Now, time to showcase the second casino, which will feature a different kind of gamble than the first:

The Pin Collector will make an appearance as well, in a house that seems to follow its own physics (you will be able to see a background filled with stars through the darkness in the floor and walls – quite spacey! ;))

Next, with a battle against Grindea being imminent very soon, it’s high time to give her a proper boss portrait! Let’s have a look:

Next up we needed to make some adjustments to master Ji’s challenge rooms to remove the scrolling from it, so let’s resize that thing a bit!

Some more things some of you may or may not have already seen, the transition between Grindeas health bars and her cool space wings:

And weee’re back! This time, let’s take a look at some of the backgrounds you may or may not have already come across in the meatshield update, which has been up for a little while!

For information on how to access this super crude and potentially buggy version of the beta (at your own risk), come on over to our Discord and have a look :)

In either case, here’s the first of a few new backgrounds, featuring the arcade mode version of the ice cream parlour:

Next up, Master Ji’s dojo:

There’s also a mystical cave where a giant lood and its underlings hang out, ready to provide you with some loot! Let’s have a look:

There’ll also be not one but two casino’s opening their doors in arcade mode! Here’s the first:

Of course, Fred has been busy as well, making animations and other new stuff for the update, such as this ice cream eating animation and a couple fancy wings you can get yourself in Arcade mode by trading in your essence:

A whole bunch of icons for new items and perks is needed, as well as two new housing items you can unlock by completing Arcade Mode and trading in your golden essence, featuring two different types of Grindea statues:

 Shadier Merchant is another character that will get his very own designed room in Arcade Mode, so let’s give him a bit of a spicier background, shall we:

 Maracus will make an appearance in Arcade Mode as well, and as such, it’s time to tweak his room a bit to make sure it can be integrated into Arcade Mode, allowing for exits in three directions:

Finally, let’s take a look at the first phase of the Grindea battle!

Now we’re winding down for a Christmas break (this is a recap so the posts actually ended on the 24th!) Happy holidays to you all!

We will now have a short christmas break before being back to work as normal on the 3rd of January! See you all then :)

This week it’s time to start finishing up Grindea’s battle area, so let’s take a look at how that’s going! In this first part, I’m adding the basic area, the stones and some green details around it:

 And here, we’re adding some more details in the shape of a bunch of isles surrounding the area! Of course, there will be clouds and stuff as well:

Something that’s not quite the Grindea battle floor but closely related is the bazaar that you’ll reach right before it, where you’ll get one final chance to purchase some new things and swap stuff around. Let’s take a look at what that will look like:

Now, with one of the Golden Essence rewards being that our very own musician Riley comes to town to let you pick and choose what music is playing, we of course needed a new interface, including a new shop title! Let’s have a look:

And now, a first sneak peek at the cutscene introducing Grindea to the player! We’re still tweaking this, but it will give you an idea of where we’re going with this:

This week, we’re starting off by adding a new currency!

This is golden essence, which like normal essence can be traded for rewards at Bishop’s in Arcadia. We’re also thinking you’ll be able to trade a (big) amount of regular essence for one of these. The reason we came up with this currency is because we thought it’d be a better reward to get in that final floor chest, rather than getting the rewards themselves. This way you can pick and choose whatever rewards you want in any order (except for some that you will need to unlock by completing Arcade Mode in all difficulties), and it seems a bit clearer that you always get a reward of golden essence rather than an arbitrary number of rewards only to suddenly not get any more.

This way adding new rewards is more streamlined as well – if we decide to add more rewards, Bishop will simply update his shop rather than you having to complete arcade mode once again to see what sort of item(s) we’ve added!

Next, we wanted to add something fancy for when you manage to finish off one of those new and spicy floor-wide bets, so I threw together a little background for a room in Bishop’s realm where you get sent once you’ve cleared the floor:

Next up, we wanted a wagon for the potion salesman that sells you Super Potions, so I made some tweaks to Remedi’s old thing in Arcadia to better fit the salesman we have in mind:

And here we go, the second attempt at that bad-ass fae, Badasu! This one looks a little more badass, no?

Meanwhile in Fred’s department, it’s all about hands! Grindea’s hands, to be precise! Have a look:

This week is all about the shop, which will now get a proper indoor map, where it’ll share its space with either Little John, Farmer Oak or a potion salesman that allows you to change which pots you have equipped. For now though, let’s start with the regular shopkeepers part of the room:

And here’s what it’ll look like what the shop is shared with Little John, who will let you upgrade your bow:

Next, what the shop will look like when it’s shared with Farmer Oak and his pet taming-item store:

And finally, this is what the shop will look like when it’s sharing its space with the potion changer:

Meanwhile in Fred’s department, he’s been working on a pretty epic animation featuring giant Grindea opening her eyes! Let’s take a look:

In this Monday’s Meeting, it’s been all about perks! We haven’t had a lot of those before, so we’ve spent some time thinking about what more interesting ones we could add. Here’s a list of our current ideas:

* A perk that gives a low chance of pins dropping from defeated enemies

* Arrows deal more damage

* Bigger chance of getting a specific type of event room (we want at least one of these for the fishing rooms, since it can be quite a challenge to catch all of the fishes, however, we haven’t decided 100% yet if this will be a perk or a quest or an item of some sort)

* Bigger chance of Loods appearing

* A perk that guaratees that you’ll get a pin as a reward after a challenge win

* A perk that gives you x gold at the start of every new floor

* Bigger chance of getting card drops from enemies

* A slightly wider selection of items in the shop

* A perk that lets you start with an HP potion

* A perk that gives you a good 1h weapon at floor 5

* Same as above but for 2H weapons and magical weapons respectively

Do you have any ideas for more perks? Let us know what you’d like to see! :)

Next up, I’ve made a test for a portrait of that fae that comes along to help you fight against bosses (for a fee). However, this is only the first try, and after some discussions we’ve decided we’re probably gonna give him a slightly different look, making him look a bit more badass. For now though, here’s the old version:

Next up, in preparation for another one of the rooms, I’ve made a bunch of Super Potions. These potions can be bought from a potion salesman that appears in questionmark rooms, and the potions themselves are stronger and last longer. To start of with, the potion salesman will present you with one random potion of the selection below, but if you pay up some essence you’ll be able to unlock a second slot in his shop which will also feature a random potion:

Now, time for a newbackground! This one features the Spa, where your character can regain some HP by standing in the enchanted pool:

In Teddy’s department, let’s take a look at a new interface of sorts, featuring Bishop as he provides you with a bet! Now he’ll appear in the lower right corner to remind you of the bet you’ve taken:

It’s another Monday starting with another meeting, and in this one we discussed more stuff to add to the final update of Arcade Mode. Here’s a bunch of our new suggestions in terms of events and event rooms you may come across during a run:

* First up, an event room that’s a spa where you can pick up a couple health orbs, just a nice little treat that may show up once in a while

* A potion salesman that sells “bootleg” potions that last longer than the ones you have equipped normally. These potions are usable items you can use whenever you like but will last longer and possibly be a bit stronger.

* A version of the fortune teller room in which you can change the boss of the floor, but for the next event room! In this room Astrid the fortune teller will let you know what event room is the next to spawn, and you’ll be able to let her swap it out for another one, for a fee.

* A “Boss Assistance Fae”, a fae adventurer that may show up randomly in a room and help you clear it out, only to suggest you employ his assistance in battling the boss. Of course, having his assistance will cost you! This fae may also show up occasionally in Astrid’s Fortune telling room where she predicts which boss you’ll face off against next.

* We’re also discussing having floor wide bets, where Bishop will appear at the start of a floor and give you a bet across the whole floor, such as clearing the floor within a limited time!

* Maraccas, who will show up in later floors, letting you exchange silver points for talent orbs, just like in Story Mode

* Trick & Treat buff service which will give you quite a powerful buff – but will also include quite a massive debuff. For example, in an early floor you might get a skill leveled to max, but you’re not allowed to use any other skills or your shield.

* A Trade Up Guy who will take three of your items of the same kind and exchange them for a better version of them

* A Lood room, which is an event room with a lot of loods and one big master lood who is a NPC of sorts

* The Ice Cream parlor, where you can make your own ice cream that gives you different boosts depending on which flavours you pick

* A person who shows up at the beginning of the last floor you died, or possibly after you’ve died at the same floor a number of times, selling buffs that will last until the end of the floor

If you have any other ideas for event rooms or fun things to happen throughout a run, be sure to make a comment! :)

Finally when it comes to Arcade Mode event room entrances, we have the Ghost Ship, the Desert, Tai Ming and Mount Bloom:

Another couple upgrades we’ve been working on is a proper preview window for Shadier Merchant, which compared your items to the ones on display as you approach:

As well as a nice blue warning for the main menu when your save is incompatible (previously it was brown, as can be seen below):

Next, it’s time for another one of those Grindea battle updates! Here, let’s take a look at two more of her moves, still a bit WIP but it’s looking better and better for sure:

So… last week I was supposed to post a recap saying we went on a short Halloween-break, but forgot to post it since we were having said break!

Now we’re back, so here’s “last week’s post”, and we’ll continue to post like normal from here :)

Now, it’s not just the ending of Arcade Mode that we’re working on, but also expanding it and cleaning it up so it’s all nice and polished. In this Monday’s meeting, we came up with two new rooms we’d like to try:

First up, a room where you meet the fortune teller Astrid, who tells you which boss is at the end of the floor, and offers you an opportunity to change your fate (that is, for her to change the boss for another one in the pool). Whether or not this will cost you anything we haven’t decided yet – but it’s likely it’ll cost a bit of gold.

The second room we’d like to add is a “Caveling Casino” where you pay gold OR essence for a chance of getting one of a pool of items, which you’ll be able to see beforehand. The items can be things such as equips, buffs, pins, HP pots, or maybe just an apple… We’re considering giving you two chances as well, so if you spent gold on one try, you can spend essence on another – but no more than that.

This addition of essence as a currency on a run is something we’ll likely experiment a bit more with as well, giving you more ways to spend that stuff :)

Finally, we’ve decided to try out a pretty big change – but I’ll have to make a couple tests first to make sure it feels alright… And that is to have each of the shops and special character’s rooms in a run appear inside a specially designed map just for them instead of having them sit in the middle of an ordinary room. So basically the merchant would actually appear in a shop, shadier merchant might appear in a creepy temple like setting, and so on. However, since we don’t want to give away what kind of room you’ll enter in the case of event rooms, I’m gonna have to play around with making an entrance to the house which makes it feel like you came from the outside even though you as a player didn’t see an actual building to enter. It may not make much sense now, but I’ll make a couple tests and you’ll see!

We’ve also been discussing what sort of rewards you’ll get from that chest in the final room before battling either Bishop or Grindea! We want the player to get plenty of rewards, at least three for each level of difficulty, so it won’t just be a reward for the first time you reach the top!

Some of our suggestions so far include:

A diploma that shows you made it. Can be hung on the wall of your house, where it can be inspected showing a proper fancy diploma stating you reached the top floor.

A lood trinket that allows you to keep a Lood with you on your runs.

A Record player which is a furniture item that will change the music inside your house.

Riley as a NPC in Arcadia, who can change the music both in Arcadia and on your runs.

Angel Wings and Demon Wings to decorate your character. We’ll have to try out how this looks with the character’s animations, but if it doesn’t work out we’ll add them as hat versions instead.

A trinket that makes you character levitate when moving and in idle.

A trinket that gives you the same colour scheme as Grindea

and a Cloud hat!

…in no particular order. Do you have any suggestions of your own? We’d love to hear them!

Next up, it’s time to start looking into giving Grindea a proper background instead of the placeholder flying fortress platform she’s currently on! In this sketch, I’m playing around with some aesthethics, trying to give her a place that feels fully her own.

What do you guys think?

 As mentioned before, we wanted to be able to include some indoor areas without having you pass through an actual building first, so I’ve made a little test featuring what it could look like entering a building from Seasonne in this case:

In this example, you’d be in a regular arcade mode Seasonne room, and expect to enter an event room to the right. Instead of going into another outdoor room, you end up in this house instead. Do you think the transition will feel weird seeing as there is no building to enter? We hope that by adding part of the outdoorsy area in the entrance it’ll feel more like you seamlessly transitioned between the two rooms :)

Meanwhile in Fred’s department, it’s all about Grindea, as has been for a while now! Let’s have a look at the most recent animations:

As you know, we’re drawing ever closer to the completion of this game, and since I’m usually a bit ahead of making the background art and such, we’re nearing a point where I’ll run out of stuff to do! So how to keep me busy?

Well, we’ve had a budding idea of having me prepare the graphic assets and likely, most of the writing, for a little side project, or a companion piece if you’d like: basically, a visual novel where you’re a Collector, interacting with other collectors and sentient artifacts!

This game will be a very short game to go along with the Grindea universe, so we’re not talking any big investments of time here, even for me – but it’ll give me something to do while Teddy and Fred finish the last bits of animations and code for the main game. And it may also serve to give you guys a bit more insight in the world of Grindea!

Because of the planning needed, you’re likely going to start seeing some sketches and rough ideas for this project come up on this blog soon. So how do you guys feel about visual novels? Any particular ones you like, or dislike? Features you’d like to see in a project like this?

Again, keep in mind our goal here is just to make a little companion piece, so it’s not gonna be very long or super complex – just a little side project in the same world :)

Next up with actual Secrets of Grindea stuff though, for the Grindea boss fight we’re looking at having a total of three different HP-bars! Time to take a look at those:

Now with the Grindea boss fight drawing ever closer to completion, it’s time we start working on a proper victory UI for Arcade Mode instead of the standard Game Over one!

Here’s the regular version, as a reminder:

And here’s the post-Grindea one, which will be more blue. It has a star instead of the floor number, and will most likely show up against a black backdrop as seen in the second picture below, as it’ll appear after the credits:

Of course, in the above examples there’s still the usual Game Over text, but in the actual interface it’ll say “Victory!” one you’ve defeated Grindea. We’ve made three versions of the next now, though, with “Victory?” showing up when you finish the game without battling either Bishop och Grindea, and “Victory” showing up when you defeat Bishop!

Next up, for Grindea’s big battle, we want to add a starry space-like background for one of her attacks, and as such, I was tasked with making a simple space background! Let’s have a look:

As we draw ever closer to you being able to finish your Arcade Mode journey, it’s time to add a proper way of getting up to that island where your fate will be decided. Using a standard portal? Nah, let’s do something a bit cooler: flying up yourself! Have a look: