In the last Toki Tori update I talked about building the game world in LEGO. It is something we use almost every day to plan and explain our work to each other. Last Friday Hessel and I used it again to test out a new feature in Toki Tori 2.

Since the game’s world is much more an open environment compared to the original, we decided we needed better navigation options. Nobody likes to repeat dozens of puzzles they already solved before to get to that last collectible. It’s time to add that wonderful videogame cliche; instant warping!

You may have noticed that our games are usually pretty polished when they are released. I am one of those people that can spend hours of my precious time on a little effect that perhaps 0.01% of you will ever see. But things usually start out butt-ugly (especially if Paul provides the placeholder artwork) so it is with great shame that I present to you today’s video.

We’re not planning any explanatory texts for Toki Tori 2, and most definitely no level lists for you to select a warp point from. We’re striving to integrate everything into the game world itself, and so the warp mechanism had to be integrated as well.

In the video, you can see Toki Tori is whistling a little song, calling for a bird - or in this case detached bird feet - who picks him up and allows him to fly around the island to pick a landing spot. The song will only work when Toki Tori is close to a checkpoint. The landing spots are spots that the player has uncovered previously in the game and serve as rewards for completing a tough puzzle.

With this setup we hope to strike a good balance between exploration and accessibility of the game world’s environments. What do you think? And I don’t mean about the artwork!