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! :)

With the release very close at hand, we’ve continued to finish up the last bunch of stuff! This week that means making icons for the achievements we decided on:

For the defeat Grindea achievement, we actually had a bunch of different options, but settled for the first one shown here:

Some of these achievements will be available both in-game and through Steam, and some will be hidden and on Steam only.

We also made a final(?) bunch of items:

….and started to prepare some of the Steam related things (emoticons, trading card badges and so on):

Fred, meanwhile, continues working on the trailer, which currently looks something like this:

Not quite done yet, as you can see – but we’re getting there! :)

The interface fixes continue this week with an overhaul of the pet system interfaces, which should be fully translatable once these updates are in the game!

First up the pet caught box:

The new feeding menu:

As you can see here we’re pretty much aiming to remove as many of the texts as possible, using icons to illustrate what’s going on instead!

The Pet rename interface:

…and finally the swap pet window:

The quest received and quest completed, card album updated and teleport plate notification boxes have also been updated to make sure they’re translatable and visually matching the in-game menu overhaul that’s on it’s way in as well:

We’re also recording a new trailer in anticipation of the release, which is what Fred has been working on most of this week. Stay tuned for that once it’s finished! :D

Another week and more interface fixes in preparation for the final release! These fixes are all meant to make sure the game can be fully and properly translated, but they will also ensure the menus and interfaces of the game look a lot better :)

First up, the arena and target practice interfaces:

Mostly we’ve removed the built in text and touched up the graphics slightly here.

The popup menus in the equipment section of the menu had some sizing issues we’ve taken care of, which meant the icons had to be edited to a new size (and some remade more or less completely):

We’ve also remade the skill info and skill upgrade sections to make sure there’s enough room for translated text and fonts used by different writing systems:

Finally, Fred has been adding some post-endgame sprites for some of the NPCs found around Grindea, as things settle down after you’ve saved the world :)

We’re baaaack in the office and things are moving pretty quickly!

First of all there’s a lot of meetings to be had regarding what final things we’ll add before 1.0 – deciding which sound effects we still need to order, finalizing the achievements list and making the appropriate graphics, figuring out what steam assets we need and deciding on how to correct some things that aren’t compatible with the translation suite.

One such translation issue we’ve had has been the in-game menu headers, which Vilya made textless versions of last week, allowing them to be translated in a future update:

Another thing we’ve been working on has been adding the final Pet skins – so far some slots have been locked, but as of the next update every pet will have 6 different skins! Here’s a bunch of the new ones:

Meanwhile, Teddy continues to implement our fixes and additions, meaning all the new haircuts will be in the game next update, along with a ton of smaller improvements and bug fixes. Stay tuned! :)