This week we’ve worked on refining the challenges, especially the Flower Challenge we showed you some prototype GIFs of last week. It’s coming along nicely, with more and more proper graphics added (still needs a new background, though):

We still have a bit of tweaking to do, but we’re getting there!

Meanwhile, Vilya made a proper background for the Spinsect challenge, which will be further improved by Fred later on, who will add animated Spinsects looking out through the holes in the wall:

She also went over the map with the statue, adding a bit more details (more moss & crystals in the stone circles):

There’s also another character being made, who will appear a bit earlier than Mt Bloom! :o

Finally, here’s a couple of animation reels made by Fred, featuring some of the thing he has been working on this week:

This week a lot of our focus has gone into prototyping more of the challenges you’ll be facing in Mt Bloom! Here are a few gifs from our prototype of the poisonous flower challenge (keep in mind that a lot of the art is still WIP):

Basically, the small flowers will increase in size over time, releasing their poison once they reach their final form. If you hit the flowers, they’ll shrink, until they die and disappear from the map.

The big one works a bit differently. Instead of releasing poison in its final form, it heals the other flowers and shields them, meaning you can’t damage them until you’ve dealt with the bigger one. Also, while hitting it causes it to shrink, there’s a limit to how small it can get, at least until you’ve worked through its HP bar!

After a little while, it’ll launch a special attack which clears any enemies on the map. Instead, a new type of flower will spawn, while the big one launches a beam spinning around the room. You now have to dodge a bunch of projectiles shooting out from the exploding smaller flowers (again, artwork will differ in it’s final form):

We also started doing some tests for the gas effect in the third and final challenge, where you’ll run through a room filled with poison gas:

More on that next week, hopefully!

Other than this mayhem of prototyping & testing, we’ve been doing some more work on Mt Bloom in general. Here’s a background that Vilya has been working on, which happens to be the entrance to the next temple:

Close-up of the statue:

GIF of the statue WIP:

She also made a bunch of variations of the Caveling portrait from last week:

Phew!

Finally, look at how cool our office door looks now, thanks to some signs printed and given to us by one of Fred’s friends:

Pretty neat, huh? Gonna help motivate us as we step into the office every morning! :D

As we’re moving on to implementing Mt. Bloom, it’s about time we added a way into the actual cave system, right? That’s one of the tasks Vilya was working on last week:

As you might have guessed, you’ll be using a Season Orb to turn part of the area into a frozen winter state! There will also be an ice bridge, animated by Fred, that will appear and take you across :)

On the inside of Mt. Bloom, we’re still in the process of adding greenery, making it properly bloom-y:

We also started implementing and prototyping the enemies that will appear in the cave! Here are a few GIFs of that in action:

As you can see, there’s a lot of placeholder art here: the tiny mushrooms and acid will be recolored, and the enemy mushrooms won’t turn into Jumpkins when you hit them… ;) Overall, these GIFs should give you an idea of how the enemies work, though!

Basically, the Spinsects spin around the room, bouncing off the walls. They’ll speed up if you hit them, so be careful where you stand! The mushrooms are a typical Jumpkin enemy, chasing you across the map. Once they die, they’ll leave a bunch of tiny mushrooms on the ground that blind you if you step on them. The larva ignores you, but leaves a trail of acid that deals damage over time if you step in it. Like the Spinsects, it will go faster if you hit it, but will stop to catch it’s breath after a little while :)

In order to unlock the way into the next temple, you’ll be doing a set of challenges inside the mountain. Last week we started prototyping one of them, where you’ll direct Spinsects into a large boulder in order to break it.

Here’s a suuuper early sneak peak, using only placeholder art that will be replaced in the near future:

Stay tuned for next week and more Mt. Bloom stuff! :D

Another week has gone by, in which a new fronline update was released! In this update you will battle a mini-boss and investigate a suspicious character… For full patch notes, check the game client or this thread!

The patch leaves Evergrind HQ in a mess…

We’d love to hear your feedback on this new encounter and the surrounding story elements, so don’t hesitate to leave a comment here or on the forums!

Moving on, though, Vilya has been doing some improvements to the Mt. Bloom maps now that they’re finally about to be added to the game:

Basically, tons of new greenery and details!

Meanwhile, Fred was busy creating the mess that is the Collector’s HQ now that the patch is up, including a cleaning Wedge which will be added in a later update!

Next up, adding colliders & enemies to Mt. Bloom, as well as prototyping a bunch of challenges you’ll be doing there! :)

This week, we’ve been finishing things up for another frontline update coming later this week! This means Teddy has been busy dealing with balancing, bug fixing and multiplayer support for said portion of the game, and Fred has made some final animations for the upcoming battle:

Vilya also needed to finish something for this update, and unfortunately for Master Ivy, her task was to create a ruined version of Master Ivy’s office:

Once she had completed that task, she went on to improve one of the old Mt:Bloom outskirts maps, adding some greenery and vines to it:

And speaking of Mt:Bloom Outskirts, we kind of need a map from where you can enter the actual mountain, right? So that was made as well:

Since creating WIP GIFs was pretty fun to do, here’s one featuring the creation of the above map as well:

This week we hope to finish things up with the boss battle so that we can update frontline, and Vilya will start getting the Mt:Bloom backgrounds ready for implementation! Soon, it’s time to explore it’s hidden cave systems.. :)

GIFs! GIFs everywhere! In this post, we  go berserk with the GIFs, and we start off with Vilya who has tried something new: step-by-step GIFs!

Typically Vilya also records videos of her progress with sprites and portraits (which can be seen on her blog), but this time she also tried her hands on making GIFs of the steps. Here’s the result, featuring a portrait and a rework of the Slime card:

Most of our time has been spent dealing with the upcoming Black Ferrets battle, though!

First up, the new boss portrait:

Then, a few GIFs with the battle itself, from our early test runs:

And finally, some of the sprite work Fred has been working on for this battle:

Excited for the battle? We are too, and hopefully the patch where you’ll be able to try it out won’t be too far away! Stay tuned for more next week :)

As you may already know, the festival patch is finally live, and if you haven’t checked it out already, you definitely should go do so in the Frontline Beta! :D

We also released the Original Soundtrack a few days ago, since a lot of you were asking for it! It currently contains 31 songs from Story Mode + 6 Arcade Mode Remixes, and will be updated as new songs get added to the game :)

Here’s the link to the OST on Steam!

Since a new patch often means new bugs, Teddy has been on bug hunting duty while Fred & Vilya moved on to do other things!

For Vilya, that meant doing a whole lot of different tasks, including creating a new portrait and a bunch of new hats:

Fred, meanwhile, has started animating some of the new enemies you’ll be facing in the next area: Mt.Bloom! As they’re still WIP at this stage, though, here’s a mix of some of the cleaned up animations from the flashback cutscene:

Right now, Teddy is busy prototyping the next boss fight, which we’ll hopefully be able to show some stuff from in next week’s recap! For now, here’s another sneak peek of who you’ll be facing:

Yes, it’s another week of festival stuff! And most likely there will be at least one more before we’re completely done :)

Vilya has started working on the treasure cave, where the flashback cutscene involving your mother Charlotte and the dragon will take place:

The cave will be filled with gold and treasures of various kinds, and this here is only the WIP of the left part of it – in the end it’ll be twice as big!

We also decided (thanks to Owns suggestion on the forums), to add cutouts to the festival, which you can stand behind:

In the end our idea is that you’ll be able to ask Luke & Marino (whom you’re at the festival with) to stand behind them as well, and we’re currently looking into the possibility of having a cameraman who will create a screenshot for you after you press a button. Not 100% sure if that will work yet though, but we think it’d be pretty fun!

Other than that, a lot of new expressions have been made in order for the characters to express the right feeling(s), both in the flashback cutscene (young dad!) as well as in and around the festival:

More to come next week!

Finally, Fred has started working on another mini-boss battle that will take place near the festival in time, and I’m sure you’ve been missing these guys:

Excited yet? Hang in there for a bit longer, the festival is just around the corner! :3

Hello everyone! Time for another weekly recap! :D This week we’ve mostly focused on the upcoming festival. Teddy has made a prototype for the bee mini-boss, which is coming along nicely (we’re inhouse testing it today, actually)!

The cutscenes that will start the whole thing off have been more or less completed, all we need now is a new background and to implement some minor animations. So that’s what’s Fred been up to – flavor animations for the cutscenes & festival:

Vilya has been making some additional festival decorations: a balloon- and popcorn stand! Here’s a video capture of her work on it:

The balloon stand will be further improved by Fred, who will make a special cluster of balloons surrounding it.

Other than festival stuff, Vilya has also been making more hats (among other things):

And there’s a new portrait of an ancient collector for the next temple, as well:

This week we’ll continue our struggle to get everything ready for the festival & everything that surrounds it. Stay tuned! :D

This week Teddy spent finishing up the translation tool (finally!), which should go live in a few days! He’s now looking into starting up that cutscene business for real, just as Fred has finished his part of that job, giving him a ton of sketched out animations to work with.

Now, instead of cutscene things, Fred is working on a new mini-boss that you’ll have to face soon after the cutscene ends:

Yes, it’s a Queen Bee!! :D Do you feel the horror?!

Vilya, meanwhile, has been all over the place, starting off by creating an interface for Mold Essence in Arcade Mode, which allows you to turn essence into visual upgrades & housing items (among other things):

She then moved back to the time travel area, creating hats, masks, drops and portraits to fill the area with life & loot:

And that’s all for this week! Next up will be prototyping the cutscene, bug fixing the translation tool, and preparing Evergrind City for the next installment of the main story :)