And now, a first sneak peek at the cutscene introducing Grindea to the player! We're still tweaking this, but it will give you an idea of where we're going with this:
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:
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:
Work on a very different part on the game is progressing as well, namely that story written by Penn Wrythe!
The idea is that you'll find parts of this story across the game, each one progressing the story slightly, until you meet Penn Wrythe herself and help her come up with the ending to her novel. The idea is that that Penn Wrythe will ask you what you value the most; power, love or fame (or some such), and depending on your answer the final part of the story will turn out in different ways.
There will be 5-8 parts of this story scattered across the game, so it's quite the long tale.
And today's patch time! Now go forth dear friends and try out the new patch over on the frontline beta! Among the new stuff is:
* Three big but optional side "quests"/objectives has been added, you can find them in the lost ship, Pillar Mountains and Mt Bloom respectively
* You can now refight all bosses in the arena, which has been improved in terms of UI and has a few more challenges as well
* A new load screen and splash screen for everyone who has been working on the game; the game should also load more quickly
* More bosses have drops (if you've killed them already you have been awarded the drops retroactively as all boss drops are now at 100%)
* Talent orbs can now be transformed into silver skill points and the other way around in the HQ
You can read the full patch notes over at the forums! And as always, all feedback is appreciated, please continue to help us make this game the best it can be, we value each and every one of your comments <3
Now, some of these things are a bit placeholder-y, one of them being the fonts and overall design of the texts used. For example, I'm not too fond of the readability in the sound design teams part of the load screen, with it being on two rows and a bit hard to read overall:
So I made a couple suggestions making it look a bit more streamlined and less in your face:
For the cloudy load screen part, there was a bit of a font issue as well. Here's what it looked like before:
And here are some suggested improvements, with this first one being my personal favourite (although we haven't made any final decisions regarding which one we'll pick yet):
Finally, with this new load screen appearing, I felt like the old in-game load screen between areas look a bit lame (it was one of the very first things we added to the game, after all!) so I made a little mockup of what a new version could look like, tying back to the pre-game load screen we're implementing right now:
The text on the left will be replaced by the usual gameplay tips, I just didn't have them on hand so I picked a random rat fact for now! The idea is that the clouds will be floating slowly across the sky, with possibly the occasional bird flying across - although hopefully the game won't load for so long between areas that you'll have to spend any longer amounts of time looking at it haha!
Okay, so time for us to take a look at that loading screen I mentioned previously! First of all, here we have the splash art that will appear before anything else. This won't have the 'windowed' look, but will simply appear for a short while before the actual game window pops up:
A gif showing how it all plays out once the actual game window starts can be seen here (although my computer already properly loaded the game, so there's not much of a load screen going on here haha):
Good evening everyone!
Have you had great holidays despite the strange year we left behind? We've been taking it easy, not meeting to many people - in fact, me and Fred and Fred's brother (whom he lives with) decided we wouldn't go anywhere and risk getting or spreading the virus, so we celebrated christmas and new years together on the island instead!
Today we got back to work, and the first thing we decided on doing is having a meeting to discuss our upcoming patches!
There are three big patches left, one featuring the final story mode stuff (except for the ending bit), where we'll add the last bunch of backer items, some arena stuff (making you able to rebattle bosses in the arena + some bonus challenges), adding a fight with bishop and the cave where you can track your progress on how many cards you've found (as well as getting a special item once you've collected them all).
The second patch will involve Arcade Mode, where we'll be reworking the challenge rooms to make them a bit more fun and varied, add a proper map so you can track your progress, adding a proper room to end your runs as well as a final boss battle featuring none other than the goddess herself, Grindea! We're also gonna make sure we feel each run is varied enough and possibly add more types of rooms to make sure each new run won't get too repetitive.
The third and final patch before proper release is the Main Story ending patch, where we'll add the final dungeon, both endings and both final bosses (the version of the battle you face will depend on whether it's the default or true ending path you're on)! It's possible we'll save the final battle of Arcade Mode to this patch as well, so both endings come out at the same time.
We're aiming for the first patch to be done by the end of March - however we're not sure whether this is actually realistic or if we're just being hyped after having some time off for two weeks! Regardless, we'll do our best to make it happen :)
Stay tuned for our continued progress as we head into this new year together!
As you may have noticed a few days ago, it's patch time! This new patch ties a bunch of loose strings together, and is the first of a few such updates. If you haven't done so yet, go ahead and go try out the new content and new quests!
A short summary from the patch notes:
* There's now a quest to bring (back) butterflies to Evergrind City!
* Marino's Mansion is now accessible, with a couple of quests inside
* Red Slimes can now be found in Story Mode, and have been given a card
* Added a new Two Handed Weapon obtainable after Flying Fortress: Red Slime Hammer
* Two more wobbly sprouts have been added, and all four can now be grown using Super Fertilizer, unlocking new locations
* Some minor quests/secrets have been added to give the player said fertilizer
* The Alchemist storyline can now be concluded with a final quest
Some more stuff we've been talking about recently is tying up a couple of the "semi-started" quests we've been foreshadowing around the world. One such thing is the Scarecrow quest - remember the scarecrow that talks about the purple garland in Pumpkin Woods? While we're going to rewrite her(!) line a little bit, we will end up with a quest dealing with the curse of the pumpkin, while also solving another question mark of the world - the house on the little island in Evergrind City. We've decided to let there be a bridge there from the beginning, rather than you having to fix one, and inside will be a worried father talking about his missing daughter, who is a collector. At some point in the story, once you've progressed far enough or you're strong enough, he will appear in the Collectors' HQ asking for your assistance in finding his daughter; who, it turns out, has been cursed into a scarecrow!
Another thing you might have forgotten about (but we surely haven't) is the grave up in Seasonne! The grave will be reached through a cave which we're about to make as well, and which will give clues about the owner of the grave - a math genius who is depressed about his attempts at math caves not being as popular as his rival in Port Monnaie. There will be a different kind of math puzzle here as well, but the quest itself will be given after speaking to the ghost inhabiting the grave outside the little cave system.
We're also going to (finally!) add the option to turn a couple rooms in the Temple of Seasons into spring, revealing a hidden room in one such room where you'll get a trinket that has been in the game since pretty much forever, but which you haven't been able to get yet because we never actually got around to making it possible to turn the room in question into its spring version... Oops!
More to come as well, but there isn't that much left on our list for Story Mode now! :)
So, we're drawing ever closer to releasing these bunch of quests, and so last week we had a meeting where we discussed where to head now. There are still some things we'd like to add to story mode to make it feel a bit more fleshed out before we start working on the final dungeon, in fact there's a massive list of things that we tend to go through every once in a while and decide on what to keep and what to skip. Ideally we would have loved to do everything, but as we've been developing this game for a really long time now and there are some things that really don't need as much improvement as we initially thought, we've ended up skipping more things recently. Hopefully we'll soon be done with the list and will be able to actually finish up the game!
Anyway, during the meeting last week we decided we're going to add a respawn area for Bloomos to make them a bit easier to farm. This will be either in Evergrind South or in Evergrind West (not yet decided). This is a minor thing which will just make it a bit easier to get those items.
Next, we're going to add more books to various book cases around the world. Previously we wanted to include rare books that one could read only once you handed it in to the librarian, but we've decided against this and will now focus on putting more books in book cases around the world instead, to make the world feel a bit more alive and give it more depth, something we feel is better done if you can read the books at any time as you find them rather than having to hand them in first.
Next, the arena. We will add a bunch of mini games in there that you can challenge your friends in. We've discussed PvP, and unfortunately we've decided against adding it, as it would take a lot of time to get right, and even longer to make it balanced. We think there's a bigger risk people end up disliking it if it's there rather than feel it's missing from the game if it's not.
We'll also add the tutorial shield training to Master Ji's Dojo in Story Mode, however the challenges will remain Arcade Mode only, to give you a bit more value for unlocking it in Arcadia.
We'll also add a quest in which you'll clean up Evergrind City from all the trash that was left around the place after the festival. Once you trigger the quest, each trash item lying around will turn into a regular item that will automatically be added to your loot like enemy drops, so you're able to run around and collect them all.
We'll also add seed drops to each of the plant enemies, and special housing jars in the Tree shop in Seasonne in which you can plant them, so you can have your own collection of home grown enemy plants!
Anyway, during the meeting last week we decided we're going to add a respawn area for Bloomos to make them a bit easier to farm. This will be either in Evergrind South or in Evergrind West (not yet decided). This is a minor thing which will just make it a bit easier to get those items.
Next, we're going to add more books to various book cases around the world. Previously we wanted to include rare books that one could read only once you handed it in to the librarian, but we've decided against this and will now focus on putting more books in book cases around the world instead, to make the world feel a bit more alive and give it more depth, something we feel is better done if you can read the books at any time as you find them rather than having to hand them in first.
Next, the arena. We will add a bunch of mini games in there that you can challenge your friends in. We've discussed PvP, and unfortunately we've decided against adding it, as it would take a lot of time to get right, and even longer to make it balanced. We think there's a bigger risk people end up disliking it if it's there rather than feel it's missing from the game if it's not.
We'll also add the tutorial shield training to Master Ji's Dojo in Story Mode, however the challenges will remain Arcade Mode only, to give you a bit more value for unlocking it in Arcadia.
We'll also add a quest in which you'll clean up Evergrind City from all the trash that was left around the place after the festival. Once you trigger the quest, each trash item lying around will turn into a regular item that will automatically be added to your loot like enemy drops, so you're able to run around and collect them all.
We'll also add seed drops to each of the plant enemies, and special housing jars in the Tree shop in Seasonne in which you can plant them, so you can have your own collection of home grown enemy plants!
Finally for this week's update, we decided to add a talking anvil, since we feel we need one more sentient artefact around town. As you may have guessed, it'll be the anvil Smith uses to make his sword, so prepare to say hello to this new friend soon :)
Now, time for a sneak peek of what Teddy and Fred has been up to: flying trolls! This here is a prototype of the battle against Remedi in his troll form. Looks pretty cool, right?!
More to come soon! :)
It's finally time for those of you who play on stable to take part of the new Arcade Mode update!! With this new patch, you will get the full rebalance/rework of Arcade, including fewer floors, Traveller and his Pins, the difficulty changing Catalysts and various rebalances. Are you ready?
As always, feedback is much appreciated, and you can leave it here, on the forums, or in our discord! We all look forward to hearing from you soon :)
As mentioned before we've been looking into getting new desks for the office, specifically ones you can adjust the height of so you can change whether you sit or stand while working. A little while ago, they finally arrived, and now it's been time to set them up!
First though, quick reminder of what it used to look like. All black desks that looked completely different:
We had to do a bunch of the assembly ourselves, including drilling our own holes into a table top, which was quite nerve wracking for a bunch of people who spend most of their time by their computers and barely know how to operate a drill!
It all went by more or less smoothly though, and in the end the tables work quite well:
But to be honest, the biggest upgrade IMO is the fact that the office now looks a lot more light and open, with all of us having the same desk as well:
Now it's finally time to get back to work! See you next week :)
Sorry for the lack of update yesterday! We've been busy turning the guest house into an office; which turns out involved two full days of carrying stuff back and forth as well as disassembling and reassembling a whole bunch of furniture... Phew!
Even after these two days we're not completely done; we've been looking into getting new desks (of the kind you can also use to stand up and work), and new, better chairs, seeing as we've had these for an incredibly long time and they're pretty much just the most basic type of IKEA chairs. I spent most of the evening yesterday doing some research on that topic, so hopefully we'll have a better and prettier looking office soon :)
For now though, it's good to be able to work together again! And being this close to home, it's a lot easier with lunch breaks and the like as well. Feels great so far!
Even after these two days we're not completely done; we've been looking into getting new desks (of the kind you can also use to stand up and work), and new, better chairs, seeing as we've had these for an incredibly long time and they're pretty much just the most basic type of IKEA chairs. I spent most of the evening yesterday doing some research on that topic, so hopefully we'll have a better and prettier looking office soon :)
For now though, it's good to be able to work together again! And being this close to home, it's a lot easier with lunch breaks and the like as well. Feels great so far!
With the world around us slowly calming down a bit and more and more restrictions being lifted, we have been talking about whether or not to get back into some sort of office. The office hotel we previously used have closed down, but we do have a spare room where we live where we've previously housed guests so we're thinking about turning it into a proper office for the time being.
Today we decided that we'll start making that move within the upcoming week, so we've been making plans to move our desks and computers there as soon as it becomes available this weekend (Teddy's mom has been staying over for the last couple months due to the corona virus, but she's been intent on moving back to her apartment for quite some time, and has already started moving out most of her things).
It's possible we'll look into a more permanent office in the future, but before we make any such move we want to see a more permanent decrease in the corona virus havoc that's been going on. For now, it won't make much of a difference for the three of us to meet in the office seeing as we don't really see anyone else anyway, and I think after a couple months working from home it would be good for our motivation to get back to some proper routines and get a proper change of scenery.
So that's our upcoming plans that we discussed today while also having our yearly meeting and signing some papers for the company that we need to review yearly. Phew! Now, back to work :)
Today we decided that we'll start making that move within the upcoming week, so we've been making plans to move our desks and computers there as soon as it becomes available this weekend (Teddy's mom has been staying over for the last couple months due to the corona virus, but she's been intent on moving back to her apartment for quite some time, and has already started moving out most of her things).
It's possible we'll look into a more permanent office in the future, but before we make any such move we want to see a more permanent decrease in the corona virus havoc that's been going on. For now, it won't make much of a difference for the three of us to meet in the office seeing as we don't really see anyone else anyway, and I think after a couple months working from home it would be good for our motivation to get back to some proper routines and get a proper change of scenery.
So that's our upcoming plans that we discussed today while also having our yearly meeting and signing some papers for the company that we need to review yearly. Phew! Now, back to work :)
So, the thing me and Fred will focus in next is the Mansion. I've already shown some sketches of the interior as well as some characters that will live inside its walls, but what's the actual point of the building? Why, to house quests of course! Over the last couple days our daily meetings have mainly revolved around the quest(s) that will happen around the building, and have gone through a ton of suggestions. In the end though, we've settled for a specific questline, featuring Marino's dad's business idea.
As some of you may know, while you're off in Mount Bloom and Tai Ming, Marino and his dad has been in the Merchant Isles for some kind of business trip. Now that they're back, we're deciding to bring in that business trip as part of a quest, where you're tasked with doing marketing for a new set of gear they've imported and want to start selling.
The gear looks real fancy, but unfortunately its stats are horrible - it's basically fashion items only. But to market the set, Marino's dad wants you to do a publicity stunt in the arena - fighting a bunch of enemies using only the fashionable set from the Merchant Isle! Why you? Well, because the one who was actually going to do the fashion stunt, a famous and popular Collector, has unfortunately taken ill...
The idea here is that around the time you finish Tai Ming, there will be posters and such in Evergrind City featuring the famous collector (whom we'll add as a side character that you can interact with and who will have been mentioned previously in the game), announcing the event in the arena. Shortly after the quest will become available in the mansion, where Marino's dad will explain that the famed collector can't do it but that you have enough popularity to do it instead. After this additional posters will be added to Evergrind, taped over the original ones, this time featuring your face!
The event itself will basically be an arena challenge where it's your job to defeat a bunch of enemies using only the fashionable set (which will be force equipped and you won't be able to change during the challenge). Succeed and you'll get the reward, mess up and well... die... Oops :)
There will also be an additional quest earlier on in the game, which will be available around the time you first gain access to the mansion. We're not entirely sure what that quest will be yet though, but probably something a bit more simple. Our idea with this bigger quest is to involve not only the mansion, but to give Evergrind City some additional sense of life, kind of like what we did surrounding the festival. We don't want Evergrind to feel too static, but like a place where things happen and change :)
As some of you may know, while you're off in Mount Bloom and Tai Ming, Marino and his dad has been in the Merchant Isles for some kind of business trip. Now that they're back, we're deciding to bring in that business trip as part of a quest, where you're tasked with doing marketing for a new set of gear they've imported and want to start selling.
The gear looks real fancy, but unfortunately its stats are horrible - it's basically fashion items only. But to market the set, Marino's dad wants you to do a publicity stunt in the arena - fighting a bunch of enemies using only the fashionable set from the Merchant Isle! Why you? Well, because the one who was actually going to do the fashion stunt, a famous and popular Collector, has unfortunately taken ill...
The idea here is that around the time you finish Tai Ming, there will be posters and such in Evergrind City featuring the famous collector (whom we'll add as a side character that you can interact with and who will have been mentioned previously in the game), announcing the event in the arena. Shortly after the quest will become available in the mansion, where Marino's dad will explain that the famed collector can't do it but that you have enough popularity to do it instead. After this additional posters will be added to Evergrind, taped over the original ones, this time featuring your face!
The event itself will basically be an arena challenge where it's your job to defeat a bunch of enemies using only the fashionable set (which will be force equipped and you won't be able to change during the challenge). Succeed and you'll get the reward, mess up and well... die... Oops :)
There will also be an additional quest earlier on in the game, which will be available around the time you first gain access to the mansion. We're not entirely sure what that quest will be yet though, but probably something a bit more simple. Our idea with this bigger quest is to involve not only the mansion, but to give Evergrind City some additional sense of life, kind of like what we did surrounding the festival. We don't want Evergrind to feel too static, but like a place where things happen and change :)
So, we've been focusing quite a bit on Pins and Arcade these couple weeks, and you might wonder what our next step is from here. Our idea is that Teddy will finish up and add a ton of pins and get them polished and ready for a Frontline Patch along with the floor shortening and all of that sometime in the beginning of June - that's about how long it'll take for us to iron out all potential bugs and make it all work in multiplayer as well.
The remaining work is pretty heavily focused on the programming bits, so me and Fred will star working on something else, or rather, get back to where we left off before these Pins caught our attention: the Mansion! Once the mansion has been completed we'll also add one or two quests involving its characters, and possibly some other bits and pieces for Story Mode before that turns into a Frontline Patch as well. In the near future, we'll likely do an Arcade update here and a Story Mode update there as we work our way through these things we have left on our long list of things we want to add before the game is completed.
First up though, an expected Frontline Update around the first week on June, featuring the shortening of Arcade and around 100 pins for you to explore throughout your journeys in Arcade Mode! Hopefully you'll like the variation they give as much as we have trying them out so far :)
The remaining work is pretty heavily focused on the programming bits, so me and Fred will star working on something else, or rather, get back to where we left off before these Pins caught our attention: the Mansion! Once the mansion has been completed we'll also add one or two quests involving its characters, and possibly some other bits and pieces for Story Mode before that turns into a Frontline Patch as well. In the near future, we'll likely do an Arcade update here and a Story Mode update there as we work our way through these things we have left on our long list of things we want to add before the game is completed.
First up though, an expected Frontline Update around the first week on June, featuring the shortening of Arcade and around 100 pins for you to explore throughout your journeys in Arcade Mode! Hopefully you'll like the variation they give as much as we have trying them out so far :)
Now, for a much longed for update from Fred's department! Because of the spoilery nature of nearly every animation he's made for a long time there hasn't been many updates from him, but you can view all of his progress in the update which should also be on stable in one of the coming days if it isn't up already!
Now, however, as we move on to less spoiler-y things, such as the mansion in Evergrind South, we can start showing more stuff again! Here we have a few of the inhabitants of the mansion, starting with the butler (as well as a few options for how he's gonna look in the end):
Our current favorite is the second one from the left! Which one do you prefer?
There's also the long awaited(?) appearance of Marino's father, sitting in his solitude on the throne upstairs:
In the next couple of days I'll be making portraits for these guys as well, so stay tuned for that! :)
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