This week I’ve been finishing up the puzzle room – which first of all meant adding a couple smaller details, such as this wooden part that is whole in the past and broken in the present:

Speaking of past and present, the room background needed a proper broken down present version, so here’s that as well:

We’ve also been playing around with making the map indoor rather than outdoor:

Would you guys prefer it to be in the skies or inside a proper room?

Another thing we’ve been working on in regards to the puzzle room is the effect of clearing the rooms. Here’s some of the progress, where we went from a season change-like effect to something closer to the shattering of a mirror! Note that the proper graphics for this haven’t been made yet, but you’ll get an idea of the concept:

We’ve also been discussing the Ending Theme song(s), as it’s high time to send out sound and music requests to our awesome sound and music designers, giving them some time to work on this before release. I’m very interested to hear what they come up with, as I’m sure you are too! As a reminder, the sound effects are made by Fark and the music by Lucky Lion Studios, both awesome people we’re so happy to have along for this adventure!

Work on the tower continues with a bunch more backgrounds. First, some new elevators for that barrage attack where enemies from various areas will appear at once!

These elevators will feature a Collector’s HQ setting as they’ll show the Black Ferrets, who you last fought over there:

Next, the top of the tower, allowing you to finally exit all of it:

Teddy’s been working on some more puzzle ideas, so here’s a little sneak peek of one we’re fairly certain will make it into the game as one of the three challenges:

I won’t go into the details of how it works as you’ll have to solve it for yourself… But we think it’s gonna be nice, involving time rifts and season swapping!

Speaking of season swapping, as work on the cutscenes continue we’ve utilized the season change effect to transform the Shadow Slime elevators into its Pumpkin Woods themed counterpart:

This is just one of the many small details we’ve been adding and working on in the cutscene department – those things take a lot of time. But hopefully, it’ll all be worth it and look super cool in the end!

Next week and the one after we’ll be taking a little bit of a summer break in order to spend some time with friends and family. Therefore, the next blog post will be available on July 18th, when we’re back in the office! Stay tuned until then :)

The next thing on our to-do list for the final dungeon is a little puzzle section. Yes, originally we said it’ll just be a boss rush, but for pacing’s sake and because a lot of your wanted some variation, we’ve decided to add just a little something – basically, you’ll end up on a floor where the mirror spawns three different rooms which you’ll have to complete in order for the elevator to continue moving. Of course, this means we’ve thought a lot about various puzzle ideas recently, and while none are completely set in stone yet we think we have a couple nice ingredients to make interesting puzzles.

One involves a clock of sorts that automatically changes what season is in a room in fixed intervals, so after being winter for a set time, it’ll change automatically to spring, and so on. This means you’ll need to time what you do before the season is changed again.

This could for instance work with a phase shift puzzle with obstacles that change depending on the season – for instance, a waterfall you can bounce off of when it’s frozen in winter or mirror blocks with large plants growing on top of them that wither and fall down to block the mirrors in autumn and winter.

Another idea, this one by Fred, involving winds and water:

We’d also like to have another puzzle like the one in Puzzle World back in Tai Ming, with statues in the past that you can move and that break and fall in different direction in the present.

Yet another idea is a puzzle with a Lost Ship type mask that flies in a circle with season orbs, and in order to solve the puzzle you need the mask to hit the season orbs in the right order by going back and forth into the spirit world.

And here’s another Phase shift idea, illustrated by Fred:

The puzzles are still in the idea stage, as you can see – so don’t hesitate to share any ideas you have for what you’d like to see in this final puzzle section of the game!

Now, these puzzles need proper backgrounds as well, and to start things off I’ll be making the “hub room” from which you’ll reach the three different puzzles:

In the version above, doors have been added by the Mirror through his magic! But in order for them to appear, we needed a version of the hub without them added as well, so here’s what the floor will look like before the mirror transforms it with his magic:

Steadily moving towards the top of the tower! Almost there now :D

Another week and more stuff keeps happening in the tower! Last week, we took a look at the boss summonings, which looked something like this:

However, after some discussions we decided to change the timings around a bit and add the elevator parts after the Mirror’s lines as opposed to before it, making it a bit more of a surprise which boss will appear next – so here’s the updated version:

To start with, we weren’t in agreement of which one was better, but in the end I think all of us have been convinced to go with this second version. Which one do you guys prefer?

Next up, we’ve been working on a bit of a mix sequence, where you’ll basically have to survive a barrage of attacks from various bosses throughout the game, making sure even more of them show up in this final part of the game. Let’s have a look at some of what we have so far:

Of course, the graphics are will a work in progress, the proper elevators, particularly for the Black Ferrets, will be added soon.

Speaking of new graphics though, there’s still a couple backgrounds left to make, so let’s have a look for the one that will feature in the Mimic battle:

Brings back old memories of Tai Ming, hopefully!

Fred’s busy making the proper glass-like graphics for each of the bosses and characters, so here’s a little sneak peek of two more:

And meanwhile, Teddy’s been busy with some programming that’s not exactly related to the game per se. As we may have mentioned ages ago, the game will not only release on Steam but will feature on GOG as well – so as we’re drawing ever close to completion, it’s time to start looking into implementing their stuff, making highscores and the like work on their platform as well. So, not much game progress – but still progress towards the release!

Okay, time to make a bunch of more final dungeon floors!

Let’s start with the Terrorweed floor:

Size wise, it’s pretty similar to the previous floor, so we decided that the transition between these two floors would mainly be the mirror changing the colour of the grass and having new decorations pop up. In other words, the elevator sizes will remain the same for this one:

Now, the next floor, where you’ll face off against two Phasemen, will be a little bigger:

Here, I began by adding two elevator pieces “above” the original elevator, but then I realized a parts of this elevator will be destroyed by Gun-D4M that will appear mid-fight, and I knew we had mentioned keeping the elevator whole for the entire duration so we ended up having a long discussion about whether or not it should break – in some ways, it’d be pretty cool, but in the end we decided on our original idea of keepign the main elevator itself whole while the rest could get destroyed to fit the size change. As such, I had to remake this floor, keeping the elevator at the top to ensure it wouldn’t get destroyed once the floor starts falling apart:

And so, here’s the final version of the Phaseman floor:

In Teddy and Fred’s department, we’re starting work on the mirror summoning bosses for the boss rush! Here’s a little sneak peek of some of Fred’s animations:

More details to come next week :)

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:

This week is all about the shop, which will now get a proper indoor map, where it’ll share its space with either Little John, Farmer Oak or a potion salesman that allows you to change which pots you have equipped. For now though, let’s start with the regular shopkeepers part of the room:

And here’s what it’ll look like what the shop is shared with Little John, who will let you upgrade your bow:

Next, what the shop will look like when it’s shared with Farmer Oak and his pet taming-item store:

And finally, this is what the shop will look like when it’s sharing its space with the potion changer:

Meanwhile in Fred’s department, he’s been working on a pretty epic animation featuring giant Grindea opening her eyes! Let’s take a look:

In this Monday’s Meeting, it’s been all about perks! We haven’t had a lot of those before, so we’ve spent some time thinking about what more interesting ones we could add. Here’s a list of our current ideas:

* A perk that gives a low chance of pins dropping from defeated enemies

* Arrows deal more damage

* Bigger chance of getting a specific type of event room (we want at least one of these for the fishing rooms, since it can be quite a challenge to catch all of the fishes, however, we haven’t decided 100% yet if this will be a perk or a quest or an item of some sort)

* Bigger chance of Loods appearing

* A perk that guaratees that you’ll get a pin as a reward after a challenge win

* A perk that gives you x gold at the start of every new floor

* Bigger chance of getting card drops from enemies

* A slightly wider selection of items in the shop

* A perk that lets you start with an HP potion

* A perk that gives you a good 1h weapon at floor 5

* Same as above but for 2H weapons and magical weapons respectively

Do you have any ideas for more perks? Let us know what you’d like to see! :)

Next up, I’ve made a test for a portrait of that fae that comes along to help you fight against bosses (for a fee). However, this is only the first try, and after some discussions we’ve decided we’re probably gonna give him a slightly different look, making him look a bit more badass. For now though, here’s the old version:

Next up, in preparation for another one of the rooms, I’ve made a bunch of Super Potions. These potions can be bought from a potion salesman that appears in questionmark rooms, and the potions themselves are stronger and last longer. To start of with, the potion salesman will present you with one random potion of the selection below, but if you pay up some essence you’ll be able to unlock a second slot in his shop which will also feature a random potion:

Now, time for a newbackground! This one features the Spa, where your character can regain some HP by standing in the enchanted pool:

In Teddy’s department, let’s take a look at a new interface of sorts, featuring Bishop as he provides you with a bet! Now he’ll appear in the lower right corner to remind you of the bet you’ve taken:

A new week comes along with a new room in the HQ! This room is where the Silver Point to Talent Orb transmuter will hang out with his apprentice Bokus:

Next, it’s time to start working on Bishop’s boss portrait, here divided into two parts, starting off with the first Bishop:

After that, we swap him around and add a different weapon, after which we add the third Bishop, the scary guy with the scythe:

Back to the new HQ room, we had some talks about it and decided to make it smaller and a bit more messy, adding a pile of books for Bokus to sit on as well:

Fred, meanwhile, has continued work on Bishop, and so here we have him giving you a catalyst in a rather interesting new way:

Good evening everyone!

Have you had great holidays despite the strange year we left behind? We’ve been taking it easy, not meeting to many people – in fact, me and Fred and Fred’s brother (whom he lives with) decided we wouldn’t go anywhere and risk getting or spreading the virus, so we celebrated christmas and new years together on the island instead!

Today we got back to work, and the first thing we decided on doing is having a meeting to discuss our upcoming patches!

There are three big patches left, one featuring the final story mode stuff (except for the ending bit), where we’ll add the last bunch of backer items, some arena stuff (making you able to rebattle bosses in the arena + some bonus challenges), adding a fight with bishop and the cave where you can track your progress on how many cards you’ve found (as well as getting a special item once you’ve collected them all).

The second patch will involve Arcade Mode, where we’ll be reworking the challenge rooms to make them a bit more fun and varied, add a proper map so you can track your progress, adding a proper room to end your runs as well as a final boss battle featuring none other than the goddess herself, Grindea! We’re also gonna make sure we feel each run is varied enough and possibly add more types of rooms to make sure each new run won’t get too repetitive.

The third and final patch before proper release is the Main Story ending patch, where we’ll add the final dungeon, both endings and both final bosses (the version of the battle you face will depend on whether it’s the default or true ending path you’re on)! It’s possible we’ll save the final battle of Arcade Mode to this patch as well, so both endings come out at the same time.

We’re aiming for the first patch to be done by the end of March – however we’re not sure whether this is actually realistic or if we’re just being hyped after having some time off for two weeks! Regardless, we’ll do our best to make it happen :)

Stay tuned for our continued progress as we head into this new year together!

So the first thing for me to do is a proper house for the Trick & Treat twins. We might postpone any optional boss battle they might have been part in, but they still get a house of their own!

The first floor was made ages ago when we still had big plans for those guys, so I decided to add a bit more detail to it:

This place will also be the home of another smaller character (in more than one way) – the evil mandarine I made a portrait of quite a while ago (still remember him?)

Next up, we’re working on adding that stuff to the arena! As part of that, you’ll be able to select difficulty for the boss rebattles, and so I was tasked with making an interface for said difficulty setting:

As you can see, there will be three settings available, and they will be Default (the way the boss was when you first encountered it), Scaled (which means we scale its difficulty to your current level), and Overpowered (which will be a much more difficult version, overpowered for your current level)! I haven’t added the texts to the buttons here as they will the rendered directly in the game engine:

Working on this interface again makes me feel like it looks a little bit bland, so I feel like I might improve on its general look in the near future as well…. :)

(You know what, said and done, time to touch up these old UI graphics a little bit:)

Meanwhile in Fred’s department, it’s all about giving Bishop some more weaponry! Scared yet?