Welcome back!
We’re late, I know. But we’ve all been working on the demo, so everyone’s busy. But we didn’t forget you! Still, this update will be rather short. We work on lots of features and content right now and don’t want to spoil much in favor of the upcoming demo. Let’s get started!
Content
This is what we did in the past 2 weeks mostly. Many new maps have been added by Henning and myself for the autumn area, and you will even find some NPCs in them! Lachsen also added a small particle effect for the area! You’ll now see small leaves dancing in the wind while you do the obvious: Bash evil fiends with your balls. No pun intended. Here’s a picture of a map fresh of the assembly line:
It’s not quite visible here but in-game you will notice the leaves. They also grow in number on special maps! You might find some secret enemies!
Also T-Free finished up special enviroment animations you will see in the autumn area and TQ (The_question) is currently working the observatory mentioned in the last update.
Since the demo will also feature a puzzle part Lachsen worked a bit on the graphics and the general level design of the puzzle dungeon. Take a look:
For a comparison, here is a picture of the same dungeon with the old graphics:
The small rectangles you can see in the upper screen are just another form of particles that will float around the room. They even react when fighting enemies!
Finally the intro area. I updated the maps to be more detailed and include more variation in the ground textures Martina created for us. We still plan to add more details to them, but this might not happen for the initial demo release. Nevertheless, here’s a screen cap:
As you can see, the bridge still needs some work and the area lacks some details. But it already has a better atmosphere.
Features
Good news. When playing the gameplay mode you have access to the complete neutral skill tree. Felix and I worked on implementing all the passive skills and make them work. The same goes for the active skills. You can only use them when the node is activated in the skill tree. Here’s a screenshot of the menu with some active skills:
Not only this, you will also have access to the heat and cold element. They won’t have any special attacks but you can use them to deal extra damage to certain foes.
I recently updated our small save menu so we can actually use it in the demo. This is the first time you can save in CrossCode so the menu needed to be as accessible as possible. Here is a quick look at the updated design:
You can now also access the options menu via the pause menu. This makes it much easier to change options before you get the real menu. The same goes for the title menu.
And last but not least, Felix added a new lighting feature which mimics the effect of the bloom effect. You mostly don’t see this but the effect creates smoother lights which blend very well with other elements.
That’s it! As said a short update this time. But expect more next time. Why? Because it’s release time!
Get hyped!
P.S. here is a teaser for you:
32 Comments
Somehow the old dungeon looks better in the shown comparison. Did you accidently swap the pics? (no offense if I am mistaken^^)
No offense taken!
Nope, the top one is the new one :D It might be the screenshot itself because of the big hole. But the new graphics help with the depth perception much better than the previous one. It also looks much smoother and in line with the outer area to that dungeon. We do plan to add more details :)
Bloom? Finally this game is becoming next-gen! How much Bloom are we talking about? Just eye-watering or outright blinding?
Maybe you should also consider more brown and grey in your colour palette.
Nintendo bloom of course ;)
But seriously, the bloom will be used with the same technique we display lights. Just with a little effect :D
Looking good! Gets me even more hyped for the demo release! WHOOO!!!
But a question remains: will the web version of your demo have that save feature as well? Because I can imagine that being potentially very imposing on whatever server it’s stored on. Or will you offer an alternative for that?
You can save the game in both versions the same way! We use the local storage functionality the browser provides to store your saves. So your saves are never stored on our servers but on your computer.
Maybe at some point in the future we will provide uploading the saves to servers to you have a backup. This will also work for both the web version and the desktop version :)
Good to know – I assume console browsers (like NetFront) are out, then.
Anyway, thanks for the heads up, man!
whats-this.png?
hehe, it’s the right direction. But maybe I’m just trolling all of you :p
Are you going to bring up the crossquestion again? I think you should change the shock effect to yellow before the demo is released because yellow is generally associated with lightning electricity/shock.
Also I really want to beta test new content so if there is any way please let me know, thanks
We probably talk about it again some time but for now we decided on purple (You can’t use the element in the demo but you can see some of it in the menu). I can totally see your point but the funny thing is that in games, purple is often used for lighting based attacks. Sometimes even both are used.
I think the best way to handle this is to bring up the topic again if we start our crowd funding and maybe have a poll or something like this :)
We also plan to add an early access system so people can help make the game better! So beta test are coming :)
When you move the cursor to the teaser, it says ‘Hint: It’s in the name’. I wonder what it is???
Now you know!
Hyped for the demo! Moar graphics showcase, explanations, and little teasy things, AKA every wagon of the Hype Train is in place. EXCEPT for the demo, which is exactly what we fans are waitin’ for.
I’mma replay that final challenge thing, that’ll get me back into the feeling of the game.
Keep it up, guys!
IM HERE WHERE IS THE DEMO+++ IM READY
YES, WHERE IS IT? HITTING F5 10x/min! :)
Demo will be out later the day. Probably at night. There’s still some things we need to wrap up.
Demo? :<
Demo will be out later the day!
is it a bug that the time is displayed as 12:46 pm and not as 00:46 pm ? Or am I just stupid?
Well, I know the United States uses that format of time so if you are from somewhere that uses a different format that could explain it.
It’s true. The time format does not change depending on your location. Something we might wanna fix :D
Just checked and it seems they are based in Germany, at least I gathered that from the contact page. I assume they are using the 12 hour clock because it is was the preset by the person who made the web page theme (tidy themes) or so it appeals more to foreigners. Probably the former.
yeah im also from germany, but when you use the 24 hour format, there is no pm/am. That’s kinda weird ^^
We design we used is only a template. We actually made the design by ourselves. But I’m pretty sure we find a way to display the correct time for anyone :)
What time will the new demo be on the site?
1-2 hours! Starting to bake everything together now.
Test post. Need it for time reference.
ITS OUT
TIEM. Just finished demo. Amazing. Where do we report bugs? Do we have a full release date yet? “It’s in the title” ahh I get it. ENJOY CROSS WORLDS EVERYONE!!!
There is an oversight in the battle training with the captain near the beggining of the game. With a trackpad, it is impossible to dash and keep your charge at the same time, making it impossible to progress.
Can i get some hints to where the non blue crab key piece is? pretty please