Imagine LittleBigPlanet was a gorefest featuring all kinds of traps that cause the screen to be filled with blood. Bloody Trapland isn’t far off, but also brings a whole lot more to the table. This fast paced multiplayer platformer made by a couple of students from the Blekinge Institute of Technology recently caught my attention during the Nordic Game Conference a couple of months ago. I sat down with Alexander Åkerman to talk a bit more about the game.
Simple student game gone crazy
“With Bloody Trapland, we wanted to create a simple, yet fun platformer that anyone could just pick up and play with their friends,” Åkerman says. “We felt that the market was missing a simple game that let all the players enjoy the fun together, no matter what gaming experience they have. We have always wanted to create a really addictive platformer.”
Made in XNA with the team’s dream to see it released on XBLA some day, Bloody Trapland lets you enjoy a race through levels filled with traps with up to 4 players. You can compete in different game modes, including the standard Race mode. First player to reach the end of the level, after being repeatedly killed and instantly respawned, wins the match. In Deathmatch, the players are set against one other in battle. Whoever kills the others most within a limit time wins.
Little Big indie game
Don’t let the pixelated graphics deceive you. Bloody Trapland features some very smooth mechanics, such as allowing players to kill each other by jumping on each other’s heads Super Mario style, while using them as a springboard at the same time. The game also has 60 maps split into six different worlds for you to play in, including different difficulty settings.
“Our first thought was that we wanted it to have a retro feel, so we designed it to feel and play just like an old classic 16-bit game,” Åkerman explains. “We started our work with a quick prototype with some basic gameplay functions. After that, we’ve been fine-tuning the controls to feel just right, and added a ton of features like more traps, multiplayer support, more characters, etc.” Åkerman and his team have been working on the game the entire summer.
The responses they got from attending the Nordic Game Conference gave Åkerman and his team quite the boost of motivation. “We had the opportunity to attend Nordic Game thanks to our school, Blekinge Institute of Technology. We took the chance to show our game and get some feedback from the people who tested it. We learned a lot and received feedback from all sorts of people! We hope we have the opportunity to attend Nordic Game next year again!”
Bloody Trapland has also been applied to enter the Game Concept Challenge, a game design contest held in Karlshamn, Sweden. “We are really excited about this contest,” Åkerman tells me. “We have strong faith in our game! But first and foremost our goal is to get the game released on both Xbox 360 and Steam, and if all goes well we will release it at the end of summer.”
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