First of all, thank you all for your support and awesome e-mails, helpful forum comments, and everything else related to our Steam Early Access launch last week! You guys have been amazing.

In terms of how the EA launch went, it was well over our expectations. We honestly didn’t think much was gonna happen, seeing as we did literally 0 PR for the launch, but apparently word of mouth (and Steam’s discovery features) are more powerful than we thought. Because of this there were a couple of hectic days where most of our time went into answering e-mails and solving new bugs, but thankfully (?!) most of that seems to have calmed down for now. :)

So, yesterday we patched the game (both Stable and Frontline) and added a bunch of bug fixes!

If you had issues with co-op before, chances are your problems have been solved now – or so we hope! We also added a bunch of new hairstyles that can be tried out at Francisco’s stand in Evergrind City or when you create a new character. We’ll update both builds at least once more before focusing on Frontline again for a while – if you’re a new player and are unsure of what I’m talking about, check out this thread on the forums to see the difference between Stable and Frontline beta, and how to change between them.

Some of you have noticed that the DRM-free version available through the Humble widgets and on the Humble Store is outdated (same goes for the Demo download through our site). We’ll update both of those once we’ve patched the Stable one last time in the coming week(s)! In the meanwhile, if you’re looking to play the Demo, know that a more recent version can be downloaded through Steam (there’s a button which says ‘Download Demo’ right next to the ‘Early Access Game’-box).

Now, we’ll continue to work on the next part of the Story Mode! Vilya is of course already working on backgrounds for the next temple, some which can be seen here:

I think we’ll leave it at that for this week, tune in next Monday for more updates on our progress! And again, thank you all for your support :)

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 :)

The work on the Gold Charges continues! There are now prototypes available for all skills, but a lot of them still need to have their animations polished so we’ll save showing those off for later. The Whirlslash gold charge has been more or less finished up though, and here you can see a gif of what that looks like in action:

Click to view full size!

You guessed it! Once you unlock the Gold charge, you can now move while using it! Pretty epic, no? The damage might be sliiightly unbalanced in this GIF tho.. ;)

Vilya has returned to working on the next Temple area, which in reality is more of a village. That means the future will hold lots of houses! Here’s the interior of two, with progress videos to go with them:

Click to view full size!

Click to view full size!

Now, no village is complete without people that live there, right? Here’s a couple of portraits of people that you will be able to meet, one an adventurer exploring the depths of Mt:Bloom, the other an inhabitant of the village itself:

Also, as Teddy’s properly adding the skills into the game engine, it’s not very uncommon for the animations to go through some iterations. The gold charge for the Ice Spike ended up needing some extra pazazz, as the old animation looked a bit to funky on it’s own. Below is a (hopefully) more intimidating ice spike, couple with some stray left over animations for the Frosty Friend!

So, this week we had the honor of being judges at GGC, or Gotland Game Conference, a local games conference hosted by our school, where the students at the Game Design program showcase their game projects and compete for a set of prizes! It’s great to get a chance to meet fellow game developers, talk about the business and just take a short break.

The games were amazing, as always. We keep saying that each year only gets better, and this time was no exception! Below is a showcase video featuring the games that were competing this year, and most of them were really fun:

The Grand Prize winner was Frog Climber, which was a first year project, so it’ll be interesting to see what the developers come up with next year!

Since no weekly recap would be complete without any sort of Secrets of Grindea update, this time we’re sharing two of Vilya’s portrait WIP videos from her personal YouTube account:

The videos feature future Santa Fae residents and the finished sprites can be viewed below:

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

As we’ve been developing this game, all of us have improved a lot. Today, both the graphical assets and the way we handle things programming wise are much different than they were when we first started out. Because of that, we thought it would be a good idea to have Vilya rework some of the early graphics so they’d fit in better with the later stuff! After all, we want any newcomers who purchase the game after it goes live on Steam Early Access to get the best first impression possible.

So, here are some things she’s been working on this week, in regards to that (most of these updates are actually already live and running in the Frontline beta, so go ahead and check them out):

First up – all houses in Startington have been updated as can be seen above! We’re gonna color correct them a bit in the next patch, making them slightly darker so they won’t pop as much against the background.

Almost all fences in the game have been or will be updated as well. These new ones are, like the houses, basically cleaned up versions with slightly different colors than their old counterparts.

Same goes for the wood! The old versions were kind of green and messy-looking, which has been corrected as of the latest patch.

The well also got a small correction: the wood is a bit cleaner and has been color corrected, and the bucket has been redesigned.

The suspension bridges have been updated as well: cleaner lines, fewer colors, less sickly green hues.

The bridge where the fisherman is had to be updated as well – it simply wasn’t safe for him to stand on such a moldy, worn down old thing with stray pixels everywhere! Now he can feel safe while awaiting his next catch.

As of the latest patch, there’s also a bunch of new items and two new character portraits to be found:

Meanwhile, Fred has been working on finishing up those last Gold Charge Spells! Here’s another one, the earth spike now turned into a giant hand:

The Seasonne patch hit the Frontline beta on Steam on Saturday, and received a patch of hotfixes today! As we’ve talked about in previous blog posts, the patch adds a bunch of content to the Winterland, making it feel more alive. If you haven’t played it yet, you should check it out and tell us what you think!

If you’ve forgotten how to change to the Frontline version, check out this thread.

Santa needs halp!

All the new content gave Vilya a ton of portrait work, so that’s where a good chunk of her efforts have been directed the past week! Here are some of the massive amount of portraits she made:

Meanwhile, Fred has jumped back into creating the animations we’re going to need for all the gold skill charges! Below are all the different casting effects of the Berserker Mode!

 

Soon, the day will come when Teddy shall put all these new skill charges into the game… (but first, he must add Steam achievements and Arcade Mode online leaderboards!)

This week we’ve focused most of our attention on breathing some life into Seasonné, also known as the Winterland. Besides progressing the main quest, there hasn’t been much to do besides bashing Frostlings and Yetis. We’ve tried to change this by adding 4 new side quests, as well as opening up all cave areas for you guys to explore.

We’re aiming to update the Frontline beta during the weekend with the new quests, paired together with some balancing changes to Arcade mode. As always, we would love your feedback on everything and anything so keep your eyes open later during the week!

Beyond Seasonné, Vilya has worked diligently to finish up the last missing portraits for the final cut scenes of the Temple of Seasons. This should (which often means it’s not) be the last of them from this area. Hurray!

She’s also kept up with the Achievement icons from last week:

Fred has had a break from the skills this week and been mainly busy with animations for the new side quests. Below are a few of said animations, including one were Santa brutally dies from eating a Christmas cookie laced with nitroglycerin (or does he??).

And wait… Who are these tiny guys?!

There’s only one way to find out… Finish the quest next weekend! :D

In case you missed our tweet about it, and doesn’t frequent the forum, the Steam network update is now live on the Frontline beta!

You can either use the interfaces available in-game (as shown above), or use your friend list in the Steam overlay to invite or join friends playing a multiplayer game!

Now that the Steam stuff is all in place (and seems to be running surprisingly smoothly so far), Teddy is finally free to work on other things! The next patch is going to feature a more fleshed out Seasonne, as well as a proper ending for the Temple of Seasons.

Apart from some new interfaces for the new Steam functionality, Vilya has been continuing her work on future portions of the game! Below is the portrait of a young kid who’s going to play a rather important role in events to come (and has come to pass):

Here’s also one of the rooms she’s been working on for the area(s) where said boy will appear:

She also started working on a new piece of promotional artwork, which will serve as our banner(s) on Steam, as well as replace the current character art on the from page of this website! Stay tuned for the finished version of that in next week’s recap :D

This week we’ve got some news!

First of all, we’ll very soon (first thing when we wake up tomorrow, actually) update the game with the new floors for Arcade Mode, for you guys to test! With this update we’re also adding a slight change to how Arcade Mode works, where you’ll receive a health potion instead of a health orb should you reach a new floor with full health! The health orbs will also remain after leaving the first room, so you can go back and collect it later :)

Secondly, a lot of you have been asking when the game will be available on Steam Early Access, and the answer to that is (hopefully) soon-ish! We have decided that it’s time we start getting that ball rolling, so we’re gonna focus on polishing the current content for an update of the Stable beta and create some fancy art for the various banners that appear on Steam. As soon as we’re done with that, the game should finally(!) be ready for early access over on Steam as well!

Now, for the actual ‘recap’ part of this blog, here’s some skill animations that Fred has been working on:

Vilya has kept working on the Time Travel Town in Mount Bloom, and this time around there’s a bunch of portraits of people you’ll meet there:

Videos of her working on these, as well as other parts of the area, can be viewed over on her personal Secrets of Grindea-themed YouTube account!

Now, back to work! See you next week :)