Quick refresher: Sketch & Sprint is the co-op platformer on Couplescade, our collection of real-time games for two. One of you is the Runner, who sprints forward on their own. The other is the Architect, who draws the paths they run on. You swap after every room.
We just rebuilt it. The two roles survived, but you might not recognize most of what’s around them now.
Before
The old game had three courses. A game is 4, 6 or 8 rooms long, and each room was one of those three picked at random, so every game ran at least one course twice.
The dangers were homing orbs, plus turrets on Hard, and only the Runner could see them. Any drawn line popped an orb or blocked a shot, so the Runner’s real job was shouting where the Architect should draw a shield. A hit cost 5 seconds and a fall put you back on a fresh pad, so the only way to fail a room was the 2-minute clock.
After
A dungeon. Rooms are now stone and lava, and a wall of spikes follows the Runner from the left edge of the screen. Get stuck and it takes a life.
Rooms from parts. Each room is put together from hand-built sections: 3 on Easy, 4 on Medium, 5 on Hard. There are 30 so far, with names like Bat cave, Crossfire and Lava lake. Every section is tagged with the difficulties it belongs to, so Hard draws from its own pool. No two games are the same.
New things to avoid. Lava pillars bubble as a warning, then erupt every 5 seconds. Shock blocks zap you on touch. Turrets fire at the Runner, and their shots fly straight through drawn lines. Bat roosts send out bats that chase the Runner.
The Runner shoots. There’s a new Shoot button (or X on a keyboard). Shoot a shock block to break it, a turret 3 times to destroy it, a roost 3 times to seal it, and bats out of the air.
Lines carry, they don’t protect. Lines now last 4 seconds instead of 3, then erase from the start at the Runner’s speed. They no longer stop anything, and both of you see every danger. The Architect’s job is the path. Everything trying to kill the Runner is the Runner’s problem.
Lives instead of penalties. The Runner has 3 lives per room. Lose all three and the room is over. Stars are still the score you take home.
Between rooms
Before the first room you both get a field guide: a card for everything in the dungeon, each with a small animated picture in the game’s own art, so nothing kills you by surprise.
After each room you see how it went and which role you have next. The next room only starts once both of you press Ready, so nobody gets dropped into a room mid-sentence. The field guide is one tap away on that screen too.
Pick Hard for 8 rooms of 5 sections each. Find your Player 2 and start a room.