CrossCode Update #59
Kept you waiting huh?

Updates are here again!

We took quite the large break from writing updates but that does not mean we stopped improving and working on CrossCode! On the contrary. We planned out a lot of content not only for the game but also for the upcoming crowd-funding event. So let’s get right to it!

Items

We finally reached the stage where you can actually use items in the game! The feature didn’t quite make into the demo but I finally did it and it’s going to be in the next release! Items can be used via the quick menu we presented in Update #57. An item can have various effects, such as healing a certain percentage of you maximum health or boosting your stats. The latter are called buffs. You can use up to 4 buffs at the same time over the course of the game. However using items, comes with a small cooldown time display below your HUD. The time decreases much faster outside of combat so you can prepare yourself for tougher battles. Here are some pictures to show you how it looks:

lea-heal-itemsLea uses a healing potion (Effects and Animations are still WIP)

lea-buffsUsing 3 buffs at the same time! Notice that you can see the current number of buffs on the bottom of the item selection.

lea-buffs-waitOnly 4 more seconds and Lea can use an item again!

Changelog

Since we will do early access for CrossCode (yes, we’re doing it!) I added a change log interface to the title screen. Here you can see all changes for all versions of the game or display the latest changes in a compiled list. Here’s screenshot of it!

changelog

With this we also hope that people can tell us if we missed something when updating the game since it’s not shown in the changelog. We’re also planning to display the changelog on the games website with the next release, so you can get a peek at what has changed.

New puzzle mechanics

CrossCode will have a variety of puzzle mechanics and we want to use a certain set of similar ideas and combine them in clever ways. This is quite the task but we’re currently planning out a lot of ideas and how they can be used in different scenarios. One of those new mechanics is currently being implemented by Lachsen. It’s a new kind of switch that gets activated when a ball flies through it and changes the properties of the ball itself. The goal with puzzles making use of that switch is to hit multiple switches in a row by making use of the different kinds of effects the switch can have on a ball. You might have to throw a ball which gets very slow when hitting the switch and run to another switch and activate at the same time. Here’s a sneak peak at the design:

bounce-switch

We’ll have more information in the next update for you!

Language Editor

Something that is very important to us is the dialog. Now we are not native English speakers and texts might sometimes sound awkward. Thankfully all of you were very supportive in helping us with some dialogs. But that was always a bit hard because you had to write down the text and send it our way with the corrected version or an idea on how to phrase something differently. So Lachsen sat down an implemented a interface for our testers so they can directly send us their thoughts without having to open up an e-mail account. Check out this image:

language-editor

To prevent the system from being misused we decided to only make this feature available for the testers (This will include people with early access!). We hope you all understand this!

Crowdfunding

We’re getting really close to the crowdfunding which will start in February and we have some exciting news right now for you! First of all we decided on Indiegogo as our platform of choice. We really wanted to use Kickstarter but sadly they don’t have an option for create a project in Germany as of now. But we’re confident that we can make it anyways as game itself should be what’s important! We hope that you all help us get the word around and make this game happen!
Secondly we are currently working our crowd-funding video and the campaign itself. Deciding on the different perks is lots of fun but also quite challenging.

So we thought we’d simply ask you what kind of perks you would like to see?

We probably can’t do everything since we’re just a small group of random people, but why not involving people in the creation of the campaign too, right? So tell us what you think!

Final

That’s it folks! Hope you liked this update and stay tuned for more stuff next week. Yes, next week. We plan to bring back the update on each week and provide you with smaller updates in the future!

Also, did you already saw the new girl on Twitter? She’s a bit shy and might not say much but she’s good at heart and a great fan of CrossCode! And she has already discovered the magical device which captures her face!

lea-selfie1

Alright that’s really it!
Cheers and until next time.

39 Comments

  • I’m still trying to find out how to get all the chests! Do you put them in places where you can’t get into it on purpose?

  • “So we thought we’d simply ask you what kind of perks you would like to see?”

    Physical Soundtrack please! :)

    • Thanks! This one sounds a bit hard to do for us right now. It would be super awesome but I don’t think we can gather the resources we need in order to provide this with the crowd-funding. If the game does well we probably can do it though! :D
      Also this has to be communicated with our composer Intero (ownership and the likes).

  • Do you guys have a estimate on how much the full game will cost, or at least a preorder for the full game?

    • Yes we have! It’s going to be 15 bucks for the full game! You can pre-order the game through the crowdfunding and we will also add pre-orders for the game on our website after the campaign in case people missed the event :)

      • Will the early access beta be part of preorder tier for indiegogo or will it be a higher tier?

        Or is early access gonna be a selected group?

        • It won’t be part of the pre-order tier. Probably going to go for 30-35 bucks. We look at other campaigns at references and this amount seems to be what most are going for and makes sense. However we want to add more to the early access than just that :)

          • Well if you want to have a bit more people it might be cool to have a “early bird” special for the early access on indiegogo.

            Ive seen many developers make certain quantities on discounted prices on preorders (such as 10$ for the first 100 that pick this tier instead of the full 15-20$ that the game would go for at launch).

            You could do that for your early access beta that way more people would consider just bumping up their pledge a few dollars from a preorder since it seems like a better deal than the thought of paying double for access to the beta

            But thats just a thought.

  • Ben Lalande on January 12, 2015 at 12:36 pm said:

    Awesome! I really love the progress, and i am excited to take some of these early releases for a test run :)

    Thoughts:
    Item Menu: As an avid pc gamer, i can say that during combat it can be annoying to try and click a small box arbitrarily on your screen. If possible, make the quick menu position oriented. Example:
    http://sta.sh/01kvn8ns38py

    This way a user can quickly flick the mouse in the correct defined area to activate options. Just one of many ways to make it a little easier. Also letting the user Favorite certain consumables would be nice for combat as well.

    As for Indiegogo goals:
    – Access into the early access
    – Signed Mousepad by the team with a sweet crosscode design on it.
    – For the heftiest of prices, have the likeness and preffered name of the donor as an NPC in the main city.

    Just a few thoughts.
    Best of luck Guys!

    • Thanks for your thoughts Ben!

      Your idea concerning the item menu actually sounds like a very good idea! Just to note, the game will stop when you enter the quick-menu and it will always be on top of lea! I wrote down your idea and will test it out later (Probably after the crowd-funding because of all the things we still have to plan right now :D).
      As for the goals they all sound doable. Although I’m unsure about the mouse pad as it is a physical reward. We really want to this but chances are it will end up in a higher tier (like 50-60).

      NPC and custom design are totally a thing! Prepare yourself as one perk will give you the option to join design sessions with the team :)

      • Ben Lalande on January 17, 2015 at 12:48 am said:

        Ya i watched the animation again and i noticed time stopped. Fun thought, it would be cool to see that animation but with the time slow motion that happens when you charge an ability. Just think it would add suspense and a sense of urgency with your choice.

        Ah no worries about the mousepad, maybe digital goods like soundtrack, or even a “Founders” digital release of the game with 1 extra quest of sorts and unique skin / item.

        I am so excited for this crowdfunding!

  • Looks like things are moving forwards! I’m expecting great things from y’all. :D

    Keep it up!

    Also, expect a torrent of edits to the dialogue since there will be an editor in the next release. (E-mail correction futility is now officially a thing of the past!)

  • About the perks:

    – Make sure there is a perk that includes just the full game and (almost) nothing else. I’ve seen a lot of crowdfunding campaigns that throw a lot of crap at you so that the cheapest perk that includes the product itself is way more expensive than the retail price. Some crowdfunding sites offer kind of build-your-own pledge levels where you can just select from a list of perks you’re interested in and pay the total amount
    – I’d really love a physical copy of the game. Maybe even signed.
    – Soundtracks and artbooks (both either physical or digital) are always awesome.
    – Probably way out of the focus of this project but T-Shirts and a Lea action figure

    You might also want to setup a message board and/or bug tracker for all early access participants.

  • Some kind of limited retail version (preferrably for Wii U) would totally get me to buy a indigogo perk :) For a soundtrack I would also add some extra monies.

  • Maybe for one of the cheaper perks, you could design a crosscode-themed desktop set. Icons, backgrounds, maybe even some custom replacement sounds from the game for various things.

    Aside from that, the NPC name idea sounds like a good idea too.

  • Enderblaze14 on January 13, 2015 at 5:21 pm said:

    Is the download page for CrossCode updated with Update #59? Just wondering.

  • Looks great. What about creating a level editor for puzzle mode, when puzzle mode itself is finished?

    • Not sure if we want to do this because it involves creating a larger system for networking (sharing levels, saving them based on the user credentials etc.). This is a lot of work to do and comes close to actually implementing multiplayer which would take probably a lot of time to get right.
      Puzzle Mode will also only be available in the demo version of the game to highlight the features. The final version is a plot-driven games with dungeons and all the biz.

      • Oh? I’m guessing the “Advanced Puzzle Challenge Mode” will be found inside the game instead of being available in the main menu. I see how it is. All the side quests into hard challenge run into prizes with even more references.

  • hello!
    first,my english is not good enough^_^
    cross code is really funny game ,I have an idea that why not translate it into other language?
    if you agree,send me an E-mail and I can let some friends translate it into chinese
    p.s.when can i play v0.1.3,waitting… T_T

    • Translating into different languages is already build into our engine! However Chinese poses a greater problem because of the different symbols as we don’t use a normal font but a fixed bitmap font (one file that contains every letter we need in a ASCII fashion) which takes characters based on the number representation of a symbol. This makes it really hard to add other letters/symbols as those from the Latin alphabet. But we do plan to look into it :)

      • If I didn’t make a mistake, you need a BMP or PNG picture that has any Chinese letter that used in the game, and also a list that tell you where the letter is.
        Such as “Menus” should be replaced by letters at line 4th,No.5 and line 2nd,No.20 in the BMP.
        As this kind?
        If it work, we can do this,both the BMP and the list.
        If I was wrong, can you tell me a little bit more specificly? Maybe we can do it,or maybe somebody saw this will have a great idea.

        • Actually this wouldn’t be enough. Because Chinese letters often have a larger height. This poses a problem for some menus as we use a very small font for “sub-information”.
          Just replacing the symbols wouldn’t do the trick sadly.
          But we are aware of the problem but want to focus on the game content first. languages most likely will be added as an update for the final game.

          • OK, When the game is complet, you can send an e-mail to me if needed, we will glad to join in it

          • well, I`m back again~
            Was the problem of font have a good solution?
            We uses a font called “Z-full GB” when trans pixel games, it’s 12*12, was it small enough? if not, how many words still can’t show? was it possible that let us desgin it?how small do you needed?

  • Could you add a hotkey to skip cutscenes? Having to escape and find the skip cutscenes button to click gets pretty tedious, especially in rooms with lots of “cutscenes” like puzzle rooms.

    Also please don’t remove the air dash cancel or design around it to make it obsolete, action games without sequence breaks are often not good for speedrunning. (someone will probably make an all puzzles completed catagory anyway)

    • This was already requested by a speedrunner and I have absolutely no objection :D However this takes some work because as of now we simply increase the speed of the game world if you use the KIP cutscene button in the pause menu. Maybe it would be enough for people to know that there is a cutscene skip button?

      Don’t worry we have no intention of removing the air dash cancel. We actually knew about this trick as soon as we added close combat/defending. But we kept it in for possible speedrun options :D

      • What annoyed me about the cutscene skip button, is its position. It appears in the middle of the menu, between two other buttons. One of which is “Return to Title” btw, so I ended up doing that a lot. >.<
        Also I'd sometimes press Esc just milliseconds too early and not notics that there is still no skipping button, and then I would instead press "save", which is normally in that place of the menu.

        What would have been optimal for me, is a big ol' button rightn in the middle of the screen, to skip the cutscenes. The mouse curser more often than not also tends to swirl arounjd he middle of the screen, rather than the lower right corner.
        But then again, you'd need at least as big of a button for "Resume game" for those people who haven't seen the cutscenes dozens of times already. And then your whole menu layout has gone rubbish and it's not tidy anymore. Meh…

        Al in all, it'd be nice if you could try to find a less hidden place for the skip button, even though it's easier said than done.

        A hotkey would be even better. :D

  • I’m really feeling those Xenoblade references in the title tags of your images. But I mustn’t be careless, I’d love to see a soundtrack as a funding incentive! Great work.

  • Hey i have an error with the download version of the demo. When i want to skip a cutscene it doesn’t advance the textboxes like it should do, i have to click them away manually.
    I got this basically since the demo first came out and i played it on the laptop but now since i got a new PC and i played it the cutscene skip worked like it sould do but all of a sudden it stops at every textbox.
    Now i mentioned i play on a new pc, i had some downloads inbetween the times i played. Could it be that a software is causing this? Java maybe?

    • This upsets me more than it should be, i was on such a roll with the puzzle mode practice and now i have to click these stupid texboxes away every time i reset. GRRR

    • That’s unfortunate. It sounds very strange indeed. Actually there’s not much I can think of that could cause this besides some third party tool.
      Does the skip button work for scenes? Does it make the text come out faster too? Until it’s fully visible and then stops?

      • Exactly like you said, scenes skip normally and textboxes appear fast until they are fully visible and then stop. They only advance when i click them away.

        Sadly i can’t tell you exactly what i did before it changed like this, i was downloaded a game that required java that’s why i thought it might be java but i didn’t even download nor installed java. :/

        My arrangement right now is that i start from a save file at the beginning, since there are no textboxes in the rest of the puzzle section i’m fine with that.

  • Is it weird that I edited my save file and set the player’s level to 99?

    • We can’t stop anyone from using trainser or accessing game data so we are pretty open about this topic :D So I’d say no, it’s not weird ;)

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