We’re still a long way to go before everything is ready for this epic cutscene, but Fred is working as fast as he can! Here’s another animation, featuring the dragon as it wakes up (gasp!):

While Fred is busy animating stuff for the flashback cutscene with Charlotte and the dragon, Teddy has jumped into creating a new and improved version of the translation tool, that will work with Steam workshop! This means you awesome translators out there no longer have to go through the hassle of zipping and uploading stuff to the forums every time there’s a tiny update.

Also, once the tool is finished, we’ll implement a way to browse translations directly through the game, so this should make things a lot easier for those wanting to use the translations as well.

As for Vilya, she actually went away on a riding camp last week, but she was kind enough to prepare a bunch of portraits for this post, which were also posted on her blog while she was gone:

The first are variations of the Evergrind Arena receptionist, which will appear in other areas where it makes sense to have a front desk manager (though they will probably be regular NPCs and not host a set of challenges like the original receptionist)!

Second row is a bunch of people from the time travel area, and the last one (with text box added for effect) is the portrait of a mini-boss that will appear later on!

The Steam Early Access launch draws closer! Either today or tomorrow we’ll patch the gold charges into the game, and once they’ve been tested and polished (certain visual elements are still missing) I think we’re good to go :D

SO, once the game is patched we ask all Frontline users to help us bug test these babies! Perhaps it’s time to try out a completely new build? :)

In the meanwhile, here’s a few GIFs featuring gold charges that will be available in the patch once it goes live:

Click to view full size!

First up is Frosty Friend! He’s certainly gotten bigger, and as of the next patch, you can give him commands!

He starts out with a defensive stance which increases his DEF and regenerates HP slowly if he’s out of combat, the silver charge unlocks a DPS boosting skill that lasts a few seconds, and the gold charge has an AoE slam attack (pictured above)! :)

Click to view full size!

Here’s the Heroic Slam! The animation has gotten a bit more elaborate, as you can see, but otherwise it’s pretty much the same old skill, but with increased damage output!

Click to view full size!
The Meteor has increased in size, and also leaves behind flames that burn enemies passing through!

Click to view full size!

Finally, the Cloud Strike, aka the summoned cloud! He’s as happy as ever, striking left and right with his fearsome thunder. Other than being bigger and meaner, he also has a chain lightning effect on certain attacks :)

We haven’t stopped working on the next temple either! Here are some new backgrounds and character portraits that Vilya has been working on:

Once the patch goes live we’ll make a post on Facebook, Twitter, and of course, details will be found over at the Patch Notes part of our forums :)

As mentioned last week, we’re working full speed on getting the final charges up and running! While we’re not ready to patch them into the game yet, here’s a preview of three of them in action:

Click to view full-size

The Summon Plant gold charge introduces a new type of plant to the bunch. Instead of attacking, it’ll give bonuses to the plants you’ve already summoned (and will be summoned with a number of minion-plants of its own).  

You can only have one of these plants active at the same time, so if you summon it again it’ll move to your new location. However, it’ll bring any plants surrounding it along with it, so it’s perfect for moving plant traps to new strategic places!

Click to view full-size

Piercing Dash, meanwhile, has become both faster and longer, allowing you to dash through enemies and deal damage to them after passing through! For the more advanced players it might also be good to know that this level of Dash is now cancel-able, and canceling mid-dash will allow your next skill to become instantly gold charged.

Time for some epic combos? :)

Click to view full-size

Finally, the Blade Flurry gold charge increases the number of hits and has a 3-hit finisher that deals additional damage!

Now, while the boys have been busy with the skills, Vilya has kept working on improvements for the menu. Here’s the improved Equipment tab:

As you can see, we’re finally introducing style slots for weapons and shields! This is something that has been requested a lot, and since we’re reworking this menu anyway we thought we might as well squeeze it in. As we’d like the Steam Early Access release to happen sooner rather than later, though, we’re not 100% sure the style slots will be implemented before the EA release, but it’s definitely coming soon after, at the very least.

We’re also reworking the Character tab:

Gone is the boring super brown text-only tab, and instead we have a more colorful and actually ID-looking tab for your collector. The Birthday and Starsign will be randomly generated, as will your Collector ID number. Also, the stats you see here are temporary: we’re replacing a few and removing others. Since this isn’t actually implemented yet, there may be small changes here and there, but the overall look should remain.

Next week, Vilya will finally return to doing stuff for the next temple, while Teddy & Fred soldier on with more gold charges!

Hi guys! I’m gonna keep this blog post brief because we’re in the middle of judging Gotland Game Conference 2015, but I really wanted this update to be on time!

So, as you may have noticed if you played the game in the last few days, we’ve added a “quicklevel”-system to Arcade Mode!

This allows you to quickly level any skills and talents you’ve recently been leveling, without having to browse through the menu to find them all over again. Here’s a GIF showing the difference (click to watch full-sized version):

Other than that, Vilya has kept working on improving the earlier graphics! This time around, she went over the menu icons (old versions on the top, new versions on the bottom):

She also went back and touched up a bunch of portraits, and created this new one:

Fred has kept working on the gold charge animations, focusing on giving the snow buddy some actual animations this week!

 

Hope you guys have had a great week! We have one more day of judging games, then it’s all back to normal. Perhaps we’ll talk a bit about our experience with this year’s GGC in the next update, if any of you are interested in that sort of thing! Until then, see you! :D

This week we have continued working on the various fights that will take place in the Temple of Seasons!

We’ve played around with mixing the different enemy types and started tweaking their combos where we felt they were too powerful or not powerful enough! Here’s a few short GIFs featuring the test sessions in single player, which allows you to see most of the special attacks of the different enemies:

Click any GIF to view a bigger, more crisp version!

We’re currently looking into balancing the autumn combo, which is a bit too OP at the moment: the movespeed of the autumn knight inside one of those whirlwinds makes it impossible to dodge and as you can see, it chases you for quite a long time!

We’re also talking about adding another enemy type that will only serve to change the season of a room during combat. As the enemies become stronger when in a room that matches their season, an obvious strategy would be to eliminate one season first, then change the room into that season – removing all empowered enemies in the process. To counter that, we want the season changing enemy to be difficult to kill – most likely from being fast and hard to hit. You’d have to decide if it’s worth chasing it down and try dodging the other enemies while doing so, or deal with more difficult enemies overall.

Other than that, Fred has been making a bunch of decorative animations, and Vilya has kept working on the portraits (not too many left now)! Here’s a bunch of those, plus another card:

The post last week seemed to confuse some of you: have we scrapped the blue and red mini-boss heads and decided to stick the green summer one on top of all three necks?!

Well, of course not! The reason all heads were green in last week’s post was because that head was the one closest to being finished animation-wise, so it has been used as placeholder while we work on the others. We were only joking when we said we’d keep it like that :)

This week, all three heads have their proper graphics, so here’s a new GIF, where the boss looks a bit closer to what it will look like in its finished form (also including the proper background instead of the sketch version):

Click for animation! Again, the gif is a little slower than how it looks in-game

While Fred and Teddy have been working on getting the mini-boss to work as it should, Vilya has continued creating furniture that will be available in the housing part of SoG:

If you wanna see more furniture batches like these, or simply want more updates on the development, you can always head over to her work blog, where she posts Grindea-stuff five days a week :)

Picking up from last week, the three different types of Wizards are now in the game and working properly. The Wizard is a ranged support type of enemy, with each variation having its own unique special ability. Just like their melee counter-parts, the Wizard can only use their special abilities if the current season matches its color.

Click to see the animated GIF!

We have tried our best to make each Knight/Wizard pair have a set of abilities that work in symbiosis with each other. As seen above the Summer Wizard can imprison players, making it harder to avoid the Knights heavy hitting special attack.

The winter Wizard can summon a Ice Shield around a target monster that will slow and damage players within close range. The shield can be destroyed by shielding, attacking or taking damage from it. Paired together with the agility of the winter Knight, it could turn into a deadly threat!

Last but not least the fall Wizard can summon a bunch of tornados that move around at a seemingly random pattern. Players getting too close will be sent flying into any nearby enemy. The tornados can also fuse with fall Knights performing their Spinning Attack, making them super charged in terms of speed and damage.

Vilya has kept on making portraits! Here’s some of her WIP’s from this week:

And here are the finished sprites:

Fred has been soldiering on with the temple’s basic enemies, finishing up the knights! As we’ve mentioned previously, they would share many similarities, but all have different special attacks they can use if the current season match their color.

The Autumn Knight spins his sword and chases after players
much like Giga Slime’s saw spin!

The Winter Knight dashes through the playfield
akin to the player’s own Piercing Dash-ability

The Summer Knight unleashes a powerful, uninterruptable smash,
breaking shields and dealing tons of damage

Next week we’ll be focusing on the different Season Wizard’s special abilities!

Since Vilya’s now reached a roadblock on the temple rooms (since the few left must be discussed in detail before she can make them), she’s returned to the portrait factory, remaking and revamping!

One of these portraits are the plushie collector in the city. We decided to make her a bit younger when we updated the portrait, as well!

Here’s how she used to look:

And here’s the step-by-step for the new portrait:

Talking about portraits, don’t forget that you can get more in-depth information of Vilya’s work over at her personal blog!

This week we’ve kept on working with the Temple of Seasons, adding more rooms and more seasons! Here’s another GIF, from a room with multiple season orbs:

Click to see it animated!

As you can see, depending on what season it is, there will be different obstacles blocking different paths. Will you be able to find your way through the dungeon?! Only time will tell…

In the meanwhile, here’s one of the versions of the lobby, an important room that connects many different parts of the dungeon, that has kept Vilya busy for a while:

Click for full size!

Don’t forget that you can see more of her work (and additional rooms) over at her blog.

New for this week is also that Teddy has started up a tumblr where he will post GIFs of what he’s currently implementing. Go follow that for more animated goodies.

Oh, and you haven’t forgotten Fred’s old tumblr, have you? That’s the place where he posts what he’s working on.

If cold autumn winds are making you wish you could rewind time and go back to the warm embrace of summer, then our Temple of Seasons™ might be just the thing you’re looking for! Simply whack the supplied Summer Orb and watch the landscape transform around you:

It’s animated! Click it!

We had a long back and forth discussion regarding how the seasons would work in the temple, mostly related to whether the Season Orbs would change the season of the entire temple, or just the current room. In the end, we went with having the orbs control the season of their own room!

Both variants could lead to some interesting progression mechanics, but we went with this variant mostly since it would put a slightly less massive workload on poor Vilya and Fred, while also being a bit easier to create puzzle modules for.

For similar reasons, we opted to have separate orbs that summon their corresponding season, rather than one orb that cycled between them, as in A Link to the Past.

Having the entire dungeon sketched out, we feel it has a ton of potential to be really cool when it’s all done!