CrossCode Update #47
Battle Stuff and a New Area

Hi again!
Sorry for being slightly late with this update.

In the last two weeks we have been working on the new grinding area, more plot, the circuit menu, background music, graphic effects and the battle system. As you can see, we also changed the design of our website! Quite the mix, right?

Teleport Effects and Close Combat Finisher

So far, enemies have been appearing with a fairly simple animation based on an alpha transition and scaling. This looked ok-ish for small enemies, but didn’t quite work so well for the larger sprites of our new boss enemies. Thus, I sat down and created a new effect. And here is the result:

teleport-new2-small

We also applied the same effect when adding destructible boxes:

teleport-new1

Additionally, we extended close-combat attacks to include a small finisher move at the end. Previously you could just continuously bash the enemy as long as you wanted with left and right swing attacks. With the finisher move, you have 3 regular swings following a more powerful circle attack that hits enemies all around the player:

combo-finisher-2

Note, that the finisher attack animation is still work-in-progress and will most likely be improved.

Anyway, not only does the rhythm of this attack pattern feel better, it also adds a bit more depth to the combat system: enemies might actually be able to escape your combo after a finisher.
Here another demonstration in a more crowded area:

combo-finisher-1

New graphics for the grinding area

We already mentioned in the last update, that we planned a new area where players can do a bit of grinding.
Now this area will be a lot more open compared to the places you have seen so far. It will also feature a strikingly different scenario.

I started working on the graphics for this new area. Here small sneak preview:
grinding-area-preview-wip

Yes, the grinding area will be out in the nature. Note, that this screen is from a very early stage so a lot of things will change. And of course, some content will be added to give it more of a Sci-Fi feeling… But it’s a start!

In addition to creating graphics, we also started planning the kind of enemies you will encounter in this area.

More Plot, Circuit Menu and Music!

We made more progress with the plot, finally implementing proper dialogues for the combat tutorial.

R.D. has worked towards finishing the circuit menu, implementing gamepad controls. Compared to other menus, implementing gamepad support is in fact quite challenging for the circuit menu, since we don’t use regular button navigation. Instead, the player will be able to freely move the cursor with the control sticks (very much like the Sphere Grid in Final Fantasy X). Overall, the circuit menu is about to be completed.

Finally, Intero worked on a new background theme which is will be played during an exposition sequence.

Have a preview here:

New Website Design

As you can see, we finally redesigned our blog! Some of you might have noticed how we updated the blog with the new design over the past week. Here’s an overview over the changes we did:

  • The RadicalFish design is now more bluish instead of purplish and uses orange as a highlight color instead of red
  • The whole page follows this design. Links have a light blue color. Hovering makes them use an orange color
  • Added a quick access bar on the right. It scrolls with the page and moves to the bottom if the window is to small to fit it in
  • Social buttons are now visible on the top of the page. We also added share buttons to the posts! So if you liked a post, share it with your friends!
  • The page automatically loads the next page of posts if you scroll to the bottom.
  • Posts now start with an overview and a picture. This reduces the page load dramatically. Now you can load the page without worrying about the big gifs!

The design is not fully done. We still want to add some features (like better visuals on mobile). But we think the page improved quite a lot. What do yo think?

And this concludes today’s update!

10 Comments

  • Sicher, dass das Sneak Peek nicht aus Velsarbor ist? xD
    Erinnert mich jedenfalls ziemlich stark dran. Auch der der Baum sieht dem Terranigma Baum ziemlich ähnlich. Absicht/Inspiration?
    Gefällt mir aber, vorallem weils mal was völlig anderes als die ganzen Innenräume und das Schiff ist.

    • Hey, Marston. I answer this in English so everyone knows whats up.

      No, no Velsabor, sorry :P

      We actually drew inspiration from autumn like settings. So colors are more warm. This also works well with the topography of the world the game plays in. But yes, games like Terranigma and Secret of Mana will always be an inspiration for us.

  • I kinda don’t like the “teleport” effect that much, because the way the objects build them self doesn’t fit that good. I would expect something more “blocky” if you know what i mean.
    All in all, it’s a nice update.

    • Hi Kros!

      Sad to hear you don’t like the new teleport effect.
      Unfortunately, I don’t quite understand what you mean with “blocky”.

      If it’s about the way the sprite appears (which is currently a simple wipe effect from bottom to top): Implementing these effects is kind of challenging in HTML5, which is why we choose something more simplistic here. Doing a mosaic effect where individual pixels appear would be much more challenging, for instance.

      If it’s about the particles: those where chosen in particular to have this rhombus shape, as this is a reoccurring design element of the game.

  • i would really love it if you guys joined the nitrome game jam because they are one of my favorite game developers( along with radical fish games) and it is going to happen in early june and currently are voting on a game jam theme more details at: http://www.nitrome.com/jam/

    so can you please enter, i would love to see more than two games on the games page.

  • Wollnashorn on May 29, 2014 at 1:31 pm said:

    Hahh, very nice!
    It becomes more and more a proper game :)

    The new theme is great too

  • Number6 on May 29, 2014 at 7:43 pm said:

    I was wondering, the character sprite. Do you consider it 2d or 2.5d? I have a 2d sprite I want to convert to 2.5d.

    • Hi there!

      Sorry, this is kind of hard to answer.

      What exactly do you mean with 2.5d here?
      Is this about technical stuff (e.g. how to correctly render 2.5d) or is this about graphics (e.g. how to modify a sprite so that it looks correct from the perspective)?

      I think Lea can be considered a 2.5d sprite.

  • Kaze Memaryu on May 30, 2014 at 7:15 pm said:

    Man, that finisher already looks nice! Now I’m eager to see how you will work it out!
    I’d like to see something like a small jump to initiate the finisher strike, as in, Lea jumps and rotates for the attack and lands with the last hit (just personal preference since I think jump attacks make combos seem more dynamic).

    Other than that, I can already imagine myself playing CrossCode via GamePad (doing it regularly with the TechDemo++)!

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