This week we have spent a lot of time on interface stuff, mainly the skill distribution interface and the shop screen! As they’re not fully implemented you’ll have to wait a bit longer to see how it works, but we promise a video of it in it’s full glory(?) once we’re done!

To move on to more interesting things, Vilya has spent some time of the week doing this abandoned temple that will be a main dungeon in the game!

Click it!

Unfortunately we won’t show any more than the entrance for a while, as we still need to backtrack to get the beta ready & polished, but to make up for it we have a few animations from Fred:

This is a powered up version of the move you saw last week: Blade Flurry. By holding the button for longer, you get that high damaging final strike.

And here’s the equivalent for the two handed overhead attack. If you just press the skill button, you’ll just get one hit off, but if you hold it, you’ll get an additional slash during the startup. This will both yield more damage, and make it easier to land.

This week, there’s been a ton of skill work done, and of course the thousand year battle of the GUI rages on. Menus aren’t exactly the most exciting thing in the world to show, and they aren’t even fully implemented yet, so this week we’ll treat you with two animated screencap gifs of the new skills!

Click it!

This here spell is our first summon spell! It will summon a lightning cloud which hovers around, doubling as damage dealer and moral support (dat smile)! This is the first level of the skill. Later levels include features like targeting flying enemies, more damage, faster attack speed and less glee.

While it’s not set in stone, we’re toying with the thought of having summons be permanent (until you dismiss them). Instead of costing mana as you cast them, they would “block out” a part of your mana bar. That is, if you summon something which costs 30 % of your mana, for as long as you have that summon in play, those 30 % will not regenerate!

Click this too!

The gif above showcases one of our one handed weapon skills: Blade Flurry*!

It’s basically a series of very fast hitting strikes right in front of the character. It’s superb for exploiting openings in duels, like versus this lone Halloweed. It also has a very quick charge speed to offset its limited area of effect. The speed and duration of the move changes as you charge it, and later levels will have a fierce finishing strike to add even more damage!

For those of you yearning for another video… stay tuned! Some day, when the planets are aligned, it’ll appear!

*Working name :D

This week we have worked on many different areas of the game! We’re currently trying to tie everything together for our long-awaited beta (sorry about that!), so chances are the coming updates will keep on being little bit all over the place.

What we can show you from the skill area are these two skills, animated by Fred:

(Click for larger version!)

This is the Earth Spike spell! This is part of an experiment we’re having with targeted spells.

As you charge the spell, you will gain control of a small target circle, and when you release the button the spell will be cast at that location. The circle has a limited range, and cannot pass through walls (although it can pass through small obstacles like trees or rocks).

We wanted to at least try it out, since we felt a new type of spell casting would be awesome for the game’s variety. It actually works pretty well! The challenge comes with trying to balance out the high accuracy.

The new charging system is also shown in the gif! Being a ranged spell with high mobility, the charge time of Earth Spike is pretty high. Level 1 and 2 looks the same, but level 2 will knock enemies up and stun them, opening them up for attack or giving the player time to reposition. Level 3 upgrades all aspects, with more damage, larger area of effect and longer stun. Notice how the rabbit is easily comboed with the mace due to the knockup and stun! Be careful, though, because heavy enemies can’t be knocked up.

This second spell is a typical Speed Up spell, which will increase your attack- and cast speed for a limited time. Great for when you’re in a hurry!

Other than spells we also worked on a feature that I don’t think has been mentioned yet: Cards!

Every enemy you kill will have a low chance of dropping a card like the one above. These cards will each give you a slight passive boost, which means collecting them all would improve your character by quite a bit!

They will also feature a portrait of the enemy that dropped it (pictured above is, as you might have guessed, the Green Slime Card) and will be viewable from the Card Album menu at any time.

Lastly, we have some fresh new portraits added this week:

Not much to say there. :) See you next week!

We all like flashy things, and there is no better way to start off a fancy boss fight than with a fancy introduction! This week, one of the things we’ve worked on is this flash screen, which will introduce your enemy every time shit is about to hit the fan:

As you can see (if you remember our old post) we have reworked the look of this scary boss! This also includes new portraits:

We’ve also been messing around with the idea of changing up how skills work, and after some time in the design dungeon, we’ve decided to give it a shot.

Most skills will now be able to be charged into flashier and more powerful versions by holding down the button. The charge time differs between spells depending on how limiting this extra delay would be for its usability, as well as how powerful the upgrades are. Our main reason for this change is to give players greater variety and involvement in the combat.

Initially, only two charge levels are available, but as you add points in a skill you unlock more charge tiers. Most offensive skills will have five of them!

Below are the animations and effects for the fireball charge, as well as the projectile sprite for level 1-2, 3 and 4:

The fifth level is not yet done, but we promise to crank the fanciness up to max for all top level spells!

Next week: More spells, portraits and… cards!

Another week rushes by!

This week we (especially Fred) spent a lot of time spicing up the combat by adding new and improved effects to just about everything! To show you what it looks like, we prepared a video with commentary from our animator himself, Fred:

In the meanwhile, Vilya has spent her days reworking the dirt tiles from last week, fiddling around with the background layers of our mountain area – people requested blur, and we’ll try it out!

She has also been improving on the portraits a bit more, and yet another sneak peek is available here (click to view full size):

Who is that rude fellow?! He will be one of the frequently recurring characters of Grindea, but you’ll have to play the game to find out more than that! ;)

-Surprise Limerick*–

If when playing you play with ambition
there will most likely be repetition,
and while I don’t mind
some old fashioned grind,
I love to have fun on my mission!

[*Pixel Ferrets does not guarantee that it is, in fact, a limerick. While the visuals are sweet in general, the combat was missing some sort of flair! To rectify this horrible injustice, Teddy joined Fred in a glorious, effect filled crusade!]

Next week: We start working on a new zone and bringing the game’s first act together!

We’re back! The holidays were great and we all got some time together with our friends and family, but we also managed to squeeze in some work. Here’s what we’ve been doing lately:

Vilya has been putting together the major city of the game: Evergrind City. The outside areas are almost completely done and the only thing missing is creating what will be inside the houses. Quite some work, of course, but we’re well under way! Here’s a screen from the city, more to come next week:

Fred has had his hands busy with three things: skills, NPCs, and being sick once again.

Here’s the Ice Nova skill in action. Close ranged AoE at its best! The added chance to freeze your enemies is a pretty sweet bonus.

And here we have one of the many NPCs living in Evergrind. The Blacksmith! Besides having one of the finest beards in all of Grindea, this fellow will help the players along their quest by forging some of the sweetest gear you can get your hands on!

-Weekly Programming Haiku-

“Skills to pay the bills
Sharpened blades and crippling cold
Winter is coming”

[In the programming department, most time has been spent on getting Fred’s skill animations into the game and working, as well as making them look as good as possible!]

Next week: More Evergrind goodness, plus a special treat for your ears!