During its development TRISTOY underwent a lot of iterations, especially in terms of style. At the very beginning, we were not sure about the style, but already sure that TRISTOY would be the definite co-op game between two protagonists, like shown in the following illustration.
The first illustrations even shows a mechanic, that made it into the final game, which is really rare in game development. At one time, we even tried out a 3D variant of TRISTOY (!), but discarded that one due to the sheer amount of work that would have drowned us as a small indie studio.
Finally we went closer to a look that finally shaped TRISTOY. (Although it was a lot darker back then)
It is really fascinating look back and see how the game evolved over time. Next time, well post some more artworks of the development process! Stay tuned.

During its development TRISTOY underwent a lot of iterations, especially in terms of style. At the very beginning, we were not sure about the style, but already sure that TRISTOY would be the definite co-op game between two protagonists, like shown in the following illustration.
The first illustrations even shows a mechanic, that made it into the final game, which is really rare in game development. At one time, we even tried out a 3D variant of TRISTOY (!), but discarded that one due to the sheer amount of work that would have drowned us as a small indie studio.
Finally we went closer to a look that finally shaped TRISTOY. (Although it was a lot darker back then)
It is really fascinating look back and see how the game evolved over time. Next time, we’ll post some more artworks of the development process! Stay tuned.

Originally, TRISTOY was planned to be a visual novel. What may seem irritating at first, becomes more apparent if we follow the story of the story. Like said above, the idea was to create a visual novel, where player choices matter and influence the way of the story. So over time, we realized, that creating a complex and branching story is not an easy task. (TRISTOY has around 20k words of dialogue which are all connected!) So our goal was really to get away from the linear and (somewhat boring) storytelling, where there is a simple (This text follows this text) way of story. So we really wanted to make this more interesting by giving the players the power to choose what they wanted to say or how they wanted to behave. (Which is heavily influenced by the awesome classic pen & paper games where characters play their role like they want, which is Role Play in its purest form.)
Following that lead, it became clear, that we needed to develop our own tools, to make it possible to have complex branching dialogues between characters (And between the players!) where there are possibilities of checking what has happened before. So we set out and created our most valuable in-house dialogue editor, the Dialogue-Master:
In the screenshot, you can see a part of the dialogue between both characters and the imprisoned princess Kaya. The blue lines belong to the magician Stayn, the orange ones to Prince Freedan. Purple ones are those of Princess Kaya. Its up to the characters, if they help her or kill her. After we had developed the dialogue master, we were happy that we could easily develop complex dialogues, which are tightly integrated with the game. So thats the story of the story of TRISTOY, full of bizarre characters, tough choices and, well, friendship.

Originally, TRISTOY was planned to be a visual novel. What may seem irritating at first, becomes more apparent if we follow the story of the story. Like said above, the idea was to create a visual novel, where player choices matter and influence the way of the story. So over time, we realized, that creating a complex and branching story is not an easy task. (TRISTOY has around 20k words of dialogue which are all connected!) So our goal was really to get away from the linear and (somewhat boring) storytelling, where there is a simple (This text follows this text) way of story. So we really wanted to make this more interesting by giving the players the power to choose what they wanted to say or how they wanted to behave. (Which is heavily influenced by the awesome classic pen & paper games where characters “play” their role like they want, which is “Role Play” in its purest form.)
Following that lead, it became clear, that we needed to develop our own tools, to make it possible to have complex branching dialogues between characters (And between the players!) where there are possibilities of checking what has happened before. So we set out and created our most valuable in-house dialogue editor, the Dialogue-Master:
In the screenshot, you can see a part of the dialogue between both characters and the imprisoned princess Kaya. The blue lines belong to the magician Stayn, the orange ones to Prince Freedan. Purple ones are those of Princess Kaya. It’s up to the characters, if they help her or kill her. After we had developed the dialogue master, we were happy that we could easily develop complex dialogues, which are tightly integrated with the game. So that’s the story of the story of TRISTOY, full of bizarre characters, tough choices and, well, friendship.

TRISTOY will launch with the option to play with the UNIPLAY app. What's UNIPLAY, why would I need it, where do I get it? Well, UNIPLAY is a system to allow some games to be controlled using a smart device or tablet over the local WiFi network. UNIPLAY would be used where you don't have a spare Xbox controller for a friend, or you are feeling a little cramped sharing the same keyboard to play. Or you just prefer playing with your smartphone! You can get the app for iOS and Android at the following locations: UNIPLAY for Android UNIPLAY for iOS Here's a quick preview of how it would work on your device and PC:

TRISTOY will launch with the option to play with the UNIPLAY app. What's UNIPLAY, why would I need it, where do I get it? Well, UNIPLAY is a system to allow some games to be controlled using a smart device or tablet over the local WiFi network. UNIPLAY would be used where you don't have a spare Xbox controller for a friend, or you are feeling a little cramped sharing the same keyboard to play. Or you just prefer playing with your smartphone! You can get the app for iOS and Android at the following locations: UNIPLAY for Android UNIPLAY for iOS Here's a quick preview of how it would work on your device and PC:

Hi All, Happy belated new year! So we've seen some great preview coverage for TRISTOY that we would like to share with you all. They go into the gamplay mechanics and style of the game in nice detail. The mechanics have been likened to the Metroidvania standard, this in itself is pretty awesome of them to say. I'm sure most of us have grown up playing Metroid and Castlevania, it's awesome to see TRISTOY's gameplay mechanics to be considered amongst these greats. :D Anyway, i'll stop rambling here. Take a look at these great articles: Co-Optimus Coverage Game Vortex Coverage Let us know your thoughts in the comments. :)

Hi All, Happy belated new year! So we've seen some great preview coverage for TRISTOY that we would like to share with you all. They go into the gamplay mechanics and style of the game in nice detail. The mechanics have been likened to the Metroidvania standard, this in itself is pretty awesome of them to say. I'm sure most of us have grown up playing Metroid and Castlevania, it's awesome to see TRISTOY's gameplay mechanics to be considered amongst these greats. :D Anyway, i'll stop rambling here. Take a look at these great articles: Co-Optimus Coverage Game Vortex Coverage Let us know your thoughts in the comments. :)