Meanwhile in Fred's department, it's all about Grindea, as has been for a while now! Let's have a look at the most recent animations:
As mentioned before, we wanted to be able to include some indoor areas without having you pass through an actual building first, so I've made a little test featuring what it could look like entering a building from Seasonne in this case:
In this example, you'd be in a regular arcade mode Seasonne room, and expect to enter an event room to the right. Instead of going into another outdoor room, you end up in this house instead. Do you think the transition will feel weird seeing as there is no building to enter? We hope that by adding part of the outdoorsy area in the entrance it'll feel more like you seamlessly transitioned between the two rooms :)
Next up, it's time to start looking into giving Grindea a proper background instead of the placeholder flying fortress platform she's currently on! In this sketch, I'm playing around with some aesthethics, trying to give her a place that feels fully her own.
What do you guys think?
We've also been discussing what sort of rewards you'll get from that chest in the final room before battling either Bishop or Grindea! We want the player to get plenty of rewards, at least three for each level of difficulty, so it won't just be a reward for the first time you reach the top!
Some of our suggestions so far include:
A diploma that shows you made it. Can be hung on the wall of your house, where it can be inspected showing a proper fancy diploma stating you reached the top floor.
A lood trinket that allows you to keep a Lood with you on your runs.
A Record player which is a furniture item that will change the music inside your house.
Riley as a NPC in Arcadia, who can change the music both in Arcadia and on your runs.
Angel Wings and Demon Wings to decorate your character. We'll have to try out how this looks with the character's animations, but if it doesn't work out we'll add them as hat versions instead.
A trinket that makes you character levitate when moving and in idle.
A trinket that gives you the same colour scheme as Grindea
and a Cloud hat!
...in no particular order. Do you have any suggestions of your own? We'd love to hear them!
Now, it's not just the ending of Arcade Mode that we're working on, but also expanding it and cleaning it up so it's all nice and polished. In this Monday's meeting, we came up with two new rooms we'd like to try:
First up, a room where you meet the fortune teller Astrid, who tells you which boss is at the end of the floor, and offers you an opportunity to change your fate (that is, for her to change the boss for another one in the pool). Whether or not this will cost you anything we haven't decided yet - but it's likely it'll cost a bit of gold.
The second room we'd like to add is a "Caveling Casino" where you pay gold OR essence for a chance of getting one of a pool of items, which you'll be able to see beforehand. The items can be things such as equips, buffs, pins, HP pots, or maybe just an apple... We're considering giving you two chances as well, so if you spent gold on one try, you can spend essence on another - but no more than that.
This addition of essence as a currency on a run is something we'll likely experiment a bit more with as well, giving you more ways to spend that stuff :)
As we draw ever closer to you being able to finish your Arcade Mode journey, it's time to add a proper way of getting up to that island where your fate will be decided. Using a standard portal? Nah, let's do something a bit cooler: flying up yourself! Have a look:
Next up, for Grindea's big battle, we want to add a starry space-like background for one of her attacks, and as such, I was tasked with making a simple space background! Let's have a look:
Now with the Grindea boss fight drawing ever closer to completion, it's time we start working on a proper victory UI for Arcade Mode instead of the standard Game Over one!
Here's the regular version, as a reminder:
Of course, in the above examples there's still the usual Game Over text, but in the actual interface it'll say "Victory!" one you've defeated Grindea. We've made three versions of the next now, though, with "Victory?" showing up when you finish the game without battling either Bishop och Grindea, and "Victory" showing up when you defeat Bishop!
Next up with actual Secrets of Grindea stuff though, for the Grindea boss fight we're looking at having a total of three different HP-bars! Time to take a look at those:
As you know, we're drawing ever closer to the completion of this game, and since I'm usually a bit ahead of making the background art and such, we're nearing a point where I'll run out of stuff to do! So how to keep me busy?
Well, we've had a budding idea of having me prepare the graphic assets and likely, most of the writing, for a little side project, or a companion piece if you'd like: basically, a visual novel where you're a Collector, interacting with other collectors and sentient artifacts!
This game will be a very short game to go along with the Grindea universe, so we're not talking any big investments of time here, even for me - but it'll give me something to do while Teddy and Fred finish the last bits of animations and code for the main game. And it may also serve to give you guys a bit more insight in the world of Grindea!
Because of the planning needed, you're likely going to start seeing some sketches and rough ideas for this project come up on this blog soon. So how do you guys feel about visual novels? Any particular ones you like, or dislike? Features you'd like to see in a project like this?
Again, keep in mind our goal here is just to make a little companion piece, so it's not gonna be very long or super complex - just a little side project in the same world :)
In Teddy & Fred's department, we're mainly still focusing on the Grindea fight, but some other animations and cutscenes are made here and there. Here, let's the a look at one of those, the activation of the portal that will take you to Grindea's realm:
Finally on the haircut side, we realized the new haircuts looked a bit off when added to the game, due to some palette swapping mishaps. As such, I had to remake them slightly! Here's a couple of them, with the original version first, the recolored version second, and the improved remake third:
Next up, it's time to decide in what order to display the haircuts! For now we've decided to go from shortest to longest (well, kind of - we haven't measured them all exactly, so some variations may occur), divided over two pages with 16 on each.
Page 1:
...and Page 2:
Next up, we have a bunch of haircut fixes! To start off with, this one seemed to lack a bit of the 'swirly' part of the bangs showing from behind, so I added that:
Since this haircut is super wide we needed a version of it which can be used when you wear a full coverage hat as well, made here below:
One thing that's been missing from the stylist for a while now is a way to rotate your character preview so you're able to see what you'd look like from more than one direction! Since we're working on adding the final haircuts now, we decided it's also time to add that missing feature, and as such, we've spent some time trying out various interfaces showing you how to rotate the preview:
Meanwhile, Fred continues work on Grindea and her attacks, including a mysterious space rift:
And finally, the running challenge:
Next, there's the fishing challenge, set in a cave setting:
Next up, the exit and northern cave room, featuring the strength challenge:
Now it's time to start looking at the Mount Bloom / Festival floor for real! Let's start off with an introduction room, the first you'll find yourself in within this floor of the dungeon:
Meanwhile, Fred continues his work on Grindea! Let's take a look at this epic dash:
