Another week and more interface fixes in preparation for the final release! These fixes are all meant to make sure the game can be fully and properly translated, but they will also ensure the menus and interfaces of the game look a lot better :)

First up, the arena and target practice interfaces:

Mostly we’ve removed the built in text and touched up the graphics slightly here.

The popup menus in the equipment section of the menu had some sizing issues we’ve taken care of, which meant the icons had to be edited to a new size (and some remade more or less completely):

We’ve also remade the skill info and skill upgrade sections to make sure there’s enough room for translated text and fonts used by different writing systems:

Finally, Fred has been adding some post-endgame sprites for some of the NPCs found around Grindea, as things settle down after you’ve saved the world :)

 

-“Hey everyone!! Vilya caught a cold this weekend, so to cover for her the side-kick-team has assembled to present this week’s blog post!”

-“We’re very grateful to Pixel Ferrets for trusting us with this great and noble responsibility!”

– “…”

-“Anyway, let’s dive straight into it! First, let’s have a look at this amazing picture of… of…”

-“Oh my GODDESS!! It’s gonna be spring in Santa Fae?!!”

-“…how can you not know these things?”

-“Wow, it looks truly beautiful! Great news, indeed! I wonder if that poor, frozen fellow has thawed yet?”

-“Only one way to find out.”

-“I can’t believe Santa Fae got a makeover… and in my season, too! I’m so happy!”

-“Alright. Moving on:”

-“Wow. Amazing. Moving clouds.”

-“I must say that they really add some nice depth to the scene!”

-“…ah, it’s gonna be spring in my little cozy fairytale town…”

-“Er… well, let’s have a look at a whole new place now:”

-“The Collector HQ cafeteria has finally opened! I wonder who we’ll find in there?”

-“Spoiler alert: no-one new.”

-“There are other exciting things than new faces, you know! Having a few close friends can be better than having many shallow relationships.”

-“Yeah! And speaking of good friends, take a look at this power-couple!”

-“…are these guys even Collectors at this point? All I ever see them do is clean up.”

-“Taking care of our surroundings is a noble task!”

-“…is no-one going to compliment me on my great segway about friends?”

-“No. And it’s called a segue.”

-“…wait, really?!”

-“…really?!”

-“Really. And finally, here are some more stuff Fred has scribbled together:”

-“Okay, that’s enough for today. Let’s round off this madness by mentioning that tomorrow (Tuesday), or the day after, apparently the Ferrets are hoping to release the latest version on the Frontline beta branch. Will they make a deadline for once? Stay tuned to find out!”

-“Of course they will! Stop being a negative nancy!”

-“I agree with Naniva on this one! From what I can tell, it is looking remarkably likely to play out as they plan!”

-“Well folks, Team Wholesome has weighed in on the matter, and with that we bid you all farewell and wish you a decent week.”

-“No, we wish them an amazing week!”

-“A fantastically splendid week, in fact!”

-“A sparkling, magical miracle of a week!”

-“A week of such unimaginable fortune and bliss that conveying it in text is nigh impossible!”

-“…”

Another week with lots of stuff happening, some good and some bad. To get the bad news out of the way, Teddy started feeling bad early last week and was rushed to the hospital after a fainting episode. There it was was confirmed that he’s got a pretty bad case of covid19, so he’s been on bed rest since then. At present we’re not sure when he will be fit enough to get back to work, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed and press on in the meantime.

So this week Vilya has been checking off a bunch of smaller things we felt needed fixing. Among these were adding missing expressions for some of the characters, editing the colouring for the math puzzle in the same area, and adding the graphics for a hat you’ll be able to get after finishing the game:

She also made some smaller adjustments to a bunch of portraits that were broken in various ways (such as messed up colours or them being too big for the dialogue box), and added some additional decorations to a couple of places. Below you can see what the small desert cottage will look like after completing a certain hidden quest, and some greenery added to the area to the right of the farm in Evergrind West, where we first thought we’d have some sort of farming minigame which we ended up scrapping – meaning it looked a bit too empty for something that isn’t going to be used in any way:

Meanwhile, Fred’s been working on animating the starry cards sky that will feature in one of the very last cutscenes of the game:

…For what is endgame in any epic jRPG-inspired game without a trip to the stars? :)

Another week, and lots of progress on the final battle(s)!

This week we’ve been working on two major things: Zhamla’s boss battle (hard mode version), and fine-tuning the ‘normal’ ending.

When it comes to Zhamla’s boss battle in hard mode, we’ve felt that health potions and some supportive spell (Barrier, I’m looking at you) pose a bit of a design challenge for us. Every opening and every cinematic attack will give your barrier and potion time to recharge, and since the battle is long the amount healed with that combination can become quite insane. This isn’t an issue on the Normal difficulty, as it’s not designed to be as much of a challenge and we expect they will each serve as vital means for many to be able to defeat him at all. However, on hard mode, you’re basically asking for a challenge.

So how have we decided to solve this? Here’s a clue:

Basically, if you try to drink a health potion in hard mode, Zhamla will snatch the potion from your hand and smash it to the floor!

As for Barrier….

It might not be clearly illustrated here, but Zhamla will actually steal your barrier, getting it as a shield for himself!

In other words, barrier and health pots are off limits if you wish to defeat Zhamla on hard mode :)

As for the Normal Ending cutscene, we’re adding some minor animations and changing up some timings (editing some of the “directing”, if you will), to give the end a bit more oomph than it currently has. Though our first intention was for it to be pretty clear it wasn’t the true ending, we also don’t want it to feel too rushed, which has turned out to be a fine line to walk.

That’s all for now! See you next week :D

Hey guys! How’s your week been? Ours has been filled with art creation, bug testing, release discussions and animation making. And a bunch of programming, of course!

To start off the showcase of this week, we have a ruined version of the final battle area, which you’ll see if you climb all the way back to the top after completing the game and starting it again:

We’ve also made a bunch of details for Grindea’s island, which will feature in one of the endings – we changed some colours around and created some constellations in the sky:

Fred has been doing some work on Grindea as well, giving her some new animations:

And of course, a bunch of new animations for the final boss, which is definitely turning out the be the most graphic heavy boss of the entire game:

He’s also started recording a bunch of videos for the release trailer, which is something he’ll have to start working on for real pretty soon. It also gives him the opportunity to play through the game and try to catch any of the bugs of fixes Vilya might have missed during her playthrough.

Finally, just like the last couple of weeks there’s a ton of stuff being made that we can’t show just yet. As always, while we’re pretty liberal with spoilers on this blog there’s just some things in the ending cutscenes and post-end game state we’d rather you experience for yourself. Hopefully you’ll be able to soon!

Another week and lots of stuff happenings behind the scenes!

For starters, we’ve moved into a new office space, this time an open office style we share with a bunch of other developers and programmers of various kinds. It’s really nice to once more be around other creatives, something we missed since we went back to working from home during the pandemic. Here’s a little sneak peek of where we work now, note the Secrets of Grindea sign in the window:

In terms of work, there’s been a lot happening as well. The Zhamla battle is almost polished enough for some proper testing, so here’s another video showcasing that epic summon phase we hope will keep you on your toes:

Fred’s also been focusing on making a new laugh for the GUN-D4M version you meet in the final dungeon – before first and after below:

Meanwhile, Vilya has been playing through the game, adding 30+ more bugs and fixes to our “Ultimate Fix List”, as well as making new portraits for Sizou and six different iterations of a puzzle backround (we’ve finally settled for the one below):

So close now! Let’s keep going :D

This week, Vilya is back in action and has continued working on some new backgrounds as well as playing through the game to catch things we’ve forgotten to add. So far she’s written a list of over 50 things, and she’s still only just finished the Temple of Seasons! Not to worry though – most of these things are super small things that will only take a couple of minutes to fix, or optional things we may or may not add. Some may even be added post-release! And some we probably won’t fix at all due to them not being as important as we first thought.

As for the backgrounds, here’s another iteration of one of the puzzle backgrounds:

I think we’re getting to a point where we’re all pretty satisfied with the way it looks now. What do you guys think?

As for Fred, he’s continued working on the summons! Remember the Frosty Fiend smash animation from last week? It’s now officially in the game and looks like this:

He’s also been working on a charge animation, and some projectiles for the Plant summon:

Teddy’s been sick for a while yet, but he’s finally getting better and ready to get back into action this week. Stay tuned for more updates next week!

Another week, another recap! This week, Teddy has finished up the final cutscene of Arcade Mode, adding the new background Vilya made a couple weeks back. He’s also made a bunch of adjustments in the way final boss Zhamla’s plant launches its attacks, and started working on GOG support. Some years ago we decided we’ll be available on GOG as well, and with the release drawing ever closer with every week, it’s time to get that support up and running. Of course, that whole process involves some extra bits of programming such as porting the leaderboards and making sure multiplayer connections work properly.

Vilya has been busy playing through the game and making reports on bugs and other smaller things we need to fix, as well as making some further improvements to two of the puzzle backgrounds in the final dungeon:

We’re still not entirely happy with the second one, so another iteration is sure to follow soon.

As for Fred, he’s finished up the animations for Zhamla’s plant and cloud, and put in a lot of work on a special attack Zhamla makes, that’s a bit similar to how the echoes of madness work in Tai Ming. Here’s a little sneak peek of that:

Now, onwards to another week! :D

In the last post I mentioned recording a bunch of videos showcasing some of the stuff we’ve done so far with the final battle. Without further ado:


First above, the sequence where Zhamla breaks the room to reveal the sky outside! In this prototype, we still use the red sky, but in the final version we might change it around so a night sky with stars will be revealed instead.

Next up, a little updated sequence with Zhamla’s summons! Here you can see the swap between the red sky and the night sky, as it happens when Frosty Fiend appears:


We’ve also made an updated heal for the sequence where you need to damage Braazlet. We’re still missing the proper HP-bar graphics (which I made last week) in the prototype below, but it should be added soon:


Finally, an assortment of new attacks and patterns:

   
Keep in mind that all of these are still in the prototyping phase and will get polished quite a bit more :)

One of the very final scenes in the game will take place above the blue skies, in space, where Grindea herself has one of her dwellings. We thought a lot about how to do the transition between blue sky and starlit night, and after having tried out a bunch of gradient options, we decided to simply go for an easier (and prettier) solution: clouds!

Once you get high enough, there will be a thick blanket of clouds, and as you emerge above them, there will be different colour clouds and a starlit sky behind them.

Here’s an early sketch, the the corresponding new clouds needed:

And now it’s time to render the background:

After painting a ton of floating stones, it’s now done! Well, at least my part of the work – time for Fred to animate some cards/stars :)

This week I’ve been working on some new art for Secrets of Grindea once more!

First up, two new expressions for Zhamla:

I also edited to floor, removing the golden bars to make the battle area look more clean – before and after below:

There’s also an extended background for the final scene in the true ending, where the camera will be able to scroll up past the Collector’s HQ and into the skies above for the credits.

Despite only part of the roof showing in the game, I (thankfully) had been smart enough to make the entire thing when I first made the HQ building, meaning a lot less work compared to having to puzzle together the rooftop as well.

Although this scene is much larger than what will actually be shown in the game engine (the camera is almost half the size of the background above), I still wanted to make a version that show the entire thing, flowers and all. Perhaps we’ll at least be able to use it in the production book?

For the actual game engine, we’ll use this smaller version:

So nice to be able to make some backgrounds again! Definitely looking forward to the next project, where I’ll be able to make a ton more 🙂

I’ve also made some new items: some paw prints for the housing system, an accessory and a new hat!

All of these were made in collaboration with our backers – thank you so much for supporting the game! ❤️

There’s still a few small things to add before I’ve made my final contribution to the game, but either way, it feels so cool to have gotten this far. Soon 1.0! 🙂