A New Way to Win and Lose

A highly requested feature from Test 2 was to change the way winning and losing feels. Previously, when you won a stage by reaching its point goal, you would keep playing until the time was up. This allowed the player to collect extra points to upgrade their powers and reach even higher scores. The problem with this, though, was it took agency out of the player’s hands. If the player won early they still had to play the same amount of time as when they lost, making winning feel too similar to losing.

To fix this issue, we’re experimenting with having you win as soon as you reach the point goal for the stage you’re playing. To add even more excitement, there’s also a new type of powerup to collect which extends the stage’s timer. The game gains much more tension around keeping your time above 0 seconds.

To tie a bow on it, you’ll also gain bonus points based on how much time you have left when you finish the level. Overall, we hope this change will make the game feel much more in your own hands, and the difference between great and poor runs will feel more pronounced.

Gotta Go Fast (…or Look Like You Are)

We’ve created some new forms of feedback to help it feel fast when you’re boosted, or slow when you’re cursed. To emphasize how important aesthetics are to gameplay: these effects actually make the speed boosts and slowdowns in the game feel more impactful, even though they work exactly the same as before!

Cursed (Slowed) Effects

Our First iOS Test

Many of the people interested in testing Duple Dragon have been sidelined thus far with our Android-only releases, but the wait is finally over. You, dear iOS device owner, can soon experience Duple Dragon in our upcoming iOS release on July 1st.

With our first iOS test we’ll be looking to gather data on this new (to us) device ecosystem, as well as doing some A/B testing in contrast to our previous Android releases. These include our new victory and loss conditions described above, new control options, bug fixes and small improvements throughout. Overall it will be similar to Test 2, but for a whole new audience.

Android users: please note that this test will be iOS only. Our larger and still to be unveiled Test 3 will be available on Android AND iOS.

Until Next Time

That’s all for this month. We can’t wait to introduce all of you on iOS to Duple Dragon for the first time. From all of us at Tripping Whale, take care!