Trailmakers has since its conception aimed to be the ultimate sandbox vehicle builder game for adventurers. For nearly a decade, we have built a successful game with a strong community of enthusiastic and talented builders. Our players are dedicated to building and sharing cool vehicles, without any constraints or anyone to tell you what to do – but we wanted to make sure that even more people were able to play our game! This presented us with an opportunity to bring the Trailmakers experience to people who don’t usually play sandbox games.
Our ambition with Trailmakers 2.0 – Pioneers, is to reach a broader audience of players, and get our beloved vehicle builder into the hands of mainstream gamers – players who would normally play games like Minecraft, Legend of Zelda and Valheim. Pioneers is a brand new, entirely free campaign, where players have to save the helpless Froggits from an invasion from the evil Botnak robot force that has come to exploit their precious planet, Gregory.
The big overhaul features resource gathering, block crafting, and enhanced PvE combat. Players will experience a more epic story than has ever been told in Trailmakers before, with a 20- hour-plus campaign.
To achieve the ambition of reaching the mainstream audience, we needed more gameplay and an even more engaging world, so we decided to look at the survival genre for inspiration. Merging Trailmakers with tropes from the survival genre was no small feat, and we had to spend a year in the prototyping phase to get a rough outline of what we wanted to do.
The most obvious thing that we wanted was resource gathering and block crafting. We knew that it would allow for the type of open-ended gameplay that we really hoped could take Trailmakers to the next level. This implementation seems relatively simple now, but looking back it was a long and winding journey. We experimented with players being able to lose blocks from vehicles if they were destroyed, and having the player spend blocks on individual vehicles instead of having their block arsenal shared between all creations. The final implementation seems straightforward now, but we had to experiment a lot to get there.
For the survival aspects of the game, we wanted to limit the player’s reach, and experimented with simple land grab mechanics. One of the first experiments was that you had to build power zones that could power their vehicles. Outside these zones you would only be able to drive on your limited battery power, until you ran out and had to return.
This concept eventually turned into the fuel mechanic that made it into the released version of the game.
Another challenge was coming up with the resources the player gathers to craft blocks. Trailmakers already has a big catalogue of blocks, so the resources needed to make sense with the materials these blocks seemed to be made of. We also had no idea how many different resource types would be good for the gameplay while still fitting with the blocks. The resource types you see in the game now are a result of many design iterations and lots of back and forth between artists and designers, to get it just right.
In order to make the game play more like a survival game, we experimented with different mechanics. Early on we tried with an elaborate land-grab mechanic, where the player had to build power pylons in the world, that would create zones the player could exist freely inside. When outside the zones, the player had to rely on a limited battery to drive around. This feature evolved into the basic fuel system that players can experience in the new update. The power zones also still exist, but only around the NPC settlements.
From our experience with the Airborne DLC we knew that Pioneers needed to have a compelling world and story. Originally, we wanted the planet to be populated by three different species. The Froggits on the ground, Chirpos in the Skytrees and Muldozers underground in caves. It was even intended that the player could ascend into space, late in the game, and enter the next DLCs this way. We had to scope a lot of this out to be able to focus on more essential elements.
In the Airborne DLC we had also touched a little on making missions. We knew that we had to expand upon this to make an even better campaign. We decided to create a more advanced mission system that supported chained story and gameplay events that we could place in a sequence to create countless unique missions. In the Pioneers update we have only scratched the surface of what we can do with missions, and we hope to deliver even more compelling and feature rich missions and stories in the future.
As the result of more than two years of experimentation and development, we feel that Trailmakers – Pioneers is a shining example of how a live game can maintain a thriving community while staying relevant for new players.
Trailmakers
Flashbulb Games
$29.99
$23.99
Jump straight into the open-world Pioneers campaign where you complete missions, craft blocks and fight BOTNAKs. If you just want to play around with a plethora of different blocks, there are five dedicated sandbox maps that will let you tinker with vehicles in space, water, and ground.
Sandbox gives you fun challenges, creative freedom, and high speed driving and flying.
Use the integrated workshop to download other people’s creations and have addictingly fun skirmishes with up to seven friends in multiplayer.
CAMPAIGN
In the main game mode, “Pioneers” you will dive head-first into a breathtaking open world with loveable NPCs, challenging enemies, and an adventurous story. Unlock new parts as you complete missions and build different vehicles for the different biomes and terrains – play the campaign alone or multiplayer.
You will join the Trailmakers: An elite society of engineers and are sent out to help the population of Gregory – a community of peaceful frogs who have been invaded by the evil BOTNAKs who are ruthlessly mining the planet and stealing its resources.
BUILD EVERYTHING
The intricate yet intuitive building mechanic allows you to either choose pre-made vehicles from the game and the community workshop or build your own vehicles completely from scratch using hundreds of blocks that affect both aerodynamics, functionality, speed, combat ability, and much more in a world ruled by reliable physics.
Customize your character and block designs with a heap of different skins, colors, and pattern combinations to create your own personal brand.
The builder is made to be as accessible and intuitive as possible for players who are new to building games while also equipped with features for the more hardcore segment of engineers: Easy to learn, hard to master!
COMBAT
Trailmakers offers an arsenal of 14 different weapons like minigun, EMPs, laser blasters, rocket launchers and shotguns to name a few. Set up a server with your friends or join one of the hundreds of public games to test them out in different PvP scenarios. Fight in the air, ocean, ground, or in space. Your choice of mayhem is entirely up to you.
MULTIPLAYER
All game modes in Trailmakers, including the main story, allow Multiplayer for 2-8 people.
Jump into one of the five dedicated sandbox maps, hang out and build together, test each other’s vehicles, or share and be inspired from thousands of incredible community made workshop builds.
Controlled chaos, land, sea, air, and space combat awaits you and your friends – or jump into Race Island where 14 different tracks are ready for you to put your name on the leaderboards.
This is the ultimate do-whatever-your-heart-desires game.
The post Trailmakers Pioneers: From Sandbox to Survival appeared first on Xbox Wire.
