Tap Derby

Rose: For someone who has never heard of your game, how would you describe it without using the usual genre labels?

Tap Derby is simple and feels kind of like an arcade style game. You iterate quickly, don’t have to think too much about what you’re doing, and at the end of the day can get sucked into managing these fake horses for a long time.

Rose: Where did the idea for this game come from?

I was really tired of horse racing games having so much depth and really poor auction experiences. To me, that’s one of the most interesting parts of horse racing. So, I went ahead and started building a browser based game that was just the auction and a few simple races with no viewer. I had a lot of fun with that and the light bulb went off that maybe this could be a full game. When I started actual Unity development, the game was literally just an auction simulator. You got the horses, the comments, and the workouts and that was about it. It had no racing at first, just a cool little auction simulator.

Rose: What makes your game different from other games in the same space?

Most horse racing games are an all or nothing experience. You either get someone trying to simulate everything about real-life horse racing (which is really hard) or a game trying to simplify things so far that the game loses the fun of horses and racing. Tap Derby still allows you to follow a career progression, get semi-realistic racing, and enjoy the fun parts of racing without giving you too much or too little if you’re looking for a casual experience.

Rose: Was there anything you had to cut that you still secretly wish you could put back?

I do wish I could have done more customization with the game. Things like jockeys, your own silks, etc. would have been cool but I just didn’t have the time and felt that the value add wouldn’t be there. I don’t think I secretly wish for that though, I just started building a game that makes sense as it is and works pretty well, even if it isn’t super feature rich. My next game will include a lot of that additional customization while still remaining pretty easy to play.

Rose: What is something players probably won't realize took an absurd amount of work?

The UI probably took longer than any other aspect of the game which is funny because it’s really simple. I iterated on it so many different times though. At first, the UI was meant to look like you were opening a bunch of manilla folders holding information about the horses, races, etc. but the look of that was really terrible. As the game moved on I started adapting to this bordered blue background everywhere but also had to pivot from that because it had some weird scaling issues. I eventually settled on the blue and yellow you see throughout the game which is not all that impressive but it helps contribute to the calm nature of the game. On top of that, pretty much every screen and pop up you see underwent a bunch of iterations while I tried to find the right way to present the data to the player. Again, this doesn’t seem that hard but a big pet peeve of mine with games is never having the data I need when I need it. I feel like Tap Derby does a pretty good job addressing that.

Rose: What is the weirdest bug you've encountered that you almost wanted to keep?

Winning the Triple Crown used to be almost impossible if you had multiple horses in the races. That was because the code found the first horse you had in the race by post position and compared it to the last race winner in the series (the data structure behind the scenes in game is rough, lots of learning lessons there). I wanted to keep it that way though, because the game was meant to have small stables. It was supposed to be really hard to win races like the Triple Crown because you essentially only had one shot, you could get around that by running multiple horses. I pulled back on that thinking with time because I realized the unique thing about the game was all of the different ways you can play. Now the Triple Crown works (I think) no matter how many horses you run.

Rose: Is there a particular emotion you wanted players to walk away with from your game?

I want players to feel relaxed after playing the game. Horse racing games shouldn’t feel like a chore, you should be able to play any length of session and feel like you made significant progress. I want the player to feel connected to their horses, excited about some big wins, and ready to move on with their career at the end of a session. As a side note, I hope players feel a bit of a connection to Rusty Hayes. Horse racing is such a cool sport and so much of that coolness is because of human interaction. Rusty was supposed to bring a little bit of that into game form.

Rose: What's one piece of advice you wish you'd had before starting?

I wish someone had told me to take it a little bit more seriously. I started building the game for just myself then realized that it actually had something to it and other people may enjoy playing it. At that point I wish someone had told me that if I believe in it I should go all out. I still feel as if I made some poor design decisions which limited what the game could really be. I also just kind of launched the game without much marketing because I didn’t realize how well it might resonate with people. The game still did well, no doubt. But I definitely feel that it could have been much better if I’d just taken it a bit more seriously and realized what the limits really may have been.

Rose: Five years from now, what do you hope people remember about this game?

I hope they remember it with a sort of nostalgic lens. It’s not the most in-depth game in the world, but I know a lot of people enjoyed at least a few late nights getting to know their horses and the game. I hope they remember the interactions with Rusty, mistakes made, and maybe some cool breeding lines they managed to create.

Rose: Why should someone reading/watching this go play your game today?

If you want a nice, cozy, horse racing game I think Tap Derby is right up your alley. It’s low stress, allows you to build some meaningful relationships with your horses and Rusty Hayes, and is easy to pick up and put down at any time. It’s not the most in-depth game, it won’t knock your socks off with realism, but I really think that’s a lot of the allure that comes with the game. It’s really easy to learn, pick up, and put down at any time.

Rose: Finally, the question we ask every developer: After everything you’ve told us, can you officially confirm that your game is, in fact, probably a game? Why should we believe you?

Probably? Sometimes the horses feel pretty real, the emotions definitely get real. Maybe it’s not a game, maybe it’s actually a simulation, are we in a simulation? Who’s to really say? I think Rusty Hayes is definitely real, he’s not a game. You should go find Rusty in your life 🙂