Whatcha’ Makin’? We Talk Tracer: a Neon, Heart Pounding, Endless Arcade Racer!

Flyover Indies Podcast: Game Making in Kansas City

In this very special episode of the Flyover Indies Podcast, we chat with Flyover Indies co-founder Charlotte Trible about her game Tracer, a neon, heart pounding, endless arcade racer!

This is the first in what we hope will be a series of episodes in which we ask Kansas City area game developers Whatcha’ Makin’?

Stick around through the end to hear the latest round of the on-going trivia game in which the host, Caleb, competes against the co-host for world trivia domination. The score is currently: Players 2, Caleb 1. Will Caleb get his second point? Or will the co-host expand the lead?

Play Tracer here: https://espiongames.itch.io/tracer

Watch The Making of Outer Wilds - Documentary (Noclip) timestamped to the relevant discussion regarding floating point errors: https://youtu.be/LbY0mBXKKT0?t=1906

Read the Tracer dev log here: https://espiongames.itch.io/tracer/devlog including the “How to Win at Tracer” guide that we discussed briefly in the episode.

The games we mentioned are:

• Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask (3DS)
• Sackboy: a Big Adventure (PS4)
• Tracer (Charlotte’s game). Play it here: https://espiongames.itch.io/tracer

The game-making lessons we mentioned are:

• Don’t waste the player’s time. A novel input system cannot survive on novelty alone; it MUST serve good gameplay. Otherwise, the forced input falls from delightful to frustration (Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask)
• Movement in a platformer MUST feel great above all else. If a game has secrets to find via exploration, that exploration had better not suck. (Sackboy: a Big Adventure)
• Visuals afford function. Therefore, nothing is ever only cosmetic. If a character looks tall and fat, the player expects the movement to be slow. If a character is short and thin, the player expects the movement to be quick and nimble (Sackboy: a Big Adventure)
• Is there a formula for determining the proper melee attack range for a character based on character speed and height? There should be. (Sackboy: a Big Adventure)

The mentioners of the aforementioned mentionables are:

• Charlotte Trible (@ctrble) - co-founder of Flyover Indies and game developer
• Caleb J Ross (@calebjross / https://calebjross.com) - member of Flyover Indies and game developer

If you have any comments to make on this or any Flyover Indies Podcast episode, feel free to Tweet us @Flyoverindies or email us at [e-mail]. We might just read your tweets or emails in a future episode.

Play some of our games here: https://itch.io/games/tag-flyover-indies

Credits

Intro and outro music by Nash (https://www.nashhigh.com)

Subscribe to the Flyover Indies Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and many others. Links available here: https://anchor.fm/flyover-indies