Paper Trail
Developer Stream for Steam Puzzle Fest 2023
We are excited to share a developer stream today for the Steam Puzzle Fest 2023 showcase! We will be in the chat to answer any of your questions, and would love to hear your feedback and thoughts on the game. We will be discussing topics ranging from the story to accessibility options, and you can join in on the conversation over on our Discord after the event! We hope to see you there!
Spoiler warning!
Solutions to demo puzzles will be shown during the broadcast!
Happy folding,
Robert Maloney
Production and Publishing Lead
We're taking part in Steam Puzzle Fest this week - try our free demo!
We're super excited to be part of the Steam Puzzle Fest this week alongside some other fantastic upcoming puzzle games. We're currently the third most wishlisted title in Puzzle Fest which is amazing news - we can't wait to show the community more about Paper Trail as we get closer to launch.
If you haven't had a chance to check out the game - there is a link to a free demo on our Steam page so feel free to download and try it out! You can always head over to our Discord to provide feedback and chat with other players too.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1889740/Paper_Trail/
To the Treetops and beyond! - Paper Trail Community Update March 2023
We’ve got another exciting update to share with you - more level design, more artwork, and more cutscene progress! We’re getting closer and closer to launch and we have loads more exciting things to share with you over the coming months, so make sure you check back in frequently to catch our next update (you can also do so by joining our Discord and watching out for announcements)
Design
First Five World Level Designs
In our last community update, we mentioned that we were working on level designs (and redesigns!) for the first five Worlds that Paige will encounter on her journey. We’ve been using live testing to help streamline these worlds; removing frustrating levels, building on strong level designs, and even completing redoing levels that weren’t hitting the mark. There are over 70 separate pieces of paper across these levels so this really involved a lot of work! We anticipate that we will need to revisit a lot of our level designs as we move towards launch so keep your eyes peeled for testing and feedback opportunities on our discord.
Art
Level Select
We're continuing work on designing unique art for the level select screens which encompass each world. Below you can see the unique artwork for the Treetops and Cathedral environments (we know it still says Caves, but we promise, we’ll get to that!).
Character Animations
We’ve finally started implementing animations for the numerous different characters you’ll come into contact with as you play through Paper Trail. We’ve managed to complete around 70% of our character animations without about 20% currently implemented. We should have all character animations completed and added to the game soon!
Climbing Animations
We've had the climbing animations for Paige finished ages ago, but haven't had the time to implement them. As we try to round off the Treetops environment, it seemed like a good time to also finish off any unique animations for world mechanics. We're really happy with how this turned out, and it's weird looking back at how it was before!
Caves
We’ve been hard at work adding decorations to all of our Caves levels to make them feel more immersive. This involved breathing fresh life into long-standing puzzles, and new puzzles in this world as well as creating large unique assets to add diversity and intrigue to all levels, as well as triple checking fundamentals like readability and composition.
A fun and final part of every environment pass is designing the ‘Mid Art Scene’ - essentially a low-difficulty puzzle with a bespoke visual solution. In caves, that involves repairing a bridge to save the distressed Hermit. Upon fixing the bridge, the carved wall opens a secret window revealing the night sky complete with the moon.
We have one of these at the end of every world - so hopefully you enjoy these moments once you’ve helped Paige navigate the trials of each area.
Swamp
All new levels in the swamp have been dressed to a high standard, and are just waiting for the final sprinkling of unique assets to be ready for release. The updated concept from the demos has successfully been bought across to all levels now, with lushly layered foliage in every scene - we’re really excited with how it turned out!
We also have a dedicated art scene in the middle of the environment: this one is a giant flower that unfurls when correctly folded, opening up a path to the other side! Our Art Director had an amazing time coming up with this one so we hope you enjoy playing it as much as we did designing it!
Treetops
Taking the concept update for treetops that was completed last month, we’ve built a whole new set of assets for this world. This includes new buildings, lanterns and vines that really add to the whole “Treetops” vibe of the environment (which you know, is what we were ideally aiming for).
News
We're so excited to say that we managed to win two awards, "Best Casual Game" and "Best Upcoming Games" at the Game Connection Americas conference. Thanks to everyone for the support!
We are also showcasing at WASD this week - we've had plenty of people trying Paper Trail and have been collecting feedback as we go. If you're reading this and you saw us at WASD - thankyou!
As usual, we’ll continue to share more development updates as we work towards our release date later this year - stay tuned for more Paper Trail news and don’t forget to add us to your wishlist!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1889740/Paper_Trail/
30,000 wishlists!
We'd like to say a big thanks to our community who have wishlisted, shared, created content and generally supported us throughout this 3 years of development. We couldn't have done it without you!
If you haven't wishlisted yet, please do so!
Paper Trail has been nominated for four industry awards!
We’ve been nominated for FOUR Game Connection Awards that will be revealed at the Game Connection America Conference in March this year. The awards we are up for are the “Best Upcoming Game”, the “Game Connection Grand Award”, the “Best Casual Game”, and finally the “People’s Choice Award”. We’ll be there in person at the conference in San Francisco so feel free to drop by, say hello, and maybe even get a chance to play the game before release.
Now, you may be thinking “People’s Choice Award hey?”, and yes, this award will be given based on votes from the gaming community (that’s you!). If you would like to support you can do so by voting via this link and selecting Paper Trail from the list. We really appreciate all of your support and can’t wait to share more of our game with you in the build-up to the launch.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1889740/Paper_Trail/
Folding our way into 2023 - Paper Trail Community Update
We’ve been hard at work building new levels, mechanics, characters, and cutscenes this year and we wanted to take a moment to draw back the curtains and update you on Paper Trail’s development progress. This is going to be a long one, so we’ve decided to break down this update as follows:
Game Development
- Cutscenes
- Animated Text
- Collectables
- Design Reviews
- Beta Feedback
- Device Library
Art
- New Characters
- Caves
- Treetops
- Level Select Screen
Team News
- Social Media
- Events
- Office Move
Closing Thoughts
Game Development
Cutscenes
We’ve been working hard on our in-game cutscenes, including their unique folding mechanics and audio narrative. Below you can see a tiny sneak peek of one of our cutscenes, including the folding mechanic that makes them uniquely interactable!
Animated Text
This may not seem like a huge deal, but we’ve added animated text to our in-game dialogue boxes, allowing us to animate sentences or particular words to give our vibrant cast of in-game characters a little more personality. It also allows us to convey more meaning through the text itself.
Collectables
One area of the game that we realised was lacking solidified design was the collectable system. We've been designing collectable placement as we build levels, and had some vague ideas of what we wanted these collectables to be, but didn’t have many concrete design thoughts. We went back and forth on a few ideas internally but given the primary mechanic of the game revolves around paper folding, we felt like it would be appropriate for the player to collect various origami models hidden within the folds of the levels. We know, we know, this was definitely the low-hanging fruit - but it makes sense for the game and gives players that extra incentive for taking their folding puzzle-solving skills one step further to collect them. We then designed this menu below, which allows the player to browse through their origami collection, and even gives a little fact for each one!
Below you can see how origami is represented in the world as simple iconography, and how the UI actually discloses which origami the player found.
Design Reviews
We've also conducted thorough design reviews for the first five worlds in the game. This focused on identifying levels which were frustrating, didn’t fit the difficulty curve, poorly utilised mechanics, or were otherwise not up to standard. Once these were identified, we figured out how we can best plan to plug the gaps, what development and art resources will be needed to do so, and task up anything else needed to bring each world to release quality. Below is an example of the swamp review where there are 3 missing levels, and an additional 3 in need of some redesign work.
We’re committed to ensuring that Paper Trail feels great to play and that each level and puzzle feels more and more rewarding to complete as you get to grips with the thematic mechanics of each stage.
Beta Feedback
We recently ran a small closed beta to gather feedback on the demo - which went extremely well! We gathered lots of feedback and have been able to use it to double down on mechanics that people loved, as well as adjust things that people were not too keen on.
As we inch further into the final phases of development, we will be utilising even more closed betas, so make sure you join our discord to get involved with the next closed beta and help shape the final form of our game!
Device Library
We’ve acquired a rather extensive device library at our studio to test Paper Trail compatibility. Whilst we don’t have any official news to share on this yet but keep an eye out for future updates!
Art Updates
New Characters
We're very nearly finished with all the character designs for Paper Trail, and below you can see the initial artwork for our two new additions to the Paper Trail world!
We don’t want to spoil their stories, or where they appear in the game, but keep your eyes peeled for them and be prepared to help them both as you experience Paige’s journey through two unique and distinct level environments.
Caves
Our final pass on the caves is currently ongoing (very exciting!). With artwork now largely complete and cohesive, we have the luxury of adding dedicated art scenes and unique assets. This process is only just starting, but we’ve re-decorated the opening scene to feel more like you’re entering into a deep cave system. Expect more unique environment tweaks to come as we look to build out specific scenes to better capture our vision for Paige’s journey.
Treetops
We felt that the Treetops level was generally suffering from over-design, with an abundance of clunky mismatched unique sprites and too much visual noise. Standardising the buildings into which the teleporting doors are set was a large part of creating better cohesion - as well as small changes to contrast and colour correction. Finally, we improved the sense of depth by burying lanterns within layers of trees, and having vines hang down from the tops of levels. We’re hoping this adds much-needed visual clarity to the level, allowing players to better understand how to solve the unique puzzles this environment brings!
Swamp Transition Scene
At the end of every environment, we have a large transitional scene that links the previous world to the next cutscene. In swamps, that's a big ol’ tree. We wanted to get a strong sense of height, so we really leaned into the false perspective with this one.
Smoke Animation
Adding a non-intrusive animated smoke stack to the lighthouse that remained in keeping with the block-white aesthetic of the UI was a bit of a challenge for the art lead. Still, he dusted off his old frame animation gloves and got stuck in. Building up drawings of plumes, before layering them up and de-syncing them, we were able to get the hand-drawn look we were after. I think you’ll agree, he’s done a great job (please tell him he’s done a great job).
Level Select Screen
We're really, REALLY (yes, really!) excited to reveal the new artwork for our level select screens in-game. We now have two new designs for the Swamp and Ruins levels, both of which you can check out below. Both designs incorporate key landmarks from levels including statues, buildings and other structures. This gives each level select screen a clear visual identity and should allow you to know exactly which level you’re at, just by glancing at the screen.
This Swamps level select screen utilises a wooden jetty to connect individual levels represented by tree stumps. Whilst these stumps don't feature in the world, we think they suit the swamp theme, plus we just really like them. We also added some cute frogs that we love so much, we're now looking at adding them to the game (stay tuned for where that might be!).
This Ruins level select screen uses a crumbling stone bridge to connect all the individual levels (yes we know it says “Caves” still, we’ll get to that…. promise!)
Team News
Social Media
We’re starting to get a lot more active on our social media channels this year as we prepare for launch. If you’d like to keep up to date with the team, the game, or you just want to see what kind of banger memes we can create then feel free to follow us on any of our channels:
But really, please do like our memes, we work really hard on them…
Events
As we jump into the new year, the event season is starting again! We are excited to have many events in the lineup already this year, including GDC, PAX East, Reboot Blue, and Tokyo Sandbox. We are equally excited to be able to show off an entirely new demo to everyone with these upcoming events. Having addressed some of the common critiques at previous outings, we have made various fixes, design changes, and demo adjustments for a better experience for players at events. As we progress further into the year, we are also focusing efforts on Steam, including event live streams, especially with the wishlist successes of last year.
Keep an eye out on our Discord or Twitter as we’ll be announcing the events we are attending throughout the year. If you’re interested in getting your hands on the demo, or simply want to say hello, send us a message and we’ll be happy to meet you there!
Office Move
We very quickly outgrew our office corner last year, with our desks increasingly becoming a jenga of developer kits and test devices. Our current office space providers were keen for us to stay, and have now allowed us to move to a much larger space which can accommodate a larger dev team as we grow! We now have two desks dedicated to dev kits and test devices, which is great for QA testing!
Closing Thoughts
We’re hoping to bring you these updates once a month as we get closer to the full release of Paper Trail. You can expect us to update you on the game's development progress, new artwork additions, implementation of your feedback, and general improvements. We also like sharing our team news with you too, so you may get to see some of our faces here from time to time also!
Remember, join our Discord and follow us on social media to keep up to date with our day-to-day activities and don’t forget to wishlist the game on our Steam page!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1889740/Paper_Trail
Developer Stream for MIX Next 2022
We are excited to share a developer stream today for the MIX Next 2022 showcase! We will be in the chat to answer any of your questions, and would love to hear your feedback and thoughts on the game. We will be discussing topics ranging from the story to accessibility options, and you can join in on the conversation over on our Discord after the event! We hope to see you there!
Spoiler warning!
Solutions to demo puzzles will be shown during the broadcast!
Happy folding,
Robert Maloney
Production and Publishing Lead
MIX Event Now Live, Release Date, and More!
We are back again with another Steam event! Woohoo! This time we are participating in The MIX Next 2022 event, with tons of other great indie titles. We cannot wait to hear your thoughts and feedback on what we have so far, so be sure to leave a comment or join the discussion on Steam!
It has been a long year with a ton of progress made, and we are now heading into the final stretch with art and design polish. We are looking forward to sharing a brand new demo with you soon, with new areas, puzzles, and characters! We have also tied down our release month to August 2023!
We recently won more awards at Develop Reboot, including Game of the Year, Outstanding Gameplay, and Best Audio! Additionally, we we were a finalist for Best Art. Our next event will be Day of the Devs in San Francisco on November 5th.
In addition, remember to head over to our Discord so you can be one of the first to know when we open our closed beta testing for Paper Trail!
Happy folding,
Robert Maloney
Production and Publishing Lead
Paper Trail Won the Best Family Game Award at Gamescom 2022!
We look forward to using this momentum to continue building even more of a wonderful game. Thank you everyone for showing us so much support during this event! It's been a wild ride so far, and we can't wait to show you more of our game as we move into autumn.
Be sure to follow our Twitter and join our Discord to keep up to date with the latest news for Paper Trail and even join in on a closed beta in the future.
Much love,
Robert Maloney
Production and Publishing Lead
Wholesome Direct Demo Available All Week!
We'd love to hear all your feedback / bug reports / tearaway criticism! You can join us on Discord or drop us a message on Twitter!
Good luck, and have fun!
Robert Maloney,
Origami Producer