Hello all! Leaves are falling, sweaters are out of the closet, pumpkin spice is infiltrating everything… and work on Town of Trials is ongoing! There’s been a few developments.

We added a new member to the team. We welcome Rangaros! He joins us equipped with a strong talent in 3D art, including modeling, shaders, and VFX. He has already helped us improve and refine some of our vehicle concepts, and with his direction and talent we will achieve a cohesive visual identity.

Work on our engine is ongoing. We have been primarily focused on net code and improving the quality of the physics simulation. The physics loop runs at 60 FPS like many modern games, but the visuals are interpolated to create an experience that is frame rate independent. Unlike KAR, you will be able to run Town of Trials at high refresh rates for a smooth visual experience (provided you have the hardware to do so).

As for the net code, we are working to fully integrate a client predicted, server reconciled model of online play. There are mostly upsides but also some significant downsides to this model. We feel it’s the right fit for the long-term growth of Town of Trials.

Client predicted net-play is time-tested and successfully implemented in games like twitch shooters, going back to games like Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament, Counter Strike, et al. This model will allow your inputs to instantly be represented on screen, while still maintaining the security of a server authentication model where the game runs on a server and cheating should not be possible.

In a nutshell: upside to this technique is you get amazing multiplayer that feels just like playing offline and is free of cheaters. Downside is that we will need to maintain servers for a global audience, which is not at all cheap.

So what’s in store for Q4? The end of the year is fast approaching. Our aim is to have a complete (albeit content bare) game prototype by end of year that we will be selecting members of our community to playtest with us! This has been an important milestone we’ve been chasing for quite a while. Developing a game of this scope with such a small team was always going to be a long multi-year endeavor… we really do appreciate your continued patience!