Hi guys! I’m gonna keep this blog post brief because we’re in the middle of judging Gotland Game Conference 2015, but I really wanted this update to be on time!

So, as you may have noticed if you played the game in the last few days, we’ve added a “quicklevel”-system to Arcade Mode!

This allows you to quickly level any skills and talents you’ve recently been leveling, without having to browse through the menu to find them all over again. Here’s a GIF showing the difference (click to watch full-sized version):

Other than that, Vilya has kept working on improving the earlier graphics! This time around, she went over the menu icons (old versions on the top, new versions on the bottom):

She also went back and touched up a bunch of portraits, and created this new one:

Fred has kept working on the gold charge animations, focusing on giving the snow buddy some actual animations this week!

 

Hope you guys have had a great week! We have one more day of judging games, then it’s all back to normal. Perhaps we’ll talk a bit about our experience with this year’s GGC in the next update, if any of you are interested in that sort of thing! Until then, see you! :D

Another week has gone past! We updated the Stable Beta on Steam a few days ago, so if you’re a Stable user now’s a good time to play again: plenty of quests and a few new systems has been added for you to play around with~

Now, what have we been up to this week? Our main concern has been Steam Leaderboards for Arcade Mode, which has kept both Vilya and Teddy busy in GUI-making-land:

Now, the highscores will be sorted in 2 different ways. First, how many players were present in the run, which means that single player, 2-player, 3-player and 4-player runs all will have their own highscore entries. You swap between these by pressing up or down (as indicated by the arrows next to the title).

Second, a filter option will let you browse through global scores, friends only, and your own highest score. You swap between these by pressing tab.

These leaderboards haven’t been implemented yet, but they should be in an upcoming patch! What was implemented, though, is the ability to hide your pet:

This function is something that has been on our to-do list for the longest while, and I’m sure a lot of you are happy to finally be able to hide pets that refuse to leave you alone! Go check it out by opening the Pet Menu from your Character tab.

Other than that, Vilya has been cleaning up and improving a few more things in different areas. Among the things she did was adding a bunch of decorations to the balcony in Startington:

As well as transforming this pretty empty area:

…Into something a bit more exciting, featuring decorative snow caves (yay?)!

Our goal with these snow caves was to have the yeti spawn from them, but we aren’t exactly sure if we’ll get around to that or if they’ll simply be decorative in the end.

Lastly, we’ll end the post with some cool animations by Fred, who keeps making gold charges! Here’s the Shadow Clone version:

As we’ve been developing this game, all of us have improved a lot. Today, both the graphical assets and the way we handle things programming wise are much different than they were when we first started out. Because of that, we thought it would be a good idea to have Vilya rework some of the early graphics so they’d fit in better with the later stuff! After all, we want any newcomers who purchase the game after it goes live on Steam Early Access to get the best first impression possible.

So, here are some things she’s been working on this week, in regards to that (most of these updates are actually already live and running in the Frontline beta, so go ahead and check them out):

First up – all houses in Startington have been updated as can be seen above! We’re gonna color correct them a bit in the next patch, making them slightly darker so they won’t pop as much against the background.

Almost all fences in the game have been or will be updated as well. These new ones are, like the houses, basically cleaned up versions with slightly different colors than their old counterparts.

Same goes for the wood! The old versions were kind of green and messy-looking, which has been corrected as of the latest patch.

The well also got a small correction: the wood is a bit cleaner and has been color corrected, and the bucket has been redesigned.

The suspension bridges have been updated as well: cleaner lines, fewer colors, less sickly green hues.

The bridge where the fisherman is had to be updated as well – it simply wasn’t safe for him to stand on such a moldy, worn down old thing with stray pixels everywhere! Now he can feel safe while awaiting his next catch.

As of the latest patch, there’s also a bunch of new items and two new character portraits to be found:

Meanwhile, Fred has been working on finishing up those last Gold Charge Spells! Here’s another one, the earth spike now turned into a giant hand:

The Seasonne patch hit the Frontline beta on Steam on Saturday, and received a patch of hotfixes today! As we’ve talked about in previous blog posts, the patch adds a bunch of content to the Winterland, making it feel more alive. If you haven’t played it yet, you should check it out and tell us what you think!

If you’ve forgotten how to change to the Frontline version, check out this thread.

Santa needs halp!

All the new content gave Vilya a ton of portrait work, so that’s where a good chunk of her efforts have been directed the past week! Here are some of the massive amount of portraits she made:

Meanwhile, Fred has jumped back into creating the animations we’re going to need for all the gold skill charges! Below are all the different casting effects of the Berserker Mode!

 

Soon, the day will come when Teddy shall put all these new skill charges into the game… (but first, he must add Steam achievements and Arcade Mode online leaderboards!)