It’s been a while since release and it’s time to get back to the office after a short break! I have to say it still feels pretty surreal that Secrets of Grindea has finally been released – although the development will continue on for quite a while.
In this first ‘real’ update since the release, I thought I’d share with you what our plans are for the game in the near future:
Rebalance
One of our prioritites going forward will definitely be to take a look at the overall balance, especially late-game. We’ve already made some decisions in regards to this, such as:
* Giving the Evil Eye’s laser and barrage a slightly longer delay, which should give players a bit more time to position themselves accordingly.
* Giving Luke’s explosion sprites smaller colliders, which means you can be closer to them without taking damage.
* Giving Luke’s whirlwind spin-across-the-screen an improved indicator, which should make avoiding it easier.
* Keeping the Furious (Red) Giga Slime at the same level it was when the player first encountered it, rather than having its difficulty scale with the player’s level.
* Adding “clarity options”, making it possible to hide pets and summons belonging to other players.
* Finding some way(s) of pointing players to the support skills when needed.
* Not having to complete all of the more difficult phase shift challenges in Mount Bloom in order to get the true ending.
New Game +
We do know that we want a New Game+ mode. What that entails exactly we haven’t decided exactly yet, but our idea so far is that:
* You’ll keep your character and all of your gear and loot.
* You’ll be able to collect every card again, increasing their stats and bonuses.
* You’ll need to have gotten true ending to unlock New Game + by talking to a character (probably Bishop).
Other Game Modes
Along with New Game + we intend to release two new difficulties: Chill Mode and Hardcore Mode. Chill mode will be the equivalent of an Easy Mode, for those who would like to enjoy the story without the hassle of too challenging gameplay, while Hardcore Mode challenges you to finish the game with only one life – when you die you die.
Misc
Other than that, we’re also looking at:
* A new options for full screen resolutions, where black borders will make sure the pixels remain intact instead of getting too mushy.
* Making it possible to easily swap between a quick-slotted weapon and your previously equipped weapon.
* The option to bind a potion slot to a separate button, instead of having to use your “potion-belt”.
* A prompt that will let you copy a previous multiplayer session’s world state rather than having to go through every quest separately when you enter your world in single player.
* giving translators a top credit spot and the option to add their own credits at the start of the game
What About Console Ports?
This is something we’d like to do, but we’re not yet certain exactly how much work it would entail. We’re gonna look into it and make a decision in the near future.
The Blog Update Frequency
As the game has been released and a lot of our work going forward will be balancing and things that don’t generate too much visual output, the blog updates will go from being posted once a week to once a month.
That means that the next blog post will be available on May 1st, and at that point you’ll get another recap on what we’ve been working on since last time. Until then, have a good April! :D
