About The Runthrough

The Runthrough started as kind of a copy of The Impossible Game, as a personal project for me to see how well I could implement fast-paced mechanics like it has. What I loved about The Impossible Game was how it made you "feel" the music, the mechanics are practically synced to it, and together with the background effects and gameplay effects it makes for a very cool experience.

Initial Prototype

The first prototype was pretty much the same as The Impossible Game in terms of style and gameplay, and featured the same levels:

The code was pretty simple, and a level was loaded in its entirety at the start (a "one room" sort of design).

Revision 1

This is the same codebase as the initial prototype, but with a different style, menu's, my own levels and more gameplay elements. This was the only public release (along with a second version which featured some more levels). It became a bit popular and spawned a series of "let's play" videos.

Revision 2

After I finished Sparkle I decided to revisit The Runthrough, developing it from scratch for touch screens. Revision 2 was my first test of implementing the mechanics on an iPad:

Revision 3

The third revision was built from scratch once again, using a new structure to control how objects are being loaded in, but still the same "one room" design.

Revision 4

The fourth revision was built differently. It started with a level creator instead of a game. The game-part was built later.

Track Development Tool (TDT)

TDT is a standalone level creator that I publicly released. It can be downloaded from http://tdt.djek.nl/. 
I made an entire online account system for it, which ties in with FastSpring, an online e-commerce solution. After someone purchases TDT, the license is put into their account, which they can always find back on the site. When starting TDT, they're asked to log in and enter their license code.

TDT has many features making the overall package quite slick.

Yes, it has a background effects editor, with timeline and preview... the timeline bar can zoom even... just for colored backgrounds...

I held a private beta, for which I picked 50 people out of all that registered who got to test TDT and received a free license for the public release.

Rungine

This is the actual "game part" of the package, a sort of level player that is included in TDT. It featured an entirely new design, and many new gameplay elements, as see in the TDT trailer.

Rungine was just a player, not a full game. I started development on the "new" The Runthrough right after the release of TDT.

Unfortunately, this new version has never seen the light of day, mainly due to technical limitations of Game Maker, and other responsibilities creeping up on me (finals, university, etc). It was about 80% complete, all UIs were done, game modes, in-app purchases, achievements, statistics, end screens, tutorials, pretty much everything. But limitations in terms of file I/O were extremely frustrating. Game Maker and its developers did not allow for files outside of its "private bubble" to be loaded, which made it impossible for me to implement the #1 requested feature: the ability to load levels from TDT onto, say, an iPad. It also didn't allow me to download and then open files (it would write files in a different directory to which it didn't allow me read access). Another thing was that I wanted the game to be more original, not a fleshed out copy of The Impossible Game. All of this caused me to drop development near completion of the game.

What's next?

I'm developing my own engine, HEv3. With that I'm planning to redesign The Runthrough from scratch, in a game that is much more focused on music and rythm, and gameplay mechanics which amplify that "feeling of music". To be continued for sure!