Vilya's Work-blog! (aka Pixel Ferrets behind the scenes)

MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
AUGUST 12, 2015
The Ambassador's Kid, All Grown!

Vilya: That's enough of a break from portraits, right?

The Ambassador's son will be another character you'll meet both as a kid and in his grown up version. Does he still lose his fathers keys? Who knows! I guess only time (travel) will tell...


http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/08/the-ambassadors-kid-all-grown.html​

AUGUST 13, 2015
A Different Kind of Day

Vilya: Yesterday was a slightly.. different kind of day. Instead of spending most of it in the office, as we normally do, we actually spent almost the entire day travelling to Stockholm and back!

As some of you know, we live on an island, situated a bit more than 3 hours by ferry + 1 hour by bus from Stockholm. Yesterday, we went to the big city to meet up with a representative of Humble Bundle, who provide the Secrets of Grindea widgets on our website (we also sell Grindea through their store).


The Gotland Ferry

The meeting was a lot of fun, we talked a bit about some upcoming projects Humble are working on, and I got a fantastic opportunity to show off how terrible I am at using chopsticks (we had lunch at an Asian restaurant). Hopefully I didn't scar anyone for life!

http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/08/a-different-kind-of-day.html​


AUGUST 14, 2015
Those Gold Points

Vilya: So, a lot of people get confused when they receive their first gold point, as they don't really understand what it's for. To solve this problem, we've come up with a few solutions, but for once, we can't seem to agree on which one we think is the best!

Can you help us decide?

Option #1:



Keeping it as it is. Yes, this is an option as well. You get a gold point, but there's no way of telling what it's for until you've leveled a spell enough times to unlock its use - in the meanwhile you just have to keep guessing, or forget about it.

Visually, it's probably the best looking option.

http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/08/those-gold-points.html​
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
AUGUST 17, 2015
Gold Charge, Option #4

Vilya: We continue our struggle to find a nice, good-looking and informative way of conveying what the gold points do!

Today I bring you Option #4, inspired by a suggestion made by War Fist on last week's post on the same subject:



It's basically a slightly less cluttered version of Option #3, where the grayed out portion of the bar will disappear, and the blue crystal will turn yellow once you start using gold points (as illustrated under the second skill above).

We're still not 100% sure which one to choose. Do you think this one is better, or do you prefer another version?

While you guys help us figure this out, I'm gonna go work on the next project: getting a proper Accessory Shop into town!

More content from Vilya can be found on her blog over at:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/08/gold-charge-option-4.html​
 
Enoen

Enoen

Rabby
MrChocodemon said:
AUGUST 17, 2015
Gold Charge, Option #4

Vilya: We continue our struggle to find a nice, good-looking and informative way of conveying what the gold points do!

Today I bring you Option #4, inspired by a suggestion made by War Fist on last week's post on the same subject:



It's basically a slightly less cluttered version of Option #3, where the grayed out portion of the bar will disappear, and the blue crystal will turn yellow once you start using gold points (as illustrated under the second skill above).

We're still not 100% sure which one to choose. Do you think this one is better, or do you prefer another version?

While you guys help us figure this out, I'm gonna go work on the next project: getting a proper Accessory Shop into town!

More content from Vilya can be found on her blog over at:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/08/gold-charge-option-4.html​
Click to expand...
...I don't...I'm not sure how I feel about that one. Mainly because...As appealing as it looks to have the gold charge crystal in the beggining replacing the silver I feel like it defeats the purpose of the visuals.

I'm having a difficult time putting it into words but this basically means you're removing the silver crystal to state that "You are on your way to the gold charge" but it's showing the golden crystal in the very beggining followed by the silver points you placed before heading to the middle. Like it doesn't contrast very well y'know? Like gold silver then gold? I'll have to ask some newbies I bought the game for but while this is less cluttered it's less informative. Dunno just feels weird that the gold point is greyed out and then all of a sudden you unlock it and blam now it replaces the silver and the rest of the bar looks exactly like our bar today.

I'm trying to open my mind to it; As of now I'm not understanding the point.
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
AUGUST 18, 2015
The Accessory Shop

Vilya: As I mentioned before, we're gonna transform the current accessory salesman into a "buyback" man, who allows you to buy back any items you've sold to other vendors. Accessories will get a building of their own, which better fits in with the rest of the shops - after all, every other shop has a building and shop sign of their own.

The location we chose for the store is the town house next to the Blacksmith - it hasn't been used so far anyway!



We chose yellow as the roof color, since we've tried to keep all important buildings separated by color, and nobody uses yellow yet. Might change that around though!

Read more on the Accessory Shop can be read over at:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/08/the-accessory-shop.html​
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
AUGUST 21, 2015
Bug Reports & Tiny Fixes

Vilya: Did I ever talk about the semi-new system we have for bug reports? Basically, I'm now adding every single bug reported on the forums to a huge spreadsheet shared with Teddy & Fred, where I give it a title, description, link to the thread and priority (High, Medium or Low) which indicates how severe the bug is.

As it turns out, going on a week-long riding camp means there'll be a lot of bugs to add to the spreadsheet once you get back... Thankfully I saved new reports in a bookmarks folder every other evening before collapsing into bed, so at least I had them all in one place!



More about the inner workings of Secrets of Grindea can be found at:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/08/bug-reports-tiny-fixes.html​
 
Vilya

Vilya

Developer
Staff member
Interesting idea! Though one problem would be that some of them will be a bit hard to grade on difficulty, since we don't know what exactly people will find hard to achieve until long after the achievement is implemented.

Though theoretically I suppose we could check the Steam achievement unlock percentage to see approx. what people find difficult (or at least which achievements are more rare), and edit the borders after they are added :)
 
Tylerthedragon

Tylerthedragon

Boar
Vilya said:
Interesting idea! Though one problem would be that some of them will be a bit hard to grade on difficulty, since we don't know what exactly people will find hard to achieve until long after the achievement is implemented.

Though theoretically I suppose we could check the Steam achievement unlock percentage to see approx. what people find difficult (or at least which achievements are more rare), and edit the borders after they are added :)
Click to expand...

The things that are hard to achieve are most of the arcade ones.

Maybe grade them as Bronze, Silver and Gold (maybe Platinum for later achievements?) and grade them on the length and general difficulty it takes. Maybe assess the enemies in the area, how much damage they do and how fast they are at attacking. You could then rate it through that system, or just do what people find as "hard". I can say now that the Challenge ones would be silver/gold, and the S rank achievements would be gold for sure. IDK how you'd want to do it, but that is one idea.
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
AUGUST 24, 2015
Mold Essence Incoming

Vilya: In Arcadia, the Bishop is a guy who likes to give unsuspecting travelers difficult quests. He also has a strange interest in essence, which leads to him offering two features: Manage Perks and Mold Essence.

The Manage Perks feature has been implemented for quite a while now, but we haven't gotten around to implementing Mold Essence yet. Now, I can't promise an ETA for when it'll actually be added to the game - but a couple of days ago I went ahead and created the interface needed, anyway:




More on the molding of essence over at:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/08/mold-essence-incoming.html​
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
AUGUST 26, 2015
More Items + Some Thoughts on Bugs!

Vilya: As the title says, here's a bunch of the items that will be found in the time travel area as well as Mt: Bloom! Some are equips, some will be used to craft other things, and some are housing items!

Can you guess which item is supposed to be what?


Other than creating items, I'll be spending a lot of today adding bugs to and managing the bug list. I keep adding the bug reports to my bookmarks bar, but forget to actually add them to the list afterwards.

More on this topic can be found over at:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/08/more-items-some-thoughts-on-bugs.html​

AUGUST 27, 2015
Portrait of an Old Man

Vilya: We'll end this week with a couple of portraits. First up is a super quick portrait of an old man that will play a minor role in the upcoming time travel area!


Line Art

See more of the Old Man and find out how Vilya works over at:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/08/portrait-of-old-man.html​

AUGUST 28, 2015
Portrait of a Priestess

Vilya: The last portrait & post of the week! In the time travel temple/area a set of priests and priestesses will play a somewhat important part in events to come. As such, I'm gonna make a bunch of 'em!

You'll be able to tell that they're priests/esses mainly due to the odd hat I'll add to the portraits at the end. We'll probably try to keep their outfits somewhat similar as well :)

Oh yeah - no video of this one, I actually forgot to start recording and didn't remember until I was already halfway done... Ooops!

Line Art

Do you want to see the priestess in full colour? Pay a visit to Vilya's workblog:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/08/portrait-of-priestess.html
​
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
AUGUST 31, 2015
Preparing the Cutscene~

Vilya: Playing around with expressions for Charlotte in the upcoming cutscene... Can you guess what will happen based on her expressions? :D

Just so you know, they are not in the "correct" order!






http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/08/preparing-cutscene.html​

SEPTEMBER 01, 2015
Fixes & Additions

Vilya: While waiting for Fred & Teddy to catch up a bit before working ahead even longer with the dungeon, I'm fixing some smaller things here and there!

First up, adding a secret spring room that can only be accessed after completing the Temple of Seasons dungeon. I know some of you know where it's supposed to be, but haven't been able to get past the obstacle since it's not implemented yet:



http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/09/fixes-additions.html​
 
Own

Own

Moderator
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.se/2015/09/a-meeting-upcoming-stuff.html

My thoughts:

"Having a red aura appear beneath a player when s/he gets low health"

A distraction which is more likely to cause you to mess up and die than anything. Most people who survive a boss battle at low HP only realize after the fact that they're still alive with only 1-20 HP. The Zelda 'low HP' sound effect has probably lead to a bunch of nervous deaths over the years. :p Plus that sound / visual effect is only there in Zelda as a reminder to drink a potion or use a fairy. There's no such immediate HP gain in SoG, outside of Arcade.

A visual aura or icon if you have the "Below 20% = Effect" Talents might not be unwanted, though.

"Having an enemy type that silences the player, making him unable to use skills"

I am completely in favor of all sorts of enemies getting the most ridicuous debuffs. :) I just hope that they're dealt out fairly, things you can dodge or avoid with skill. Like those mushroom enemies I've seen on Fred's twitter. They look like Jumpkins to me at a glance, but I hope they're more complicated than that. Maybe they explode with silencing / blinding spores 0.5-1 second after they die, giving you time to retreat?

That or them spitting out a slowly homing silencing/blinding spore as a secondary attack which can be blocked or destroyed with any damage. That'd add some trickiness in arcade, where if you get silenced you're probably just dead. :D
 
Vilya

Vilya

Developer
Staff member
The red aura (or similar effects, including the annoying Zelda low hp-sound) has been requested quite a bit, which is one of the reasons we are considering adding it! Another reason is so that in multiplayer you can easily see if one of your friends has low hp, and in doing so can avoid stealing precious health orbs :) We also considered other options to solve the later issue, but feel that showing hp-bars either temporarily or permanently would create too much of a clutter.

When we implement it we'll try to make sure it's not too distracting! And if it turns out more people hate it than like it, we'll of course remove it again :D

As for the mushrooms, yes that's pretty much exactly what we have planned :)
 
Teddy

Teddy

Developer
Staff member
Vilya said:
As for the mushrooms, yes that's pretty much exactly what we have planned :)
Click to expand...

In fact, it was the prototype of the Mushroom enemy that was the basis of the Autumn Hydra's blinding shrooms, and not the other way around :D
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
SEPTEMBER 02, 2015
A Meeting & Upcoming Stuff

Vilya: Today Fred is leaving for Germany, where he'll stay for 1½ week visiting his girlfriend! Thankfully, he'll have access to a computer over there, so he can still work a bit - but it'll be hard to discuss and decide on important things for a while.

Because of that, a few days ago we went to our trusty fast food place and had another one of those meetings!

Since there's no image from the game in this post, ​
have one of my cats instead!​

This time, we discussed what will happen directly after the infamous cutscene with your mother Charlotte, which Teddy will start implementing this week. As you might have heard before, there's gonna be a festival in Evergrind City, where you'll partake in a series of mini-games.

Well, during this meeting we decided to change some of the mini-games around a bit, and instead of our original idea with the entire thing being a long cutscene where you'll do mini-game stuff in-between, we'll probably allow your character to walk around freely.

http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/09/a-meeting-upcoming-stuff.html​

SEPTEMBER 03, 2015
Evergrind Festival, Take 2

Vilya: So! Back to doing work on Evergrind City, preparing for the festival. As some of you might remember, I actually started working on this quite a while ago, but that was before you were supposed to be able to walk freely within the city.

Hence, it was time for me to return to the Festival version BG and add decorations all around the map!

Here's the mockup of the original version (though the worn down house in the top right corner is replaced by a regular house in the actual game):



http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/09/evergrind-festival-take-2.html​
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
SEPTEMBER 05, 2015
New Shop Titles

Vilya: Currently, I'm on a quest to improve things here and there, while waiting for Fred & Teddy to finish up the infamous cutscene. Aaand, one of the things I thought I'd fix is the old, boring, shop title-style!

So, instead of them all being the same, with the same old boring brown BG, a few props here and there and the same style of font, I thought about how I could make them more unique and fit each of the stores better.

Said and done:



http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/09/new-shop-titles.html
​
SEPTEMBER 07, 2015
The Translation Suite, Officially Live!

Vilya: Finally, the Translation Suite if officially live, which means it's now possible to create & download fan translations for Secrets of Grindea!



You should really check out all the infos about the new Translation Suite
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/09/the-translation-suite-officially-live.html​
 
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