Here we go again!

We’re off to GDC at the end of the week, so we’ve put out a small update to keep everybody going while we’re away!

We’ve got a new environment in there – The Mines – along with a bit more variety and lots of little tweaks to the existing dungeon environment. Dave has tracked down a lot of bugs and I’ve added a new Tier 4 monster to the skeleton evolution chain – The Bone Warden.

Woo!

-Barney

Castle Keep

This is the final one from the initial list I thought up:

So next I’ll put a little time into testing out some of the more “out there ideas” before I knuckle down and start fleshing these out and putting them in game…

-Barney

Mines

Working on rooms and unique props for mines:

Next up- Castle Keep…

-Barney

What next?

Well, mostly I’m working on environments for the next update- here is a little taste:

I’m just throwing around ideas at this stage, I don’t know what will make it in and what won’t, but currently I’m investigating: “caves” (shown above) “mines” “castle keep” and a much more experimental “haunted forest”.

I’ll try to keep you posted as I go!

Also, I’ve been toying with streaming/recording software, and I’ve started setting up the necessary equipment. I’m hoping that I can record/stream some animation process stuff as I’ll be doing the work anyway so it shouldn’t take up much extra time 🙂

My goal is to get familiar with the setup, and maybe start to record regular playthroughs as we test out new content and discuss the design/development process. This seems like both the least labor-intensive and the most informative way to keep everyone posted through development, so we (hopefully) don’t have big silences while I panic for a deadline, instead we just have panicky videos 🙂

Anyway, this is all just daydreams at the moment, I have no idea if it will fit in with my working process until I give it a try, but I am working on it!

*edit: here is the haunted forest concept too

-Barney

Woo it’s finally here!

We’ve been working like crazy on this update- I can’t wait to see what you guys think of all the new stuff!

Here’s the basics:

• A new boss
• 5 new monsters
• 4 new gods
• 20+ new interactive props
• big balance fixes for demon lord, scorpion and witch
• minor balance fixes all over the place 🙂
• kill tally system
• improved colour palette
• another 1,000,000 balance tweaks and little fixes 🙂

As always, let us know what you think! We’ll be keeping our eyes to the forums and our ears peeled, so please let us know if you find any bugs or issues- your testing is super valuable!

ENJOY!!!!!!

-Barney

Woo nearly ready!

Alongside the new boss, we have some color grading to balance the palette…

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Remember how I used to post stuff here?

It seems like ages since I’ve posted here. Looking at the previous post date confirms it- more than two months, officially ages.

So whats the deal with that? What have we been doing for two months- slowly eating a single taco? Living in a box?

Well, looking back through my emails and photos for the past months, I have pieced together the following outline of events:

PAX Aus

We had a big panic preparing to show Crawl at our first convention- PAX Aus! My mum drove me in with her van to drop off my big TV for the booth- thanks mum! We set up the stand with much less need for panic than we were prepared for, then proceeded to systematically panic anyway at fairly regular intervals.

“lords of looking”

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The first of many Crawl content updates!

Well, we’ve finally found time from all the emails and accounting and actually made some game content again!

I’ve been madly animating new monsters and implementing items and tweaking balance for existing stuff- here is a basic overview of the bigger changes:

• new monsters
• a new monster chain
• new gods
• new items
• new traps
• standing targeting mechanic for bows
• jump in/out of blobs
• reworked potion system
• blood amassed by leveling heroes after level 10
• about 1,000,000 balance tweaks and little fixes 🙂

Thanks heaps for all the encouragement and fun discussions guys, now I can’t wait to get stuck into the next update!

-Barney

I’m making monsters again!

After launch, I answered emails and did weird nebulous PR/marketing tasks every day until I thought my face was going to explode! Then I want to PAX and tore the crotch of my only pair of pants and spent about 8 days in the same stinky torn-up jeans trying to develop standing and sitting techniques which would reveal the minimum amount of my increasingly visible crotch area.

BUT NOW THAT’S OVER AND I ACTUALLY GET TO MAKE VIDEO GAMES AGAIN!!!!!

I’m working on monsters for our first update yay!

Those four are my baseline necessary to get the monster chains set up how I’d like them, and I’d also like to add one more if I get time 🙂

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