Matthew Hanlon and Kieran Nee of Bit by Bit Games have created Trail, a Windows-based life after permadeath platformer made using XNA. Trail is available for free download now and is waiting judgment as part of the IGF 2012 competition.

These two developers left Lionhead Studios to form their company and have made two games to date. Endless Lines was an iOS puzzle game, and now they have moved onto another staple genre: platforming. However, Matthew shares that the devs were not going to settle with a mere Mario clone. Trail not only has a message, but the entire game is the message. For Matthew that message has stuck for several years now, and only through indie development has he been able to bring it to life, and death, through the medium of video games.

What was your real life inspiration for Trail?

The main inspiration for Trail came from a quote I saw on a forum, “When I was a child, I thought you left a trail through the world that you collected when you died”, a few years ago now. I saved it as it struck me as a good premise for a game. Although working in AAA dev it wasn’t something I could really pursue.

[W]e’re trying a shorts methodology. The core of the game is a take on the leaving a trail through life and collecting once you’re dead. It’s a simple focussed idea which I don’t feel would benefit from being made into a longer game. It’s a short game, based on a strange idea.

So, is Trail played basically played in two directions?

Yes, you play through the level forwards and [then] backwards, from the point of your death.

Can you explain the health and memory mechanics?

When you are ‘alive’, the world is white and your drop a trail of memories behind you in the environment. Each memory you drop increases your score. if you touch a memory when alive it hurts you (sometimes it’s painful to revisit the past).

You do not lose health while alive automatically (the amount of health the player has is represented by the amount of colour in their silhouette), it is lost by being hit by crushing blocks, skulls fired from cannons or hitting electrical/lightning arcs (good old platforming tropes), or simply missing a jump and falling to your death.

The level is your life, so there does come a point where you will die – there is no escape, no one is immortal.

When you die, the world turns black and you start from the point of your death or the last solid bit of ground in the case of falling to your death. In this state your ‘health’ which was reset on death constantly drains. I liken your health in this state to being your attachment to this plane of existence. In addition to this, everything that could hurt you while you were living can still hurt you.

Are there points in the game? What does it mean to win, since you ultimately die, regardless?

Collecting memories in this state boosts your health and increases your score. The memories, however, move away from you to make this just a bit harder. Your ultimate goal is to reach the first memory you left in the world.

Reaching this ‘wins’ the game, failure to reach it is judged an unfulfilled/incomplete life.  The end of the game displays a short piece of text summing up your life, this is based on the score you achieved and your age (how far through the level you got).

What were your gaming inspirations for making Trail?

For gaming inspirations, just about everything now… I’m glad we finally inhabit a gaming world where we can make games about just about anything, we have the ranged from the short experimental platformer to the 100 hour rpg. It’s great. More specifically, Canabalt (this game started out as a runner, but we found that didn’t really work and moved to more traditional platforming mechanics) and the resurgence of platformers in the last few years (Super Meat Boy, Braid, etc).

[Thanks, Bit by Bit's Matthew! Remember Trail is for free download now for Windows-based PCs]