In March of LAST year during GDC, we ran into something that’s one of our favorite things about attending conferences. Amongst all the higher profile games we were scheduled to check out, developer Jonatan Van Hove aka Joon had been creating buzz with a demo of a super quirky walking simulator he was calling Don’t Trip. We were meeting with the fine folks from Noodlecake who insisted that we check this demo out, and went to track down Jooon to show it to us. Don’t Trip uses the iOS device’s sensors to allow you to move across a virtual floor where you’ll carefully tap to place down a foot one at a time and awkwardly walk through a gauntlet of objects as you try to avoid tripping over any of them. Here’s that early demo from 2017.

Well the Noodlecake folks were so taken with Don’t Trip that they signed on to publish the game, and rather than release it during the summer/fall window of 2017 that was originally planned, they’ve spent that extra year really polishing up the experience. Don’t Trip now features way more environments to walk in, a ton of crazy shoe styles to unlock and collect, totally redone 3D visuals, and perhaps most importantly of all it now features a mascot named Trippy the Sock who will guide you through the game and inspire you to be your best self. Trippy features prominently in the incredible new live action trailer for Don’t Trip, which you can see below.

So silly stuff aside, Don’t Trip really is a clever concept, and it always makes me happy to see something like this that started life as a weird little demo and turn into a full-fledged game that actually gets released. I can’t tell you how many of these unique ideas I’ve seen that just never got past the “huh, that’s neat" stage, so kudos to all involved for seeing Don’t Trip through to completion. One thing I think will be an uphill battle for Don’t Trip is getting your average iOS user to understand it’s somewhat tricky mechanics. But with how well some of the other absurd high scoring games have done over the years like Bennet Foddy’s Getting Over It or QWOP or basically any of the [Insert Word] Simulator wacky physics games, I could definitely see Don’t Trip becoming one of those schoolyard hits. We’ll find out when Don’t Trip officially launches next week on November 28th.