Now, time to showcase the second casino, which will feature a different kind of gamble than the first:

The Pin Collector will make an appearance as well, in a house that seems to follow its own physics (you will be able to see a background filled with stars through the darkness in the floor and walls – quite spacey! ;))

Next, with a battle against Grindea being imminent very soon, it’s high time to give her a proper boss portrait! Let’s have a look:

Next up we needed to make some adjustments to master Ji’s challenge rooms to remove the scrolling from it, so let’s resize that thing a bit!

Some more things some of you may or may not have already seen, the transition between Grindeas health bars and her cool space wings:

Have you reached the Grindea battle yet? If so, what do you think? :D

And weee’re back! This time, let’s take a look at some of the backgrounds you may or may not have already come across in the meatshield update, which has been up for a little while!

For information on how to access this super crude and potentially buggy version of the beta (at your own risk), come on over to our Discord and have a look :)

In either case, here’s the first of a few new backgrounds, featuring the arcade mode version of the ice cream parlour:

Next up, Master Ji’s dojo:

There’s also a mystical cave where a giant lood and its underlings hang out, ready to provide you with some loot! Let’s have a look:

There’ll also be not one but two casino’s opening their doors in arcade mode! Here’s the first:

Of course, Fred has been busy as well, making animations and other new stuff for the update, such as this ice cream eating animation and a couple fancy wings you can get yourself in Arcade mode by trading in your essence:

This week, we’re starting off by adding a new currency!

This is golden essence, which like normal essence can be traded for rewards at Bishop’s in Arcadia. We’re also thinking you’ll be able to trade a (big) amount of regular essence for one of these. The reason we came up with this currency is because we thought it’d be a better reward to get in that final floor chest, rather than getting the rewards themselves. This way you can pick and choose whatever rewards you want in any order (except for some that you will need to unlock by completing Arcade Mode in all difficulties), and it seems a bit clearer that you always get a reward of golden essence rather than an arbitrary number of rewards only to suddenly not get any more.

This way adding new rewards is more streamlined as well – if we decide to add more rewards, Bishop will simply update his shop rather than you having to complete arcade mode once again to see what sort of item(s) we’ve added!

Next, we wanted to add something fancy for when you manage to finish off one of those new and spicy floor-wide bets, so I threw together a little background for a room in Bishop’s realm where you get sent once you’ve cleared the floor:

Next up, we wanted a wagon for the potion salesman that sells you Super Potions, so I made some tweaks to Remedi’s old thing in Arcadia to better fit the salesman we have in mind:

And here we go, the second attempt at that bad-ass fae, Badasu! This one looks a little more badass, no?

Meanwhile in Fred’s department, it’s all about hands! Grindea’s hands, to be precise! Have a look:

It’s another Monday starting with another meeting, and in this one we discussed more stuff to add to the final update of Arcade Mode. Here’s a bunch of our new suggestions in terms of events and event rooms you may come across during a run:

* First up, an event room that’s a spa where you can pick up a couple health orbs, just a nice little treat that may show up once in a while

* A potion salesman that sells “bootleg” potions that last longer than the ones you have equipped normally. These potions are usable items you can use whenever you like but will last longer and possibly be a bit stronger.

* A version of the fortune teller room in which you can change the boss of the floor, but for the next event room! In this room Astrid the fortune teller will let you know what event room is the next to spawn, and you’ll be able to let her swap it out for another one, for a fee.

* A “Boss Assistance Fae”, a fae adventurer that may show up randomly in a room and help you clear it out, only to suggest you employ his assistance in battling the boss. Of course, having his assistance will cost you! This fae may also show up occasionally in Astrid’s Fortune telling room where she predicts which boss you’ll face off against next.

* We’re also discussing having floor wide bets, where Bishop will appear at the start of a floor and give you a bet across the whole floor, such as clearing the floor within a limited time!

* Maraccas, who will show up in later floors, letting you exchange silver points for talent orbs, just like in Story Mode

* Trick & Treat buff service which will give you quite a powerful buff – but will also include quite a massive debuff. For example, in an early floor you might get a skill leveled to max, but you’re not allowed to use any other skills or your shield.

* A Trade Up Guy who will take three of your items of the same kind and exchange them for a better version of them

* A Lood room, which is an event room with a lot of loods and one big master lood who is a NPC of sorts

* The Ice Cream parlor, where you can make your own ice cream that gives you different boosts depending on which flavours you pick

* A person who shows up at the beginning of the last floor you died, or possibly after you’ve died at the same floor a number of times, selling buffs that will last until the end of the floor

If you have any other ideas for event rooms or fun things to happen throughout a run, be sure to make a comment! :)

Finally when it comes to Arcade Mode event room entrances, we have the Ghost Ship, the Desert, Tai Ming and Mount Bloom:

Another couple upgrades we’ve been working on is a proper preview window for Shadier Merchant, which compared your items to the ones on display as you approach:

As well as a nice blue warning for the main menu when your save is incompatible (previously it was brown, as can be seen below):

Next, it’s time for another one of those Grindea battle updates! Here, let’s take a look at two more of her moves, still a bit WIP but it’s looking better and better for sure:

One thing that’s been missing from the stylist for a while now is a way to rotate your character preview so you’re able to see what you’d look like from more than one direction! Since we’re working on adding the final haircuts now, we decided it’s also time to add that missing feature, and as such, we’ve spent some time trying out various interfaces showing you how to rotate the preview:

Right now our current favourite is the last one. Which one do you prefer?

Next up, we have a bunch of haircut fixes! To start off with, this one seemed to lack a bit of the ‘swirly’ part of the bangs showing from behind, so I added that:

Since this haircut is super wide we needed a version of it which can be used when you wear a full coverage hat as well, made here below:

As for this one, we felt we wanted to show the bangs on the side a bit from behind as well:

Next up, it’s time to decide in what order to display the haircuts! For now we’ve decided to go from shortest to longest (well, kind of – we haven’t measured them all exactly, so some variations may occur), divided over two pages with 16 on each.

Page 1:

…and Page 2:

Finally on the haircut side, we realized the new haircuts looked a bit off when added to the game, due to some palette swapping mishaps. As such, I had to remake them slightly! Here’s a couple of them, with the original version first, the recolored version second, and the improved remake third:

In Teddy & Fred’s department, we’re mainly still focusing on the Grindea fight, but some other animations and cutscenes are made here and there. Here, let’s the a look at one of those, the activation of the portal that will take you to Grindea’s realm:

Now it’s time to start looking at the Mount Bloom / Festival floor of the final dungeon for real! Let’s start off with an introduction room, the first you’ll find yourself in within this floor of the dungeon:

Next up, the exit and northern cave room, featuring the strength challenge:

Next, there’s the fishing challenge, set in a cave setting:

And finally, the running challenge:

And here we have the complete thing, all rooms together:

Meanwhile, Fred continues work on Grindea and her attacks, including a mysterious space rift:

Exciting times! :3

This week I continue working on those final dungeon floors, continuing on with the Flying Fortress floor to start off with. Aside from just having a platform for battling the bosses, you also need an entry point and an exit, which is what we’re taking a look at today:

Next, a quick sketch to give you a basic overview of what the Mount Bloom floor will look like! I do this a bit ahead of time so we’re all on the same page of the layout before I start making the actual rooms.

As you can see from the sketch below, you start of in an introductory room. In the middle, in the very dark spot, will be a very simple phase shift course which will take you either to the room on the left, the room on the right or the room above depending on how you move through it. You need to reach and complete the challenge in each room to be able to continue on to the next floor through the north exit :)

But before heading to Mt Bloom, there’s the Seasonne floor to take care of! Without further ado:

In this next part of the floor, we add some more detail and stuff around the walls so that the colliders are all pretty much even, so you won’t get stuck against the trees if you find yourself pushed against the wall at some point during the battle:

Meanwhile, Fred continues his work on Grindea! Let’s take a look at this epic dash:

And this week, it’s time to start taking care of the second floor of that final dungeon! Let’s start with the first room, which will throw you into the cursed floor:

Next up, a couple of the horizontal floors:

And some vertical ones:

And finally, the lobby room that will lead you to each of those rooms:

This room will also have a bunch of statues and a portal, but we’ll take care of that in next week’s post!

Meanwhile in Fred’s department, it’s still all about Grindea! Check this out:

New week, new tasks! This time it’s all about making that first floor of the final dungeon. Let’s start with the left pillar, where you’ll do a fishing and puzzle challenge:

Next, the bridge connecting the two pillars. You’ll fight a bazillion Teddys and Freds on this bridge, and since we don’t know exactly how long it needs to be, I had to make it able to repeat itself indefinitely. In order for the player to be further reminded of their first encounter with Teddy and Fred, we decided to use the very bridge you pass over in Pillar Mountains / Evergrind Fields as a base:

Next, the right pillar, where you’ll do battle against Vilya (and possibly Giga Slime)! Here I used the Arena as a base, since this whole dungeon is all about reminding you of the old places you’ve visited throughout the game:

And finally, adding a bunch of details and props to make the area feel a bit more alive. Plus shredding the collector banners for “dramatic” effect, cause why not? :)

Time to start this week with another meeting! As you know, we’ve been going through each of our old floor designs for the final dungeon and deciding whether we want to keep them as is or improve them in any way. This week we talked about the Mount Bloom and Tai Ming focused floors!

On the Mount Bloom floor, you’ll find a Mount Bloom combined with the festival themed area where you’ll compete against Cavelings in each of the festival challenges, with a twist. We were still quite happy with this floor, but we had some notes on a cutscene towards the end that we fleshed out a bit, making it a lot better.

The Tai Ming floor, meanwhile, seemed incredibly long now that we decided to shorten a lot of the previous floors. Before, the idea was that you needed to help three different ghosts with a challenge each (either battles or puzzle related), before being able to collect the three Tai Ming emblems from them, which in turn would trigger an advanced version of the Priestess battle. Now we’ve decided to simply let the player talk to the ghosts and get the emblems that way, making the floor a lot shorter and more to the point. We now feel a lot happier with this floor as well!

Next week, we’ll take some time to discuss the final floor we need to decide: the Dragonbone Dunes floor. Yes, I know there’s still the Ghost Ship floor, but as it happens, we’ve always been sure of what’s gonna happen on that one, so no need to redesign that one. The desert floor however isn’t exactly the way we like it yet, so as “homework” for next week’s meeting we’ll each take some time to think about what different options we have for the floor :)

But for now, onwards with more art stuff! Starting with a quick return to Arcade Mode! There’s a couple transer screens needed for when your character runs towards the next area, showing your score as you go. First up, the transfer between Tai Ming and Dragonbone Dunes:

And next, the transfer between Dragonbone Dunes and the Ghost Ship:

In Teddy’s department, it’s all about the battle against Grindea, a battle we’re getting more and more excited about!

The idea is that she’ll have two forms: one “regular sized” form, where she’ll be pretty much player sized and have a bunch of different moves. Here’s a couple ideas we’ve thrown together – big warning that we’re using a LOT of placeholder graphics in these, just to get a feel for the mechanics:

 

And as a bonus, here’s our very first test, before any mechanics at all were added, just a very basic Grindea running around in a circle (square?). Pretty cool how iterations work, and how we’ll soon go from the placeholder graphic versions above to stuff with finalized art. This is probably one of my personal favourite parts of game design, seeing how things go from something basic and crude to more fleshed out and detailed designs!

 

The second form she’ll have is this giant, “proper” goddess form, where she’ll have a different set of attacks:

 

More to come! Super excited for this battle, which should be one of the most difficult and epic fights in the game :)