have noticed one of the ways people play the Trailmakers sandbox is by making their own mini-games. Who can float the longest without propulsion? Who can do the longest wheelie? Who can climb this mountain without using the roads? We are considering making a group of blocks that can deposit props in the world. The props wouldn’t despawn the same way that blocks normally do when they fall off your vehicle, so you can use them to make persistent objects in the world like cones or traffic lights.
How do I put this… The world in Trailmakers is very orange. We’d love to add more maps in the game with different biomes. One of the biomes that we alluded to at the end of the Expedition is an alpine tundra. It would add some much needed diversity to the environments in the game of course, but it’s also a fun way to challenge the game design. This would also be a great opportunity to introduce skis and tank treads.
As we get closer to the release of each of these updates, I’ll post a more in-depth description. Not mentioned above are all of requested features by the community. I will post about that next week, so stay tuned!