For the eight floor, we wanted to pull back a bit from too much intense fighting, and instead focusing on some other aspects of Dragonbone Dunes!

So far, we’ve come up with two rooms here: first, you’ll begin in a desert area with an exit to the north, blocked by a locked door. Next to it you’ll find an archaeologist who will give you a map to find the key: only it turns out there are a ton of similar looking scenes around the area! Your goal is to find the small detail pointing you to the right bush (or whatever) by which the key has been hidden.

Second, we wanted to make use of the math puzzle mechanic where you also summon enemies! For this puzzle, we’re skipping the math bits and adding enemy tiles from across the entire world of Grindea for a real build-your-own-encounter path :)

We’d like a third room as well, either before or after the puzzle room, but we haven’t been able to agree on what exactly is to happen in it. One idea was to make a similar “story oriented” block puzzle as in the ruins of Dragonbone Dunes, only this one featuring characters from the game, or the artefacts, or something along those lines, but neither of us were completely sold on the idea.

What sort of third room would you guys like to see? Feel free to share in the comments! :)

Next up, it’s time for me to start working on the background for the Bishop’s battle, seeing as we’re about to finish it up! In this first part, I’m working on the basics of the map, saving the spikes for later:

….and later being now, as it happens! The continuation of the Bishop battle background, this time focusing on a bunch of spikes to make the area a bit more menacing:

Once all of that was completed, I had a bunch of new stuff added on my to do-list, including a mockup for the interface of the silver point to talent orb mechanic, a basic sketch of Bishop’s boss portrait, a scared expression for the Mandarine character, and the ghost house of Pumpkin Woods with an open door:

In Fred’s deparment, meanwhile, we take a look at some more Bishop animations, as well as Bokus, the apprentice of the Silver Point to Talent Orb transmuter!