Another week with lots of stuff happening, some good and some bad. To get the bad news out of the way, Teddy started feeling bad early last week and was rushed to the hospital after a fainting episode. There it was was confirmed that he’s got a pretty bad case of covid19, so he’s been on bed rest since then. At present we’re not sure when he will be fit enough to get back to work, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed and press on in the meantime.

So this week Vilya has been checking off a bunch of smaller things we felt needed fixing. Among these were adding missing expressions for some of the characters, editing the colouring for the math puzzle in the same area, and adding the graphics for a hat you’ll be able to get after finishing the game:

She also made some smaller adjustments to a bunch of portraits that were broken in various ways (such as messed up colours or them being too big for the dialogue box), and added some additional decorations to a couple of places. Below you can see what the small desert cottage will look like after completing a certain hidden quest, and some greenery added to the area to the right of the farm in Evergrind West, where we first thought we’d have some sort of farming minigame which we ended up scrapping – meaning it looked a bit too empty for something that isn’t going to be used in any way:

Meanwhile, Fred’s been working on animating the starry cards sky that will feature in one of the very last cutscenes of the game:

…For what is endgame in any epic jRPG-inspired game without a trip to the stars? :)

Another week, and lots of progress on the final battle(s)!

This week we’ve been working on two major things: Zhamla’s boss battle (hard mode version), and fine-tuning the ‘normal’ ending.

When it comes to Zhamla’s boss battle in hard mode, we’ve felt that health potions and some supportive spell (Barrier, I’m looking at you) pose a bit of a design challenge for us. Every opening and every cinematic attack will give your barrier and potion time to recharge, and since the battle is long the amount healed with that combination can become quite insane. This isn’t an issue on the Normal difficulty, as it’s not designed to be as much of a challenge and we expect they will each serve as vital means for many to be able to defeat him at all. However, on hard mode, you’re basically asking for a challenge.

So how have we decided to solve this? Here’s a clue:

Basically, if you try to drink a health potion in hard mode, Zhamla will snatch the potion from your hand and smash it to the floor!

As for Barrier….

It might not be clearly illustrated here, but Zhamla will actually steal your barrier, getting it as a shield for himself!

In other words, barrier and health pots are off limits if you wish to defeat Zhamla on hard mode :)

As for the Normal Ending cutscene, we’re adding some minor animations and changing up some timings (editing some of the “directing”, if you will), to give the end a bit more oomph than it currently has. Though our first intention was for it to be pretty clear it wasn’t the true ending, we also don’t want it to feel too rushed, which has turned out to be a fine line to walk.

That’s all for now! See you next week :D

Hey guys! How’s your week been? Ours has been filled with art creation, bug testing, release discussions and animation making. And a bunch of programming, of course!

To start off the showcase of this week, we have a ruined version of the final battle area, which you’ll see if you climb all the way back to the top after completing the game and starting it again:

We’ve also made a bunch of details for Grindea’s island, which will feature in one of the endings – we changed some colours around and created some constellations in the sky:

Fred has been doing some work on Grindea as well, giving her some new animations:

And of course, a bunch of new animations for the final boss, which is definitely turning out the be the most graphic heavy boss of the entire game:

He’s also started recording a bunch of videos for the release trailer, which is something he’ll have to start working on for real pretty soon. It also gives him the opportunity to play through the game and try to catch any of the bugs of fixes Vilya might have missed during her playthrough.

Finally, just like the last couple of weeks there’s a ton of stuff being made that we can’t show just yet. As always, while we’re pretty liberal with spoilers on this blog there’s just some things in the ending cutscenes and post-end game state we’d rather you experience for yourself. Hopefully you’ll be able to soon!

Another week and lots of stuff happenings behind the scenes!

For starters, we’ve moved into a new office space, this time an open office style we share with a bunch of other developers and programmers of various kinds. It’s really nice to once more be around other creatives, something we missed since we went back to working from home during the pandemic. Here’s a little sneak peek of where we work now, note the Secrets of Grindea sign in the window:

In terms of work, there’s been a lot happening as well. The Zhamla battle is almost polished enough for some proper testing, so here’s another video showcasing that epic summon phase we hope will keep you on your toes:

Fred’s also been focusing on making a new laugh for the GUN-D4M version you meet in the final dungeon – before first and after below:

Meanwhile, Vilya has been playing through the game, adding 30+ more bugs and fixes to our “Ultimate Fix List”, as well as making new portraits for Sizou and six different iterations of a puzzle backround (we’ve finally settled for the one below):

So close now! Let’s keep going :D

This week, Vilya is back in action and has continued working on some new backgrounds as well as playing through the game to catch things we’ve forgotten to add. So far she’s written a list of over 50 things, and she’s still only just finished the Temple of Seasons! Not to worry though – most of these things are super small things that will only take a couple of minutes to fix, or optional things we may or may not add. Some may even be added post-release! And some we probably won’t fix at all due to them not being as important as we first thought.

As for the backgrounds, here’s another iteration of one of the puzzle backgrounds:

I think we’re getting to a point where we’re all pretty satisfied with the way it looks now. What do you guys think?

As for Fred, he’s continued working on the summons! Remember the Frosty Fiend smash animation from last week? It’s now officially in the game and looks like this:

He’s also been working on a charge animation, and some projectiles for the Plant summon:

Teddy’s been sick for a while yet, but he’s finally getting better and ready to get back into action this week. Stay tuned for more updates next week!

Another week, another recap! This week, Teddy has finished up the final cutscene of Arcade Mode, adding the new background Vilya made a couple weeks back. He’s also made a bunch of adjustments in the way final boss Zhamla’s plant launches its attacks, and started working on GOG support. Some years ago we decided we’ll be available on GOG as well, and with the release drawing ever closer with every week, it’s time to get that support up and running. Of course, that whole process involves some extra bits of programming such as porting the leaderboards and making sure multiplayer connections work properly.

Vilya has been busy playing through the game and making reports on bugs and other smaller things we need to fix, as well as making some further improvements to two of the puzzle backgrounds in the final dungeon:

We’re still not entirely happy with the second one, so another iteration is sure to follow soon.

As for Fred, he’s finished up the animations for Zhamla’s plant and cloud, and put in a lot of work on a special attack Zhamla makes, that’s a bit similar to how the echoes of madness work in Tai Ming. Here’s a little sneak peek of that:

Now, onwards to another week! :D

In the last post I mentioned recording a bunch of videos showcasing some of the stuff we’ve done so far with the final battle. Without further ado:


First above, the sequence where Zhamla breaks the room to reveal the sky outside! In this prototype, we still use the red sky, but in the final version we might change it around so a night sky with stars will be revealed instead.

Next up, a little updated sequence with Zhamla’s summons! Here you can see the swap between the red sky and the night sky, as it happens when Frosty Fiend appears:


We’ve also made an updated heal for the sequence where you need to damage Braazlet. We’re still missing the proper HP-bar graphics (which I made last week) in the prototype below, but it should be added soon:


Finally, an assortment of new attacks and patterns:

   
Keep in mind that all of these are still in the prototyping phase and will get polished quite a bit more :)

One of the very final scenes in the game will take place above the blue skies, in space, where Grindea herself has one of her dwellings. We thought a lot about how to do the transition between blue sky and starlit night, and after having tried out a bunch of gradient options, we decided to simply go for an easier (and prettier) solution: clouds!

Once you get high enough, there will be a thick blanket of clouds, and as you emerge above them, there will be different colour clouds and a starlit sky behind them.

Here’s an early sketch, the the corresponding new clouds needed:

And now it’s time to render the background:

After painting a ton of floating stones, it’s now done! Well, at least my part of the work – time for Fred to animate some cards/stars :)

This week I’ve been working on some new art for Secrets of Grindea once more!

First up, two new expressions for Zhamla:

I also edited to floor, removing the golden bars to make the battle area look more clean – before and after below:

There’s also an extended background for the final scene in the true ending, where the camera will be able to scroll up past the Collector’s HQ and into the skies above for the credits.

Despite only part of the roof showing in the game, I (thankfully) had been smart enough to make the entire thing when I first made the HQ building, meaning a lot less work compared to having to puzzle together the rooftop as well.

Although this scene is much larger than what will actually be shown in the game engine (the camera is almost half the size of the background above), I still wanted to make a version that show the entire thing, flowers and all. Perhaps we’ll at least be able to use it in the production book?

For the actual game engine, we’ll use this smaller version:

So nice to be able to make some backgrounds again! Definitely looking forward to the next project, where I’ll be able to make a ton more 🙂

I’ve also made some new items: some paw prints for the housing system, an accessory and a new hat!

All of these were made in collaboration with our backers – thank you so much for supporting the game! ❤️

There’s still a few small things to add before I’ve made my final contribution to the game, but either way, it feels so cool to have gotten this far. Soon 1.0! 🙂

This week our main focus has been the final cutscenes for the true ending! It’s pretty incredible to finally see the first iterations of the very very very last scenes of the game. There’s still a bunch of polish and animations needed for them to be complete, but the base is all there.

Here’s an early sketch of one of the final scene designs I’ll be making a proper background for as well:

Pretty exciting, huh? Stay tuned! :)

This week for Secrets of Grindea I’ve focused on two things: the production book and a bunch of detail work. I’ve decided to try and use NaNoWriMo as an opportunity to challenge myself and finish most of the production book in one go. For those of you who don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, I wrote a post about it a while back. But basically, the goal for participants is to write 50,000 words within the month of November. Now, I don’t want the production book to be an actual 50,000 words (I think), so whether I do reach that specific goal or not is unclear – my own goal will be to finish the first draft of the booklet, whether that is at 50,000 words or 25,000 words!

As far as those details are concerned, to start off with we have some shattered glass in that final battle room. Since the stained glass windows broke I feel it was a detail that was missing:

Second, a version of Marino’s room with two missing rapiers. When we got to that part of the game during our great playthrough, we felt it would be better if there was already one missing from the beginning (Marino has a rapier on him, after all), and once you get a hand on one of them, two should be missing instead. Right now all the rapiers are there until you get one from Marino, at which point only one is missing:

Third detail, which is more than just a detail to be honest, the coffin of Zhamla, floating in the final dungeon:

As for the Secrets of Grindea Visual Novel, I have presented a couple ideas as well as a poll to determine which one sounds the most interesting over on my blog. If you’re interested, please head over there and vote so I know which direction you’d prefer it to take! :)

Now, time to get back to that production book!