This week we’ll start off with a couple portraits! For starters, a new version of Remedi, this time in a female form (we just really can’t get that potion right, can we?)
And then we have the face of Spierre, the spear wielded by James Fawke, the guy you replaced for the arena challenge… :)
Next we have a bunch of expressions for James and his fanclub, which will be playing a pretty big role in the upcoming arena quest:
And then, the long awaited cave system you’ll reach by climbing up the little sapling in Pillar Mountains! This is the first of a whole set of rooms, more of which will be posted later on:
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?!
New week and new maps! Another piece of map needed is this one, featuring the barn next to the farm, where some strange shenanigans have been taking place:
Now, after starting to implement some of the mansion rooms, we decided on mixing up the layout at bit to make sure the rooms didn’t looks quite as similar. As such, there’s first a quick redesign of Marino’s dad’s “throne room”:
…As well as the hallway leading up to it, which now houses four different rooms instead of the original two:
Next we have a mixed bag with various fixes and additions, starting with a couple new banners for the arena, to replace the collector ones while you do the new quest:
A familiar face reappears in the desert, it’s the travelling merchant that visited Evergrind City during the festival, now selling fertilizers in the desert:
Marino’s mansion is getting a proper zone title, and… well, you guessed it, it’s called…
The posters are getting another version of themselves where they’re more like signs so we can place them all around town:
Next up we’re making a smashed up version of the alchemist’s house so you can battle the troll version of Remedi that you’ve been seeing parts of on the blog in the recent couple of week:
Meanwhile, Fred has been working on the troll, and here’s another sneak peek of a rather strange move:
Time for another room in Marino’s mansion, and this time it’s his father’s throne room— errr the second corridor. The doors will lead to the master bedroom and Marino’s room respectively:
Next, another face from the Mansion, the private chef responsible for the fancy dinners hosted at the estate:
Now, for the actual quest challenge where you’ll be battling it out in the arena using some pretty trash but fancy looking gear! First up will be a couple of regular waves of enemies, featuring the various types you might have come across here and there across the game thus far. After that, there’s the grand finale, a mini boss battle/challenge featuring one or two elder boars!
In the first iteration, we had one elder boar and a bunch of red slime falling down from the sky:
As you can see, there’s puffs of smoke coming from the boar as he charges around, and stepping into these dust clouds will make you temporarily blinded!
As you can see, we have added a bunch of obstacles in the arena which you can lure the boar into, making it get temporarily dazed. These obstacles respawn in new positions after the boar has destroyed all of them, and as always with early prototype videos like these they graphics are placeholder:
As shown in the above video, we follow the ‘rage’ theme of the elder enemies with these boars as well!
In the next iteration we removed the red slime but added another boar! This is our favourite iteration so far, a bit more action packed and without the annoying slowing slimes:
Next thing I’ve been working on is some sweet PR for that event in the arena that we’re all so excited for! At first, James was the supposed hero of the show, so to start off with these posters will appear in Evergrind City around the time when you can accept the quest:
However, as James can’t attend and you’ve had to take his place, there will be slight adjustments once you’ve accepted the quest, meaning your face will be all over the posters instead! Of course, the PR team doesn’t have all the time in the world so there will have to be a quick solution instead of reprinting:
The actual face of your character will be rendered into those blank pages so you’ll be able to recognize your own character as the hero of this event! Hopefully you won’t let the PR team down with your performance in the show ;)
In Fred’s department, the animation madness continues with more sprites for the upcoming next bit in the journey to transform Remedi back to his former self! As such, a ‘death’ animation for the troll was needed, as well as a potion pitching move by Remedi’s quick nephew:
We’re back! After a bunch of refreshing days in the sun, it’s time to get back to work, and personally I feel more excited about it than I have in a long time.
To kickstart the week, we decided to start off with a meeting, discussing what we’d like to do with the HQ and the whole Collector business in general. Our initial idea, way back when we first started designing the game, was that collecting items and doing quests for the Collectors would be a major part of the game. As the game progressed along we somehow skipped those elements, leaving the HQ feeling a little bit lackluster these days.
Now, we have two different points of view on this. On one hand, nobody seems to really mind the fact that being a Collector doesn’t mean much outside of the main story, and it would be really nice to finally finish up the game – meaning any unnecessary additions shouldn’t be seriously considered at this point. On the other hand, we sort of feel like the Collectors are a bit flat at the moment, and that the HQ and the organization doesn’t really have a life of its own. That, along with the additional sense of progression a player would feel with the addition of a Collector rank system makes it a more interesting addition than many of the other things we’ve planned to add.
As you can tell, both of these POVs are completely valid and have have their own merits, so while we’re not just sure whether this system will make it into the game, we did take some time to discuss what we’d like it to be like, and what it would entail adding it.
In a previous iteration made quite a while ago, we wanted the progression of you collector rank to simply be Quinton rating the amount of item’s you’ve collected. Now, we’d like to do something a bit more interesting. Our idea is that every time you talk to Quinton, he’ll check up on your progress, giving you points for completing quests, discovering new items, defeating new enemies and whatnot. These points will fill up a bar, showing you how much you have left before the next level as well as whenever you level up. He will also offer you basic quests, such as hunting enemies or collecting certain items, which will award you additional points.
At certain levels, you’ll unlock new parts of the HQ, starting with the lab, which will at the latest be unlocked as part of completing the Flying Fortress main story quest. After that, you’ll be able to unlock an armory where you’ll get new items every once in a while, the memory room where you can rebattle bosses you’ve already defeated, and an advanced level briefing room, where experienced collectors will give you end game difficulty quests with their own rewards.
As you might be able to tell, this does involve quite a bit of work, but I think it might be a really good addition as well, so it is a difficult thing to decide. How do you guys feel?
Now, time for a bunch of random drop appearances for the upcoming quests we’re working on atm. Was a while since I made one of these videos again, so let’s go:
Next up, another ghost comes along, this time of an old warrior from ancient times! Will you take on his challenge?
And now, a boss portrait featuring the Furious Giga Slime, the red and more dangerous version of the regular Giga Slime, which may or may not a play a part in one of the quests we’re currently working on.. :)
Fred, meanwhile, has been busy working on a bunch of animations for one of the bonus bosses you’ll battle as part of these quest lines we’re adding. Here’s a sneak peek of a couple more animations for the troll:
