More text previews! This time for the second Tai Ming zone~
More text previews! This time for the second Tai Ming zone~
More text previews! This time for the second Tai Ming zone~
With Tai Ming nearing completion, and a revamp of Arcade Mode in general and Arcadia in particular, it's no wonder a lot of our recent talks have been about exactly what new Arcadia will look like. This meeting we dove in and decided on some more things:
Buying Houses for Arcadia
Basically, Arcadia will start as an area of wilderness! The place where you start will be small, with most of the map being covered with wood and other obstacles. As time progresses you will be able to ask various people for help clearing the area, and in doing so revealing a bunch of signposts indicating what could be build at the spot.
Clicking the sign will trigger a preview of what the building or decoration will look like, and what it will bring to Arcadia. For instance, aside from shops and buildings with gameplay features of various kinds, there will be decorative things that may not give you a new feature per say, but will bring people with quests to town.
Essence & Gold
Essence will be used to buy perks, as well as transmute decorative hats and other gear that carry over to Story Mode. Essence might also become the currency used to buy housing items in the Arcade Mode version of the feature.
Gold, meanwhile, will be used to unlock new buildings and decorations, and pretty much everything else.
Candy & Muffin
Muffin's house from Seasonne will be available from start, though there will be nobody at home in the beginning. Once you've either died a number of time or gotten to a certain highscore, Candy or Muffin will start inhabiting the house.
If you've died x times, Muffin will appear and allow you to make Arcade Mode easier by giving you a number of treats (3 maximum, much like perks). Treats might include things such as health orbs healing more or there being no elite enemies. The downside to this is that you will get a much reduced highscore for using these treats.
If you gain x highscore, Candy will appear and allow you to activate certain curses (again 3 maximum, much the same as perks). These curses serve to make the game harder in various ways, such as doubling the amount of elites or removing health orbs altogether. With curses activated you will gain a higher score than during regular runs.
While it might sound tempting to do so, you can't combine treats and curses: you'll have to use one or the other.
The Arena
There will be an arena where you can practice boss fights once you've reached them through one of your Arcade Mode runs. In the arena you'll also be able to run the same PvP challenges that will eventually become available in Story Mode, as well. It's likely you'll have to pay some gold to practice boss fights, while PvP will be free.
The Aquarium
One of the decorative spots, a house where you'll see a collection of all the fishes you've caught during your Arcade Mode runs (one of each). This place will also attract NPCs with quests!
The Inn
...Will work much like it does now, only with more NPCs and more quests!
----
And by the time we reached this point of our discussion, the hamburger place we were at were closing so we had to go back home to do regular work. More planning next time!
Buying Houses for Arcadia
Basically, Arcadia will start as an area of wilderness! The place where you start will be small, with most of the map being covered with wood and other obstacles. As time progresses you will be able to ask various people for help clearing the area, and in doing so revealing a bunch of signposts indicating what could be build at the spot.
Clicking the sign will trigger a preview of what the building or decoration will look like, and what it will bring to Arcadia. For instance, aside from shops and buildings with gameplay features of various kinds, there will be decorative things that may not give you a new feature per say, but will bring people with quests to town.
Essence & Gold
Essence will be used to buy perks, as well as transmute decorative hats and other gear that carry over to Story Mode. Essence might also become the currency used to buy housing items in the Arcade Mode version of the feature.
Gold, meanwhile, will be used to unlock new buildings and decorations, and pretty much everything else.
Candy & Muffin
Muffin's house from Seasonne will be available from start, though there will be nobody at home in the beginning. Once you've either died a number of time or gotten to a certain highscore, Candy or Muffin will start inhabiting the house.
If you've died x times, Muffin will appear and allow you to make Arcade Mode easier by giving you a number of treats (3 maximum, much like perks). Treats might include things such as health orbs healing more or there being no elite enemies. The downside to this is that you will get a much reduced highscore for using these treats.
If you gain x highscore, Candy will appear and allow you to activate certain curses (again 3 maximum, much the same as perks). These curses serve to make the game harder in various ways, such as doubling the amount of elites or removing health orbs altogether. With curses activated you will gain a higher score than during regular runs.
While it might sound tempting to do so, you can't combine treats and curses: you'll have to use one or the other.
The Arena
There will be an arena where you can practice boss fights once you've reached them through one of your Arcade Mode runs. In the arena you'll also be able to run the same PvP challenges that will eventually become available in Story Mode, as well. It's likely you'll have to pay some gold to practice boss fights, while PvP will be free.
The Aquarium
One of the decorative spots, a house where you'll see a collection of all the fishes you've caught during your Arcade Mode runs (one of each). This place will also attract NPCs with quests!
The Inn
...Will work much like it does now, only with more NPCs and more quests!
----
And by the time we reached this point of our discussion, the hamburger place we were at were closing so we had to go back home to do regular work. More planning next time!
Today my dad's coming to visit, so instead of preparing another blog post I'm gonna take him to a restaurant in town and tell him about our recent work on the game!
Actually, did you know it's largely thanks to my parents that I got into game dev in the first place? It might sound strange, seeing as most parents would be against their children wanting to follow such a strange and uncertain route, and I'm sure my parents have worried about that as well.
But if it hadn't been for especially my mother's love for games I don't think I would have ever felt the same way about them myself. In fact, the very earliest memory I can recall is my mother and older sister playing Zelda II: The Adventure of Link next to me! I remember watching them run across the world map and felt such wonder at the world.
Because of their enthusiasm for games, they also made sure we got the SNES when it got to Sweden. I played A Link to the Past without knowing a word of English, and didn't finish it until years later. Total hours spent on my completed file showed over 680! That's a lot of hours playing something when you have no idea what to do or where to go.
As I'm sure you can tell, some of those 680+ hours definitely served to help us make Grindea what it is today. So in a way, I guess I have my parents to thank for that!
This is apparently quite quickly turning into a long text. I apologize for that, and will be back on Monday with your regular Secrets of Grindea WIP fix~
Actually, did you know it's largely thanks to my parents that I got into game dev in the first place? It might sound strange, seeing as most parents would be against their children wanting to follow such a strange and uncertain route, and I'm sure my parents have worried about that as well.
But if it hadn't been for especially my mother's love for games I don't think I would have ever felt the same way about them myself. In fact, the very earliest memory I can recall is my mother and older sister playing Zelda II: The Adventure of Link next to me! I remember watching them run across the world map and felt such wonder at the world.
Because of their enthusiasm for games, they also made sure we got the SNES when it got to Sweden. I played A Link to the Past without knowing a word of English, and didn't finish it until years later. Total hours spent on my completed file showed over 680! That's a lot of hours playing something when you have no idea what to do or where to go.
As I'm sure you can tell, some of those 680+ hours definitely served to help us make Grindea what it is today. So in a way, I guess I have my parents to thank for that!
This is apparently quite quickly turning into a long text. I apologize for that, and will be back on Monday with your regular Secrets of Grindea WIP fix~
With most of the cutscenes in Tai Ming's third zone prototyped and ready, it's time to bring some flavor to those faces!
It's been our ambition to add more of these optional texts for a while now, and we'll begin with Tai Ming and work our way back!
Second part of the Mount Bloom housing item batch - specials ahoy!
While the housing items made up to this point has been saved and await implementation, we still have two areas to go! First up: Mount Bloom~
Let's end this week with a quick look at the skill you'll unlock in the fourth dungeon~
And finally, batch number 3!
Second batch of menu miniatures!
Our work on the mimic prototype continues!
You'd think after finishing a bunch of sprites for housing, you're all set, right? Nope! Time for step two in housing: making drop appearances/menu miniatures for everything!
Time for a sneak peek of the upcoming Tai Ming boss - the Mimic!
....Aaaand the seasons have been changed!!!
Time to add some special Summer items!!
Next up, some Temple of Seasons stuff, summer version!
This week I'll be focusing on more housing content, while Teddy and Fred continue prototyping the Mimic boss!
And now, the final part of the courtyard project: the present version!
Now, time for some polish!
The work on the Courtyard map continues!
