From one bunch of portraits to another! We've decided to make the receptionist of the arena play a similar role as the guards... That is, whenever there's a receptionist, they'll look similar to that one. Kind of like Nurse Joy from Pokémon, only we change it up a little with this ones appearance.
So, I went ahead and made two more variations of her, since we know we need at least 2 more that will appear as 'regular' NPCs later on:
Next week I'll [.....]
So, I told you there was something out of the ordinary with Charlotte's portrait, right? Well, here's the thing: she'll take on the appearance (color wise) of your main character!
While your dad remains static, your mom's skin- and haircolor will actually depend on how you designed your character. We thought this would make more sense than having two white people with black hair get a dark-skinned kid with pink hair, for instance.
So, this is how it's done! Basically, I made three 'basic' versions [.....]
As I mentioned yesterday, your beloved mother Charlotte will soon appear in a cutscene/flashback, so obviously she needs a portrait!
Now, there is something interesting about this portrait that makes it a bit our of the ordinary. I'll spill that little secret tomorrow though, for now, enjoy this basic version:
Line Art
Color Blocking
Shading
Highlights
Details
Finished Sprite
[.....]
Today we've been creating tags for each of the skills!
The tags we used & how we applied them to the Earth, Ice and Fire spells
The reason for this is that we've been planning to improve the current skill info box that appears on the left part of the menu. Currently it says something generic, and we had a bunch of ideas that we'd add a score system where we'd rank each skill based on how much DMG, EP-cost, and a bunch of other categories. [.....]
So basically, Mondays seem to have become our official meeting day. As in where we do a lot of planning, and make sure everything is progressing the right way. This Monday was a regular workday, but last Monday, we actually had another meeting where we talked about how the whole Early Access thing was going, as well as our upcoming schedules.
Next up in Story Mode, you're gonna go home to give another artifact to your beloved father. As those of you who have read the dialogues [.....]
So in the Time Travel area, there will be a bunch of guards, like in Evergrind City. To refresh your memory, here's the portrait of the Evergrind guards:
We wanted the ancient guards to be similar looking, as the guards are the most generic characters we have in the game (seeing as they all use the same portrait & sprite). Therefore, I'll just be editing this portrait, rather than making a completely new one! Here's the video:
And here's the finished sprite:
[.....]
Today it's time to create the first floor of the Ambassador's House! This floor will only be available in the present, so I only had to do the ruined version of it. As usual, here's the progress video:
And here's the finished version:
The painting is supposed to be of the Ambassador himself, so when I make the portrait I'm gonna make sure the painting and portrait resemble each other. That, however, is something I'll save for another blog post! [.....]
In case the patch already went live, you might have noticed there's a bunch of new hairstyles in the game! And if it didn't, well, now you know...!
A lot of people asked why you can't have a character with no hair, so we decided to implement that for both males and females. In the future we might add more unisex hairstyles, but for now all the other ones are separate:
Female hairstyles to the left, male to the right
We'll keep adding new hairstyles [.....]
Alright, the Fae all have portraits now! But wait - some things are still missing or needs to be fixed! To begin with, this guy here:
In the cutscene where he gets frozen, you might have noticed that he has bangs! But on his portrait, there are none?! So what do? Fix it, of course:
Also, we're replacing the random "this fae is too shocked to talk to you"-type of message without portraits that happens whenever you try to talk to any fae after the [.....]
Oh yeah, one more fae portrait is needed! Then some additional expressions and stuff, but I'll deal with that later.
For now, here's the portrait of another cute lil' Winter fae:
Line Art
Colors & Shadows
Highlights, Line Art Coloring
Details & Wings
Finished Sprite
[.....]
We'll end this week, or rather, begin the weekend with going live on the Humble Store!
Grindea on the Humble Store
The mail correspondence has calmed down a little now, thankfully, so other than the fact that you can buy the game through Steam and the Humble Store now, things should pretty much be back to normal.
It's been a lot of fun to see the hype for the game increase again, with lots of new streams and Let's Plays to watch. If half of [.....]
Okay, let's jump back to that Ambassador's house in this post. This floor already has a Past version, but you'll pass through here in the Present as well! So, time to ruin this little place... >:3
[.....]
OK GUYS! Time to try to get back to some regular workflow!
Here's the portrait of one of the fae guys we need for the proper cutscene in Santa Fae, where that rude old Winter grandpa freezes an innocent Autumn fae (no video this time, things are still kind of busy and I actually work a bit faster when I don't have to worry about the recording): Line Art
Color Blocking
Shadows & Highlights
Details & Wings
Finished Sprite
[.....]
Okay so this blog post is late and I'm gonna try to keep this short because I'm ready to crash after 30 crazy hours!
Finally we have a Store Page! So as I said we did approx. 0 PR for the Early Access launch. Turns out, we still got a ton of attention (so far), so I've spent most of my time awake answering e-mails and checking the Steam communities and other places where people discuss the game, just to make sure everything runs smoothly.
And [.....]
Today we're launching Secrets of Grindea on Steam Early Access! By the time this post publishes, it's probably due any minute.
We've been working towards this launch for a few weeks, but because reasons, we had to launch it a bit earlier than we anticipated. Because of this change of plans, I've spent most of the day last minute bug testing to ensure that the new stable build is as stable as possible. Depending on how many new users we get from this launch I suspect Teddy will be quite busy dealing with bugs in the coming few days/weeks as well.. How much it'll affect me remains to be seen - graphic bugs/mistakes are known to happen!
[.....]
Here's the first of the rooms we planned during the meeting I talked about this Monday!
This is the top floor of an Ambassador's house, which will be available in both the past and the present, so I'll have another video up later where I turn this place into a mess... :)
The finished room!
[.....]
And here's another Time Travel portrait, also made before the Monday meeting, but I thought I'd post it as well before posting the newer stuff! This one is a younger girl, whose role we haven't entirely decided upon yet.. :)
Oh yeah, also, no video this time. I've been having some issues every once in a while with the recording software, and this time it crashed silently on startup and I didn't notice until I finished the entire thing... Sigh! Better luck next time (I hope) :D [.....]
Time for another interior! This is one I made before the meeting I talked about in Monday's post, and it features the top floor of the Barracks, which is only available in its present, ruined state:
Finished Room!
[.....]
So, as I mentioned yesterday, we decided to replace the old Wind Slash for a new skill called Static Touch!
When casting the spell, a number of cubes will appear around you:
When you hit something with your sword, these cubes will trigger and deal additional damage to the targeted enemy based on your MATK!
After a few hits the cubes will charge up, changing color and deal even more damage, an effect that stacks up to 3 times:
[.....]
Cheers!
