Development on T.S.B started in 2021, initially with various notes and sketches. It started as an offshoot from a larger project called W.A.S.P. As development on W.A.S.P progressed I realized more and more that the scope of the game would take a long time to develop and that I lacked the knowledge to practically make it in a good way. W.A.S.P development ended, for the time, soon after. I formed a plan to pick features out of W.A.S.P and create smaller games centred around those specific features, to learn, gain experience and release games sooner rather than later.
T.S.B, early silhouette study of the ideas for the ship design.
For T.S.B I am focusing on the basic flight mechanics and the three C’s (Character, Camera, Controls). Once T.S.B is done I intend to pick another feature needed for W.A.S.P and build on top of the foundations of T.S.B and that will form game 2 - rinse and repeat until I have released a few games under my belt as a solo developer, built up experience and feature-sets to be able to take on W.A.S.P. I am writing and sketching on Game 2 when ideas come to me.
Active development on T.S.B started in mid-2024 on weekends and evenings. I wrote a document serving as a G.D.D that let me hone in on the focus of the project and keep the feature set small to give me some foundational ideas to further explore and build upon. The first weeks saw many of these ideas being discarded or changed from the G.D.D as after testing things out I went with what felt right for the project - a gut feeling. I left the G.D.D behind, it had served it's purpose of getting me started and the game itself became the ground truth. Development was agile and fast and I got the basics of the game, with much of the codebase based on a branch of W.A.S.P, up and running within a few weeks.
T.S.B - Early concept of ship gliding, HUD and in-world fuel-gauge.
The largest undertaking was several iterations on the flight simulation and controls, which underwent several complete rewrites before it landed in a happy place and will be carried over to W.A.S.P down the line. What’s a happy place? Responsive, glide-centric, and fast. At first, too fast, so I had to slow it down. It was thrilling for me to fly, but after letting a friend test it, it was clear to me that the max speed achievable in its current form was on the high end. I slowed it down to have controlled flight become a larger focus. It also came with a shift in the design to gradually build up momentum as you navigate the track.
A larger first playtest with friends and family took place just a few months into development, that generated a lot of useful feedback that made me rethink core aspects of the game to simplify and make it more approachable. I want the game to have depth in its flying mechanics but there was needless complexity in how to finish each level, which was removed after the first playtest. I also slowed the game down even further after the test and made the "ground-effect", where the ship "bounces" against surfaces, more pronounced as it was specifically pointed out from player feedback as something that should have a larger effect, "pillowing" the game and enabling long gliding along floors and use for navigation when close to walls and ceilings.
A second playtest took place shortly after with the new simplified approach, which was better received. I used the same playtesters (five or six in total). The playtesters were handpicked, friends and family whose opinion I knew would make the game more solid and strong.
After the second playtest, I started working on what I would refer to as my MVP, and this is where the game currently is at.
T.S.B - Early ship concept, "Fenris"
2026.02.07 - Liftoff.
Tomas
T.S.B is the project name of my first game. It centers around navigating tracks in a flying machine as quickly as possible. The ship holds limited fuel and the pilot, you, must navigate the track in the most optimal way in order to achieve the fastest circuit possible. Inspirations for the game are the videogames Wipeout and Skate.
Development started 2024 and has gone through it's up and downs, which is something I will write more about in future posts.
The focus is getting the game ready for it's secondthird playtest. I am currently keeping the pool of playtesters limited to a select number of friends and family.
