Trout

A retro cross-over of a brick breaker (arkanoid) and a block stacker (tetris), made solo for LD41.

https://honestdan.itch.io/honest-dans-trout

Trout was born midway through a Ludum Dare gamejam, where the theme was two incompatible genres. After failing to combing a rhythm game with a shooter game, I started from scratch and went back to basics. I was constantly against the clock as a result and didn’t get to play-test how combining the genres actually played. However, when the game was finished and I tried it for the first time, I realised this combination was oddly brilliant mash up. The game went down well with the Ludum Dare community, whilst not finishing especially high – I had a huge amount of people play and review the game.

I’ve always been interested in developing this one further, as the blend of arcade games seemed to work surprisingly well – and definitely for some people scratched a satisfying part of their brains. If taken further, the physics for the breakout mechanic would need to be tightened up, and also the block-control would need tightening up to suit those players coming from games such as Tetris.