Devlog: Mechanics and Lore Behind Jumpers and Tunnels

Mechanics

At the very beginning, we only had the movement tiles… and honestly, it felt a bit BORING. We needed more mechanics to make the puzzles richer, so we quickly agreed on adding two: the Jumper and the Tunnel!

Both are easy to understand:

• The Jumper makes the train (and its wagons) jump, letting you clear obstacles (mostly cliffs.)

• The Tunnel instantly transports you from point A to point B.

We were super inspired during the early art direction phase, so the designs for both mechanics landed surprisingly fast. They looked good almost right away.

On paper, these mechanics seem simple, but you’d be surprised how complex a puzzle can become with just these two additions !

Out of all our mechanics, these are probably our favorites (at least my favorites ?). They’re adorable, and the sound effects are so satisfying. I especially love levels that use a lot of jumpers… because it’s just boing boing boing boing … yeah. Perfect.

The Jumper

Basically, he’s an angry little guy who doesn’t like being jumped on (understandable).

At first, he was just a face on the ground that would launch the train using his tongue… but it looked a bit… suspicious, lmao.

So I kept the same expressions and put them on a Diglett-like shape instead. That worked way better! Then we added a star on his head to emphasize the “ target ” vibe. He passed the validation step pretty easily, I added a few more color variations, and voilà done!

• Red lets you jump over 1 tile

• Blue lets you jump over 2 tiles

• Orange lets you jump over 3 tiles

The Tunnel

Honestly, I have no idea what these things are, lol.

We needed tunnels, and since our art direction was already leaning goofy, my brain immediately went: “Ah yes… mouth.” So I drew these weird, fish-like heads popping out of the ground, swallowing the train, and then spitting it out somewhere else.

They’re simple, but they work so well.

I also love how round and silly they are.

Lore

Writing lore for a puzzle game like Trackastrophe is.. harder than it sounds. The game is mostly about movement tiles and brainy little train problems, so you don’t need a story to make it work. But we really wanted one anyway! Something light and of course, a bit weird eheh.

So we sat down in a café, ordered something warm, and asked ourselves the important questions: why do these mechanics exist in this world? What even is this world? That day, we focused on giving lore to two of our favorites: the Jumper and the Tunnel and it was so funny!

The Jumper

They hide a deeper secret into the ground. In fact, they have the biggest feet that ever walked this land. But everyone was stepping on their massive grippers, that was absolutely tragic. So the jumpers said « No more stepping on the stompers » and they half hid themselves into the ground. But since fate has a weird sense of humor they're now bound to be stepped on their heads instead ..

Absolutely heartbreaking.

The Tunnel

The tunnels may look like two separate entities but they're actually one single creature. It allows travelers to pass through and clean its insides, while it gets fed in exchange for the ride. The train gets gently nom-nom’d, takes a brief underground water-slide journey, and gets politely yeeted out the other end. In exchange, the tunnel gets a little snack and a complimentary internal scrub, like a car wash, but huh .. moist. Everyone wins!

Before you ask: no, we weren’t drunk when we came up with this lore.

Lara Concept Artist & Social Media Manager