Alright, it’s time to look at what most of you have probably been waiting for. Blocks coming in 1.8 - both free and DLC.
Let’s start with the free stuff:
Short Truss Block
Long Truss Block
Fireworks!
The Truss blocks are girders. They give you that construction look perfect for building cranes or stages. The Firework block does what you would expect it to do: Fireworks! With the press of a button you get a beautiful spectacle. Use it for celebration or cinematic-explosion like effects.
There is a lot to unpack here but in a nutshell we are offering the ultimate Search & Rescue experience for Trailmakers. Build boats, helicopters, planes, firetrucks, and literally anything else you can imagine with these blocks. Shoot up an emergency flare and have you friend come find you in the (now) stormy seas that can be added to any map.
Take a look at the video below for a full overview and showcase of all the blocks, both free and paid.
Tune in again next week where we are showing the new, beautiful Rescue-themed outfits also coming with the DLC!
1.8 Update | Waves in water maps | Dev Diary #3
Hold on to something. Storm’s a brewin! We are adding waves to all maps in Trailmakers and a setting to adjust them based on how intense you want them to be.
You can turn them off completely (like they are per default right now). You can set them to “Calm” giving you nice, regular waves. … or you can set them to “Intense” to give you that rough middle-of-pacific-ocean-during-a-hurricane feeling.
Note: The latter setting requires the High Seas expansion.
Take a look at how it looks in-game here:
Remember to follow our Twitch and YouTube to get notified of the next 1.8 leak-stream.
1.8 Update | Player Event Feed | Dev Diary #2
The brand-new Player Event Feed (more commonly known as a kill feed) is ready to enhance your PvP experience.
The server will now inform you if:
Player is killed by another player
Player is ejected from their seat
Player is blown up by another player
Player teleports
Player respawns (backspace)
Player is building
Watch the video to see how it looks in-game:
But we have more than just 1.8 leaks for you today. We are also introducing a new bi-weekly concept called Flashblog where Producer Andreas Kidholm and Game Director Lasse Middelbo Outzen share insights on the development of Trailmakers.
Read the first edition now!
Greetings
This will be the first of many regular updates from the Trailmakers team. We have been wanting to be more transparent in our development for some time and with 1.8 being announced we want to kick off production updates from the Trailmakers development team every other week.
The format and lengths of these updates will change according to what is happening with the production of Trailmakers. Also, feedback and what you would like to know more about is highly appreciated.
To kick it off, let us have a look back on the last two weeks of development: Last Monday we released Trailmakers 1.7.4 which included a refactor of blocks and a power coupling block. The block refactoring is something we have been wanting to do for a long time as it first of all aligns the look of all blocks, but also enables broader skin support and very importantly frees up memory, which again secures many more years of Trailmakers updates. It is a daunting task to change something as important as the blocks in Trailmakers, but we are very happy with the result and especially the new possibilities the changes allow for in terms of functionality.
A free “floating block” exploit was uncovered after the release of 1.7.0 by a few dedicated community members. You know who you are. We wanted to fix that glitch as it was connected to issues in the weld groups. That sparked a discussion in the office over whether we should also let people have another way to get “floating blocks.” These discussions eventually ended up with the design for the Power Coupling block. We are all very excited to see all your crazy builds using that block!
Video game development can be a long and winding road and we want to provide you with the highest possible quality. This caused 1.7.4 to take a bit longer than we had hoped for as a few crucial bugs surfaced late in the development process. Squishing bugs can be a tough job, but also an important one. In this case our players saw content creators having fun with the power coupling block before the release and kept asking when they could get their hands on it. Believe us, we wanted to release it, but it just wasn’t ready. We take pride in releasing quality content with as few bugs as possible.
Now we look toward 1.8 which has already moved into the testing phase. More to come on that in the coming weeks. We are also working on a much bigger update that will be revealed later in the year. For now, please ask questions you would like answered in the next instalment of Flashblog. It will be posted in two weeks and will provide insights in block design philosophy by our Product Architect and Trailmakers “Grand old man” Rune Holm.
Thank you for reading.
Andreas - Producer Lasse - Game Director
Dragon Build Challenge 🐉
Hello Trailmakers!
Johannes and Kaptain Klutch team up to mess around with the creations of the community. To celebrate Lunar New Year, this challenge topic is "Dragons". As usual, the Trailmakers community goes wild on presenting majestic and incredible works of engineering.
Do you want to participate in the next challange and get an exclusive trophy block? Find how below!
Today, we make a call to all Content Creators out there. If you are a passionate gamer that share your experiences through YouTube, Twitch, Tik Tok or any other platform, we would like to get in touch!
As most of you already know, we collaborate closely with our Content Creator community to give them the best possible tools to share produce top-shelf Trailmakers content for their audiences. This is why we have created a community of creators where you can expect:
Early Access to Game Updates: You'll be among the first to experience and showcase upcoming game updates, features, and content.
Exclusive Content: Access to behind-the-scenes material, concept art, developer insights, and more that you can use to create unique and engaging content for your audience.
Networking Opportunities: Connect with other talented content creators, streamers, and gamers who share your passion. Collaborate on projects, exchange ideas, and learn from one another.
Direct Communication with Developers: Engage in direct discussions with the game developers, providing feedback, asking questions, and contributing to the game's improvement.
Special Events: Participate in exclusive multiplayer events, competing and having fun with other creators and the dev team.
Does this sound like something for you? Write an email to social@flashbulbgames.com with a brief explanation of your content and a link to your channel. We'd love to onboard you into the awesome group of Content Creators we have.
Looking forward to meet you and thank you for your continuous support. 💙
Recap Build Challenge 🎉
Hello Trailmaker!
In the first Build Challenge of 2024 we challenged the community to make blueprints that best recaps 2023 for them.
We got some personal takes, dioramas depicting all the updates in Trailmakers, and much more. Starting off the year with some strong submissions and now two people have put their name on the list of candidates for Builder of the Year 2024!
Do you want to participate in the next challange and get an exclusive trophy block? Find how below!
In Spring we introduced 1.6 Wings and Weapons as well as Airborne - our biggest campaign to date - which was played by more than 50,000 of you which is just overwhelming. 1.6 gave the players the long requested Center of Forces feature in the builder along with miniguns, ailerons, balloons and most importantly: Chirpos!
Our most ambitious update to date: Spacebound! With our first teaser reaching almost 400,000 views on YouTube we had a hunch that we were making the right choice. With the new vast Space Sector map you all found your place among the stars and destroyed the pirate base on Nassau and all their pew pew turret towers to claim the loot for yourself.
The Christmas Island is not a new concept to Trailmakers but we definitely expanded on the idea (and the island!). As you may have seen we are also giving the VIP seat away for free from December 24 - 31 to both PC and console users!
Everything in between
22 Build Challenges with more than 1000 submissions across all platforms. We truly celebrated the community’s creativity and for the first time in Trailmakers history it culminated in one final Builder of the Year challenge that will be an annual thing going forward. Because we never get tired of showing off the skill of our players.
Thank you for playing, Trailmakers
Let’s round off the year with some stats. We are blown away by the sheer number of Trailmakers in our community and we hope to smash all of these records in 2024. Again, thank you so much for playing our game. We promise to keep it exciting in the new year. ♥
In Flashbulb Games, we are constantly looking for the best way to lead the future of Trailmakers. To be able to improve Trailmakers we need your help and feedback, so please give us a few minutes of your time and guide us. Your answers will be anonymous and we will not capture, or store, any personal data.
Thanks for being such an awesome community and helping us to shape the best game!
Merry Christmas, Trailmakers! 🎁
You have probably been busy trying to find all the presents on Christmas Island so far. From December 24 to December 31 you will be able to unlock the last present and it's a cool one.
Can't wait to find out what it is? We might have already revealed it in our latest YouTube video.
Shield Art Build Challenge 🛡️
Hello Trailmakers!
Johannes and Scrapman check some of the most impressive and creative builds we've ever seen. Under the topic of "Shield Art", the Trailmakers community goes wild on presenting amazing pieces of art and engineering.
Do you want to participate in the next challange and get an exclusive trophy block? Find how below!
