Another month has gone by! Time goes by so quickly I almost couldn’t believe it was time to write another of these recaps! So, let’s take a look at dome of the things we’ve been working on :)

New Housing Items

We’ll be adding (at least) three aquariums as housing items! These aquariums come in different sizes and can be filled with the fishes you’ve caught on your journey. We’ve also come up with a system for the fishes and how many you can add (and of which size) which we’ll implement along with them as well. The interface is still only half-done, otherwise I’d have shown that as well:

We’re also adding mannequinns for your house, which allow you to showcase any of your hats or facegear:

And here you can see them both in action in game:

A New Perk

For Arcade Mode, we’re adding a new perk designed for those that wanna get all of the achievements. This particular perk will make sure you only get challenge rooms you haven’t yet managed to clear, and here’s the icon:

Controller Buttons Upgrade

We’re also adding new and improved controller button icons, designed to reflect which type of controller you have! We’ve also updated the default ones so the graphics look at bit better:

Declutter Update

Finally, we’ve added and tested the declutter option we talked about in the last post ! You’ll be able to adjust the setting depending on how much effects you want to see and how often, but essentially less important things (such as friends and item-effects belonging to your friends) will slowly fade out during battle and will reappear once you exit battle again. Here’s some sneak peeks of what this looks like in practice.

First up, the way it used to look:

and here’s what it looks like now:

And here you can see the transition – in the beginning of the battle all of the effects are still visible, only for them to slowly fade out as the battle gets more intense:

We’re actually very happy with this improvement and hope it’ll make things more clear in the heat of battle. And again, you can always adjust these things within the settings to suit your needs.

Next Time…

…the blog will update on August 1 – the beginning of the end of this years summer up here in the cold north. How time flies!

Hello everyone! This post is a few days late due to me being away over the weekend – but a lot of stuff has been going on behind the scenes, so let’s take a look at what’s new!

New Patch: The Difficulty Update

First up, the new difficulties are now available on all platforms! That means the new “Chill Mode” (aka Easy Mode) is live, which we hope will suit players who want to go on an adventure but not necessarily be under a lot of pressure skill-wise! Go try that out if you haven’t already. The Hard Mode and Expert Modes are also live, and in general we’re very happy with this update so far. For more information about the new modes, check out the last blog post or the patch notes!

Aside from the new difficulty settings, there are also changes to the display options, as well as the possibility to adjust controller deadzone and assign the DPad to be a quickslot shortcut instead of being used for movement. We’ve also added proper translator credits, where authors of the fan-translations now have the option to appear at the start of the game, and during the credits, and the difficult Phase Shift Course no longer has to be fully completed in order to get the True Ending.

Improving Visibility

Besides the difficulty, one of the things we really feel we want to try to address in the game is the clarity/readability of the action. That is, to reduce the risk of the character “getting lost” in the playfield. This is especially common when playing in multiplayer, and playing with summons. The amount of moving things on the screen can reach quite ridiculous levels, and sometimes it’s hard to keep track of where you are, and where threats might be coming from.

Tackling this feels both important, as well as an interesting design and technical challenge! We have already done some promising tests, including reducing the opacity of certain effects so they don’t block everything behind them, and conversely, having a layer on top of the playfield where “important things” (like the player character and enemies about to strike) can be subtly rendered again to make them pop more, and even be slightly visible through other less important things.

Another thing we’re going to experiment with is making damage numbers semi-transparent when they obscure the player, since they can sometimes completely block a player standing above them.

All the adjustments will be applied a bit more strongly to effects and summons of allies, since they are likely of less importance to you.

The challenge here is of course to help the visibility without making things look weird, and to use these techniques only when they help more than they take away! We’re prototyping a system that is going to detect how cluttered things are getting based on the number of players, enemies, spells and environmental hazards that are active. The system gradually moves between different levels of “clarity assistance”. In the option menu, you’ll be able to select if you want the system active, and perhaps also adjust how sensitive it is before it starts to adjust things to be more clear.

The Production Booklet

After another month, the first draft of the production booklet – well, more like production book at this point – is now finished. It’s currently at 135 pages, but I will likely add a few more before it’s all done. I’m letting it rest a little now and will read through it all and add any bonus pages once I’m able to look at it with fresh eyes.

In the meantime, here’s a preview of some more pages from the book! Please note that I haven’t made the final edit of the text yet, so forgive any mistakes or clunky sentences. I’m also going to realign the clouds so they fit the spreads seamlessly once all pages are done!

Next Time…

…the blog post should appear as scheduled, on July 1! Stay tuned :D

It’s been a month, so it’s time for another Post-Release recap!

Balance and Difficulty Changes

Like mentioned in April’s blog post, we’ve been working on balance and difficulty changes: The first part of this was “Chill Mode” (aka Easy Mode). This mode gives the player damage resistance that increases as their HP gets lower, easier boss patterns and also a lifeline where health orbs can randomly spawn nearby when a player is low on health! We hope this mode will suit players who wants to go on an adventure but not necessarily be under a lot of pressure skill-wise.

Conversely, we’ve realized that the gap between Normal and Hard is very big – especially considering Zhamla’s moves of disabling the Health Potion and Barrier; two tools that a lot of players feel forced into when playing the mode. For some, Normal feels like a cakewalk and Hard like a punishment.

To better serve this crowd, we will adjust the difficulty of Hard Mode, where Zhamla will allow you to use HPot and Barrier, and the mode will generally be made slightly easier across the board. It is basically equivalent to Catalyst 2 in Arcade Mode, with some adjustments.

We will at the same time introduce a fourth difficulty: “Expert”. This mode is slightly harder than current Hard, mostly due to the Health Potion and Barrier being weaker right from the start. Overall, though, the experience will basically be the same as current Hard.

The Hard Mode-achievement will be rebranded as an Expert Mode-achievement, and everyone who has unlocked it will keep it but under the new name!

Shield Training

The shield is overlooked by a lot of players, and its importance isn’t really made clear enough in the game today. To introduce players to the shield in a more formal way, and hopefully instil its many uses, we’ll be adding a short shield-training sequence to the Collector’s Trials in the beginning of the game! This sequence will be hosted by Master Ji of the dojo and one of his pupils, who will demonstrate and have you try your shield out a couple of times before you begin the battle part of the arena.

We’ve wanted to add some sort of shield training to the game since really the beginning of the development, but never found a good spot to squeeze it in during the rather hectic development. Our main focus was always to get as much content out as possible, which – as you know – was occassionally a bit of a struggle due to our perfectionism. However, now that the game is released and we see how difficult it is for some people to remember the shield at all, we feel it’s time to finally add it in.

Here’s a couple of animations made by Fred in preparation for this:

The Production Booklet

The creation of the production booklet, or the behind-the-scenes book that will summarize this 13 year long journey, is well under way. 33 pages have been written and designed so far, though we expect it will be at least two to three times longer before all is said and done. Here’s a few sneak peeks (note that this is a WIP with missing pictures and adjustments, and the text is yet to be edited):

Next Time…

Before the next update on June 1, we hope to have the new difficulty settings properly tested and implemented along with the shield training! Stay tuned for that :)

It’s been a while since release and it’s time to get back to the office after a short break! I have to say it still feels pretty surreal that Secrets of Grindea has finally been released – although the development will continue on for quite a while.

In this first ‘real’ update since the release, I thought I’d share with you what our plans are for the game in the near future:

Rebalance

One of our prioritites going forward will definitely be to take a look at the overall balance, especially late-game. We’ve already made some decisions in regards to this, such as:

* Giving the Evil Eye’s laser and barrage a slightly longer delay, which should give players a bit more time to position themselves accordingly.

* Giving Luke’s explosion sprites smaller colliders, which means you can be closer to them without taking damage.

* Giving Luke’s whirlwind spin-across-the-screen an improved indicator, which should make avoiding it easier.

* Keeping the Furious (Red) Giga Slime at the same level it was when the player first encountered it, rather than having its difficulty scale with the player’s level.

* Adding “clarity options”, making it possible to hide pets and summons belonging to other players.

* Finding some way(s) of pointing players to the support skills when needed.

* Not having to complete all of the more difficult phase shift challenges in Mount Bloom in order to get the true ending.

New Game +

We do know that we want a New Game+ mode. What that entails exactly we haven’t decided exactly yet, but our idea so far is that:

* You’ll keep your character and all of your gear and loot.

* You’ll be able to collect every card again, increasing their stats and bonuses.

* You’ll need to have gotten true ending to unlock New Game + by talking to a character (probably Bishop).

Other Game Modes

Along with New Game + we intend to release two new difficulties: Chill Mode and Hardcore Mode. Chill mode will be the equivalent of an Easy Mode, for those who would like to enjoy the story without the hassle of too challenging gameplay, while Hardcore Mode challenges you to finish the game with only one life – when you die you die.

Misc

Other than that, we’re also looking at:

* A new options for full screen resolutions, where black borders will make sure the pixels remain intact instead of getting too mushy.

* Making it possible to easily swap between a quick-slotted weapon and your previously equipped weapon.

* The option to bind a potion slot to a separate button, instead of having to use your “potion-belt”.

* A prompt that will let you copy a previous multiplayer session’s world state rather than having to go through every quest separately when you enter your world in single player.

* giving translators a top credit spot and the option to add their own credits at the start of the game

What About Console Ports?

This is something we’d like to do, but we’re not yet certain exactly how much work it would entail. We’re gonna look into it and make a decision in the near future.

The Blog Update Frequency

As the game has been released and a lot of our work going forward will be balancing and things that don’t generate too much visual output, the blog updates will go from being posted once a week to once a month.

That means that the next blog post will be available on May 1st, and at that point you’ll get another recap on what we’ve been working on since last time. Until then, have a good April! :D

Hello guys!

It’s been almost a week since launch, and what a week it’s been. It’s been so wonderful to read all of your comments and encouragement on finally reaching 1.0. The response has been amazing! So many new reviews and both new and old players coming together to experience the full game.

We’ve gotten some exciting coverage from across the globe as well – most notably in the west PC Gamer wrote an article about the release:

In Japan we were covered by 電ファミニコゲーマー, Automaton Media and several smaller media outlets:

We’ve also been watching a lot of fun and exciting streams from China on BiliBili – we’re so happy to see that the game has appeal accross the borders!

Our very first real review has, fittingly enough, been made by a Swedish gaming site called FZ.se, which gave the game a score of 4 out of 5:

For those of you that missed our launch stream, Fred’s been going through it and is making a couple of “Best of” videos for your entertainment. Below you can watch Teddy and Fred die an awful lot of times while playing Hard Mode live:

Both of them had a lot of fun streaming during the launch and would like to give a special shout-out to everyone who joined the stream and had a laugh with them (especially those of you who have stuck with us for years on end – we love you guys)!

We’ll be sticking around until the end of the week, and after that we’re off for a short break, having a week or two off from work before diving back into New Game+! The blog will be on a short break as well, so I expect the next blog post should be available around April 1st. Until then, please enjoy the game and keep posting your feedback and reviews – we read all of it and will plan accordingly for the next update.

Thank you all once again, we couldn’t have done this without you ❤️

The moment has come:

SECRETS OF GRINDEA IS NOW OFFICIALLY RELEASED!

If you haven’t already, that means you can now purchase the full game on Steam, GOG, Humble or through our website.

Right now Teddy and Fred are hosting a livestream on our store page on Steam as well, so why don’t you go say hi? :D

Thank you once more for all of your support throughout the years. You’re all awesome, and though I’ve said it before I’ll say it again: we couldn’t have done this without you ❤️❤️❤️

First of all, I want to thank every single one of you for your messages in response to the release date and release trailer. I don’t have the proper words to explain how touched we are by your overwhelming support, your kind words, and the wonderful stories of how you came to find our game many years ago, and who you’ve played it with.

Thank you for sharing your stories and for supporting us through this adventure. Thank you, thank you, thank you ❤️

Now, this is the final week of development before the release. What that means is pretty much that Teddy has been fixing bugs while I’ve been sending out mails to the streamers, youtubers and press we would love to see play the game.

Fred finished up the trailer last week and has since then been working on another small video we hope to share on release.

There’s also been some minor graphic details I’ve needed to take care of, but for the most part we won’t make any bigger changes to the actual game before release now.

Speaking of the actual release, it will begin at 7PM CET (10AM PT) this Thursday, at which point the game will offically leave early access with a small release discount. Teddy and Fred will also host a live stream on the Steam store page around this time, so be sure to drop by! :)

Again, thank you so much for your support. This game couldn’t have been made without you guys ❤️

…Yeah, you read that right! After 13 years of development, we’re finally we’re able to give you a release date, and one which isn’t even too far off at that. Without further ado, Secrets of Grindea will be released on….

February 29th 2024

That is, in exactly one week from now. To celebrate this grand occassion, have a look at our brand new release trailer:

Again, while the game will enter 1.0 and be officially released on the 29th, we’ll continue adding some further improvements in post-release updates. However, our hopes are that most of these will be quality of life and visual upgrades that won’t affect the overall experience too much.

Also a reminder that the Snowbacca Tiers will close on Monday the 26th in preparation for the release. This is the last chance to get your hands on those special rewards before they close :)

Thank you all so much for your support on this journey! It has truly meant the world to us.

P.S. For those of you who only play the ‘Stable’ version of the Early Access Beta – as of today the game is now fully playable from start to finish! Go check it out!

This weekly recap will be a little different, because very soon – unless something unexpected happens – Secrets of Grindea will be fully released on Steam, GOG and Humble Bundle. That means most of our efforts have been going into working on store page assets, recording and editing stuff for the trailer, ironing out bugs and adding the final bunch of stuff before the release.

The End of Snowbacca Tiers

It also means the Snowbacca Tiers will close on Monday the 26th – that is, in exactly one week, in preparation for the release. We’re incredibly thankful for everyone who has (and will yet) support us by purchasing this tier, but it’s time to wrap it up. That means this is the final chance to be added to the credits and get your hands on the digital production booklet (which will be available some time after the release).

What’s Next?

While the game will soon enter 1.0 and be fully released, we’ll continue adding some further improvements in post-release updates. However, our hopes are that most of these will be quality of life and visual upgrades that won’t affect the overall experience too much. Obviously we’ll also keep cleaning up bugs that get reported, and we do have a dream of adding New Game+ or some such in the future, although we’ll give you more details on that when things have settled down a little bit.

More information on the upcoming release will be available very soon. Thank you all so much for your continued support – we’d never have been able to do this without you!

This week, the release preparations continue! We’ve been making backgrounds and trading cards for the Steam release (along with a bunch of other promotional work, which we’ll keep working on in the weeks to come):

(Just as a precaution, note that the game is not released yet, the above is just a mockup of some promotional material we’ve been working on)

With most of the art for the initial release done, Vilya will continue working on the promotional side of things – preparing a ton of emails, doing promotional art like the ones above (animated by Fred), and working on the development booklet included with your Snowbacca Tier purchase.

Initially we wanted to have the booklet available at the release of the game itself, but we’ve decided to push back on the booklet release in order to include some perspective on how the launch actually went with everything said and done. We’ll keep you updated on when we expect that to be available, so stay tuned!

Meanwhile, Fred continues working on the trailer and Teddy keeps adding menus and bug fixes to the game. Can’t believe we’re almost there! :)