Vilya's Work-blog! (aka Pixel Ferrets behind the scenes)
- Thread starter Vilya
- Start date
MrChocodemon
Handsome Moderator
JUNE 12, 2015
Haircut Reworks #3: Palettes
Aside from the obvious issues with the actual hairstyle sprites, I've also been incredibly underwhelmed with the color options we currently have in the game. This is an issue with the clothes as well (and that will be fixed at some point too), but it has mainly bugged me when it comes to the haircolors.
Basically I felt that meny of the palettes were made with little to no thought of how it'd actually look on the character, and more of a "well I guess color x should have 3 options as well". A lot of the color options were really similar, and many had really dull and non-vibrant colors as a result of bad recolor work.
So, I went over those as well! And here's the result, featuring all the different hairstyles at least once:
The reworked haircut colours can be found on Vilya's Blog:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/06/haircut-reworks-3-palettes.html
Aside from the obvious issues with the actual hairstyle sprites, I've also been incredibly underwhelmed with the color options we currently have in the game. This is an issue with the clothes as well (and that will be fixed at some point too), but it has mainly bugged me when it comes to the haircolors.
Basically I felt that meny of the palettes were made with little to no thought of how it'd actually look on the character, and more of a "well I guess color x should have 3 options as well". A lot of the color options were really similar, and many had really dull and non-vibrant colors as a result of bad recolor work.
So, I went over those as well! And here's the result, featuring all the different hairstyles at least once:
The reworked haircut colours can be found on Vilya's Blog:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/06/haircut-reworks-3-palettes.html
The G-Meister
Giga Slime
My god they look great. I can't wait for these to be introduced! Also, gonna make your character stand out on screen a whole bunch more, making them easier to find, and more bold as a collector! I'm gonna be busy for hours with the character creator for arcade runs! 
MrChocodemon
Handsome Moderator
JUNE 15, 2015
Equipment Edits!
As you know by now, I have this grand plan of improving the in-game menu! The next part of that plan involves the Equipment tab, which looks totally drab right now:
At the very least, I wanted some decorative art for the titles, as well as fancier texts! As I worked on that, though, I also figured that a dash of background decorations would probably help this tab along a bit as well:
The actual title texts will be rendered in the game engine, so it'll be possible to translate them. As such, they might not look exactly like this, but the color and style should be approx. the same! Also, the icons on the left and right side of the Gear and Style titles will be 'loose', so if certain languages use a longer name for 'gear', the icons will keep the same distance from the text, instead of having the text pass over 'em.
Now, time for me to head over to Fred's place! We're gonna have a looong meeting where we'll discuss what I should make next for the temple (yay!), some final details on the Gold charge skills, and what Support skills we want in the game. Also a good time to eat some yummy BBQ food, since it's summer and all!
As you know by now, I have this grand plan of improving the in-game menu! The next part of that plan involves the Equipment tab, which looks totally drab right now:
At the very least, I wanted some decorative art for the titles, as well as fancier texts! As I worked on that, though, I also figured that a dash of background decorations would probably help this tab along a bit as well:
The actual title texts will be rendered in the game engine, so it'll be possible to translate them. As such, they might not look exactly like this, but the color and style should be approx. the same! Also, the icons on the left and right side of the Gear and Style titles will be 'loose', so if certain languages use a longer name for 'gear', the icons will keep the same distance from the text, instead of having the text pass over 'em.
Now, time for me to head over to Fred's place! We're gonna have a looong meeting where we'll discuss what I should make next for the temple (yay!), some final details on the Gold charge skills, and what Support skills we want in the game. Also a good time to eat some yummy BBQ food, since it's summer and all!
For all the Infos on Vilya's work on 'Secrets of Grindea' visit:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de
The G-Meister
Giga Slime
No way can you customise the look of your sword and shield... That's awesome!!! Imagine having no disguise and you do karate chops instead... or you disguise it as a twig and pretend to be a frostling
Purrbidden
Giga Slime
Reading all these updates, even if slight ones make me more excited.
The hairs look amazing.
The hairs look amazing.
MrChocodemon
Handsome Moderator
JUNE 16, 2015
BBQ + Loads of Planning!
So yesterday we spent the day at Fred's place, eating yummy BBQ and planning the near (and distant) future of the game. As you probably know, we're currently focusing on getting everything together for a Steam Early Access release. Way back we made a list of things we wanted to add or improve with the game before launching on early access, and today we checked what things we have left and if anything else has changed.
Our old Pre-Steam EA to-do list
The rest of this blog entry can be found over at:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/06/bbq-loads-of-planning.html
So yesterday we spent the day at Fred's place, eating yummy BBQ and planning the near (and distant) future of the game. As you probably know, we're currently focusing on getting everything together for a Steam Early Access release. Way back we made a list of things we wanted to add or improve with the game before launching on early access, and today we checked what things we have left and if anything else has changed.
Our old Pre-Steam EA to-do list
The rest of this blog entry can be found over at:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/06/bbq-loads-of-planning.html
The G-Meister
Giga Slime
What's gonna happen to the other pre-order options on the website? Are they still going to be available?
Haha yeah, we initially hoped to be finished with the skills in late May or early June (this is why we'll never name a release date ever again), so that would definitely have been a bit of a bummer, with the sale launching a couple of days laterI'm glad you guys didn't finish up before just now. Your exposure would've been destroyed by the sales.
Though honestly we don't really expect sales to increase much after the EA launch, it'll all depend on word of mouth since most EA games don't get much in terms of visibility anyways. People seem pretty tired of games in Early Access overall, and given how much time it takes us to send out mails & stuff, we might not do any additional PR stuff for it either. Perhaps it's better to save that stuff for the actual release anyway, so we have at least some tiny chance of getting on one of those Top Seller or Popular lists.. I dunno.
Yep they will all remain until the game is finished
Purrbidden
Giga Slime
Yep they will all remain until the game is finished
Thanks for answering this, I was wondering the same but didn't want to ask the same question in a row.
I plan to have my fiance buy this game soon, and was wondering about the pre-order options so he didn't miss out on anything.
Own
Moderator
I gotta be honest, this tells me exactly as much as the current system, but now in a shiny new graphical style. What does +Damage mean? I dunno. What does 2 bars in 'Damage' mean? How different is it from 1 bar or 3 bars? Is 2 bars in one skill identical to the damage in another skill with 2 bars? I dunno any of that, either.
Ideally I'd love to see exactly how much damage, or how much of a multiplier to ATK, any given skill does when I select it or level it up. Or how much it increases at Silver or Gold charge, but I guess you guys don't want people picking skills based on raw numbers?
I get the feeling that any new player who picks up the game is gonna be just as lost as I would flickering through each of the skills/spells, seeing the bars under the Summary menu and trying to make sense of it all though.
KoBeWi
Jumpkin
The bars are just grading for the stats, like in this example the spell has "2 stars" for damage and "1 star" rating for EP cost etc. These are just subjective values showing how this skill performs relating to others. It gives more idea about the skill (and looks cool!), but still could be more useful. However, too much numbers can also be confusing and if someone takes it too seriously, he may end up strictly calculating "his perfect build"
The G-Meister
Giga Slime
...but I like calculating my perfect build! I like grabbing a notebook page a scrawling down all the numbers, multipliers, and percentage digits, so maybe instead have the numbers inside the "More Info" section?
I like grabbing a notebook page a scrawling down all the numbers, multipliers, and percentage digits, so maybe instead have the numbers inside the "More Info" section?
We do want to include more details when it comes to damage numbers, but our plan for now is to include those in the level up-screen, so you can see how much it will increase when you level it (both the uncharged and max charged version). Still thinking about that, though!
Also, we've actually very recently had a talk about the above system, and we're considering swapping out the current stuff for general characteristics, stuff like "Summon", "Blocks EP", "Free Aim" etc (and as such we'd remove the 1-5 system as well). Do you guys think you'd prefer that?
Also, we've actually very recently had a talk about the above system, and we're considering swapping out the current stuff for general characteristics, stuff like "Summon", "Blocks EP", "Free Aim" etc (and as such we'd remove the 1-5 system as well). Do you guys think you'd prefer that?
The G-Meister
Giga Slime
It'd definitely save some explanation in the more info section. Like currently we've got something like "but until it is dismissed you will not be able to regenerate the energy it cost to summon it!", swapping that out for "Blocks EP" would keep it nice and precise, meaning new players get a quick idea of what it does. A "+ x% DMG, - x CHARGE TIME" in the sidebar would be really helpful, almost like the talents have now. But then it starts to get complicated with different charges and all... unless you have something somewhere which shows how much more % or amount more or less of a stat it does compared to an initial charge (one before bronze).
Sounds good to me, but as long as I get the numbers somewhere I'm not too fussed
Sounds good to me, but as long as I get the numbers somewhere I'm not too fussed
Own
Moderator
My only advice, to prevent people from huffing and puffing about a '$5 hat', is not to frame it as a Valkyrie Helmet DLC. Frame it as Development Support DLC, for those who want to pitch in a little extra to the cost of developing the game. Something like that.
If you really feel bad about selling a hat that they'll use for maybe an hour as DLC, just include some special visual item like the butterfly badge with it. Something that makes valkyrie feathers flutter behind the player. That'd be cool and make the player feel awesome.
Are you guys going to sell it seperately at $5, or have a $15 option and a $20 option? Having the $5 DLC be there after the fact for people who have already buy the game would be best. I got annoyed with Knights Of Pen And Paper +1 when I saw that I couldn't ever get the premium edition because I'd already bought the basic edition.
MrChocodemon
Handsome Moderator
JUNE 18, 2015
Steam Capsules
Alright, so before jumping into what I believe will be the final menu edit (the character tab), it's time to start uploading the Steam graphics so we have all of that in place. As I'm sure you've noticed, a bunch of different banners are used throughout the Steam store, and each demo or DLC has to have all of the same banners, whew!
So, here they are, the ones we'll use for now (perhaps we'll update them before actually releasing the finished game, we'll see):
Regular Banners
Other Banners and more infos can be found over at:
Alright, so before jumping into what I believe will be the final menu edit (the character tab), it's time to start uploading the Steam graphics so we have all of that in place. As I'm sure you've noticed, a bunch of different banners are used throughout the Steam store, and each demo or DLC has to have all of the same banners, whew!
So, here they are, the ones we'll use for now (perhaps we'll update them before actually releasing the finished game, we'll see):
Regular Banners
Other Banners and more infos can be found over at:
JUNE 19, 2015The New Character ID
The final (?!) menu edit is here!! This time, it's the Character tab, featuring a bunch of stats, your pet, and some other random info about your character! Let's begin with the old version:
SO TERRIBLE! There's brown EVERYWHERE, it looks boring, it's uninspiring... Nope, it won't do. I want more colors, more graphics, perhaps some additional for-fun info about your character.
Ready?
Here it is:
The final (?!) menu edit is here!! This time, it's the Character tab, featuring a bunch of stats, your pet, and some other random info about your character! Let's begin with the old version:
SO TERRIBLE! There's brown EVERYWHERE, it looks boring, it's uninspiring... Nope, it won't do. I want more colors, more graphics, perhaps some additional for-fun info about your character.
Ready?
Here it is:
Infos regarding the new character ID can be found over at: