Thumper devs on Switch port time and challenges, potential demo, future support, cut ideas, more
The team behind Drool stopped by Reddit today to answer questions from fans about Switch’s new game Thumper. Brian Gibson and Marc Flury, the studio’s two developers, attended the Reddit AMA. Fans asked Gibson and Flury about how long it took to port Thumper to Switch and the challenges involved, the possibility of a demo, ideas that were cut during original development, and more.
We’ve posted these excerpts below. For the full AMA, head on over here.
On the time it took to port to Switch…
It took us less than six months from start to finish, but it’s hard to calculate the exact time since we don’t have normal work schedules and we had a lot travel/personal things going on at the same time.
On difficulties developing for Switch…
I think it depends on your particular game, but for Thumper, performance optimization was a big challenge because we were determined to hit a rock solid 60 FPS. The Switch is a cool, capable little device, but we had to look deeply at our rendering system and make a several code and asset optimizations to pull it off.
On what they would go back and change…
I think we could have gone deeper with some of the mechanics and that bothered me for a while. But in the end, you always run out of time. These days, I’m at peace and happy with the game. And I hope what we left unexplored inspires others to make interesting new games.
On HD Rumble with the Switch Pro Controller…
We did test with the pro controller (although it was hard to find one haha). The HD rumble feels different based on whether you’re using the controller and whether the joycons are “docked” on the side of the switch or not. It feels the most intense when the joycons are undocked, but we thought most people would play with either the controller or with docked joycons. And we actually wanted the effect to be pretty subtle since you feel it a LOT while playing. But I can understand how some would want more oomph in the controller. We’ll consider doing something like a vibration intensity slider in an update.
We use one set of rumble effects/intensities for all controller types, but it would be possible to calibrate it for each type of controller.
On a potential demo…
… it’s a lot of work to make and release a demo on a platform like the Switch. There’s a small chance we’ll have the time to release a demo when we have more time.
On whether Thumper 2 is possible…
We’ll see, but we’ll probably do something different next. We were able to work on this game for so long because it was always creatively exciting to us. After seven years, it’s time to move on. But maybe at some point there will be more Thumper.
On the possibility of future games for Switch…
As a developer, I love working with the Switch. As a gamer, I love it too (though that has a lot to do with Zelda haha). So I hope so!
On cut mechanics…
We worked on it for over seven years and there were many things we abandoned or cut along the way. For example, the game used to have grid-based movement, where you could move in any direction. We tried adding branching paths at one point. There used to be more complicated controls and mechanics. We made lots of different enemies and obstacles that aren’t in the final game. But that’s just the way it goes! The game ended up as a “best of list” of all the experiments we did over the years.
