As a fan of precision platforming, I was captivated by Crash Course Builder at the AUS Indie Showcase at this year’s PAX Australia.
The game is a twitchy auto-scroller where the level geometry changes to the beat of the background music. Players move left and right, avoiding obstacles and trying to hit launch pads, endeavouring to reach the end of each level before they crash out.
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Crash Course Builder seems like a terrific example of a game concept that’s easy to pick up, but difficult to master. And as the name suggests, users will be able to build and share their own devilish creations with the world.
I spoke with Mark White, co-founder of developer Wombat Brawler, about what inspired the creation of this game.
“Both [Wombat Brawler co-founder] Brendan and myself, we loved making levels in games as kids,” White told us, citing the NES classic Excitebike as a particular example.
“We decided let’s make something with the level editor at its heart, but try to make it as intuitive as possible so that little kids, or anyone can jump in and make a course as easy as they want or as hard as they want,” he added.
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The final product will feature plenty of content with levels having three difficulty options as well as individual bonus objectives. Adding in the community levels will give players plenty of stages to conquer.
“We’re thinking possibly of doing a season-based structure at this point, so it might come with a first season which will have a bunch of courses we’ve designed – and then we’ll probably follow up with future seasons as well with new courses, new music,” White said.
During my time with the demo of the game, I found it hard to pull myself away. The short levels and straightforward gameplay become extremely addictive, helped along by the tight controls which make every mistake feel like something you should have avoided.
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Best of all, this game is coming out on practically everything including consoles, PC and mobile. I think this would make an ideal game to bring on long commutes, punching out a couple of levels in between destinations.
Crash Course Builder is scheduled for release in 2024 and if you can’t make it to PAX, the demo is available on their Steam page.
