First, let’s see the current state of progress of the game. There still is a chance to release the game before the winter holiday with some luck and by tapping all the energy reserves for a final push. Some features will be almost surely left to be added after release, for example, a new game+ like thing similar to the iron wizard mode in GCCS.
I plan to have two more posts before release, the next one showing the trailer for sure, and the final one telling about release details and last minute info morsels. (the game is already in a trailer-ready state, so it should arrive before December, I just try to cover the development time more or less evenly with blog posts.)
So this time, I raked together some of the new creatures and buildings which still haven’t been revealed, without spoiling the game.
In addition to the already shown wizard stashes, lanterns, pylons, 3 looks of walls, barricades, wraiths, and reworked shrines, here are a few more to be encountered in the game:
The jar of wasps is a building that can be destroyed to unleash gem wasps, those tiny lit creatures also created by gem bomb explosions, attacking foes on their own. Gem wasps became more useful as they deal their gem’s specials when they sting, and they also follow your mouse pointer so you can lure them where they are needed.
Monster eggs can be found lying around in many places, they contain swarmlings that can be unleashed by cracking the egg with a gem bomb, or the egg can hatch on its own after a while.
The watchtower is a new building that attacks everything, including your towers. If it launches its spinning projectile, you’d better hit tab to pull the targeted gem to the safety of your inventory. The good news is that it can be brought down eventually, just keep firing and stay vigilant. 🙂
And finally, a foe that the corrupted wizards of the Spiritforge sent to hunt down rogue wizards like you, the wizard hunter is obsessed to get to your orb, and can launch shades of itself to tear down your buildings, along with the gems inside if you don’t act fast.
I’ve probably mentioned before that I’m an avid achievement hunter, it’s such a blast unlocking one achievement after another and finally facing the really tough ones. Achievements are not as dumb as some players say, they can teach the basics like a tutorial, or show other ways to play a game, leading the player to unfold the game and discover hidden paths. Achievements can give another layer of completing the game, or comparing your standing against other players (thanks to the public achievement stats for each game on Steam). So I didn’t want to aim low this time, there are more than 900 achievements planned (Steam has a technical limit of 1.000 achievements to prevent achi-scam games that once flooded the store, but if that can be bypassed somehow, I’ll be happy to add even more achievements after release).
Drawing all the 64×64 pixel images (official Steam achievement icon size) for the achievements would have been a tedious task though, so as a compromise, I tried a pixelated retro feeling approach. I made tiny 20×20 pixel icons that the game uses to generate the 64×64 px icons, along with an 86×86 px version used in the outcome panel.
This is how it looks like with 3x zoom:
Last time, in Chasing Shadows, achievements were only unlocked when winning a battle’s regular phase, in endurance, achievements were locked. This time endurance is a separate battle mode, and all achievements (unless specified in the achievement’s description) can be unlocked in journey (regular), endurance (lots of waves), and trial (fixed challenge) mode, even if the battle outcome is defeat. Once the “achievement unlocked” panel pops up, it’s a granted loot in the outcome panel. This change makes many achievements easier to get in the long run (waiting to get to long enough endurance runs can make achievements like “create a grade 16 gem” unlock naturally), so there will be more achievements added into the pile that will require a really high wizard level or a high player skill to unlock.
Some of what’s still waiting to be revealed might be shown in the trailer arriving next time, and the rest is waiting for you to explore in the game itself. See you again with the trailer by the end of this month!
Summer is over, we have a busy 4 months of this year left ahead, full of new game releases, let’s make GemCraft Frostborn Wrath one of those games!
In this post, I’ll show you the rebuilt talisman system.
The talisman is now a 5×5 jigsaw puzzle, with most of the tiles locked at the start of the game, unlockable by gathering enough shadow cores (the multi-purpose game currency).
All talisman fragments give varying battle bonuses, depending on the rarity level of the fragment (more rare fragments give more and stronger bonuses), the upgrade level (unlocking the potential bonuses of the fragment by spending shadow cores), and whether the fragment is “inner”, “edge”, or “corner” type. Rare fragments can be found during battles boosted with lots of battle traits.
You can sacrifice a fragment to add its shape to your shape collection. The more shapes you gather this way, the more freedom you have when changing the shape of the fragments you plan to add to your talisman.
Just as with a jigsaw puzzle, you have to correctly connect the puzzle piece shaped talisman fragments as you fill the tiles of the talisman. If a fragment doesn’t fit, you can change its shape one side at a time with the arrow keys, but it can only take a shape you already have in your shape collection. Also, edges can’t be changed or rotated, so a top left corner fragment can’t be changed to top right, just as an inner fragment can’t get an edge.
The runes on some of the fragments, as well as the lights on the sides of the talisman will be up to you to explore when the game finally arrives.
Next time I hope I can show you the game’s trailer, and if everything goes as planned, the game can be out this year – more info about the release details when we get closer.
I hope summer goes well and that you can find shelter from the scorching heat.
Battle traits were one of the cornerstones of GemCraft since Labyrinth, giving you control over how difficult challenges to take on and what path of progression to take. Traits will be there in GCFW as well, 15 of them, each adjustable at 12 levels (or left turned off).
Each battle trait adds a unique difficulty boost to battles, giving monsters more hit points or shields, luring greater enemies to the battlefield, or giving monsters an armor boost based on the number of other monsters on the battlefield.
The more and higher level traits are selected, the higher rarity talisman fragments can drop (more about that in the next blog post), and a higher xp multiplier applies to the battle total xp.
In the previous GemCraft, there were also three difficulty buttons. They are now blended into the palette of battle traits, and instead, there are three battle mode buttons. Journey mode is the baseline experience. Any field that wasn’t played yet automatically starts in Journey mode.
Endurance mode now starts from wave 1 (in GCCS is started after finishing a regular battle), and initially lasts 50 waves. In this mode you can’t lose, you’ll get the xp you gather even if your Orb gets smashed. Beating at least half of the total waves though gives endurance wave stones that will make all future endurance runs longer.
(The achievement icons shown in the outcome panel loot row are still work in progress.)
Wizard Trial mode is similar to vision fields from GCCS, but this time all the fields have this challenging mode, putting your true gemcrafting skills to the test. Skills and battle traits can be obtained by winning trial battles. In trial mode, you can’t use your skills, the starter mana is set for each field, as well as gem types, buildings and spells to use, and battle traits too. (See the greyed out battle trait icons in the traits panel screenshot – in trial mode, the traits panel only gives you info about what to expect, but traits can’t be changed.)
All three modes have their own unique field layout variant and give their own xps for each field.
In trial mode, since the battle traits are fixed, there is no battle traits xp multiplier, calling in waves early will give a generous xp boost instead. Doing so is very risky though in the already challenging trial mode, so be careful.
Lastly, a minor change to the grid of skills shown in the previous post, I realized the new building called lantern didn’t have its own skill that would make it buildable, so I added one and took Masonry out (and used its graphics for the Dark masonry battle trait). I was afraid that lantern would become too overpowered, as well as lagging the game with its AoE damage, but not giving it a skill wouldn’t work. The skill itself still puts some harsh limitations of the building, but it’s sure to change a lot during later playtests.
Have a great August! Next time I’ll write about the new talisman system.
You can add the game to your wishlist so you won’t miss the release day. There is also a lengthy list of feature highlights if you wonder what more the upcoming blog posts will cover.
Next time I’ll write about the changes to battle traits and battle modes. Have a great summer!
Sorry for always being late – eventually it turned out that “in a month or so” can mean 3 months… at least there has been progress not only with the skill system, but new buildings and creatures were added too, or for example having a mere look at the list of in-game stats lead to changing a ton of things from saved games to achievements to the outcome panel. I also made several, mostly successful attempts to make the game run more smoothly.
Most of the skills must be familiar to GCCS veterans. One of the new additions is the Orb of Presence skill, which gives banishment bonus, as well as those tiny orblets that can be stolen by the monsters (formerly that feature was a battle trait, but, unlike other traits, it made the game mostly easier while also providing an XP bonus, so it had to switch teams). To bring pylons into the game / have players give them a try, it got its own Pylons skill, while Seeker Sense (bottom right skill) is also a new one giving shadow core and monster kill XP bonuses.
Gem wasps are one of my favorite features and I wanted to make them more powerful and not just a nice trick for the first few levels, so the Demolition skill (top right) makes wasps live longer, sting stronger, and have a higher attack range. Wasps now also follow the mouse pointer, so they can be lead to where the action is.
As we are slooowly getting closer to release, I plan to add more random battle screenshots to give more grip on the general look and feel of the game, until the trailer, and in the end, the game itself finally arrives.
Some months ago I was pretty sure a June 2019 release would be possible, so I really should not talk about any release date until actually having at least a release candidate build. At the moment, I have a nice layed out plan for this summer, 40 tasks for the next 12 weeks, including blogposts about the battle traits and the talisman. But we all know that has to be taken with a pinch of brackets and question marks. Our kids will have a summer break, so there will be a lot of family days to be spread through the summer (there are some GDC talks on YT about having kids and working as an indie dev, I’m a bit relieved I’m not the only one struggling with time management). If this summer goes as planned, we will be very close to release, and if not, we’ll still be lots of steps closer.
Have a great summer, I hope I’ll have more to write about soon!
Sorry for the constant delay, finally the chapter map got in shape enough for a screenshot. Even though everything was already changed several times back and forth, nothing is final.
The map will consist of 26 diamond tiles labeled Z to A (there were a bunch of different layout plans, but the winner was a nice solid shape using all the letters of the English alphabet). Your journey will start at the frozen ends at the Northern end of the map, from where you can hopefully return to the Spiritforge with a revenge best served frozen, hence the reverse letter labeling order.
There will be different looking field tokens for each field types, similarly to how it worked in Chasing Shadows, but the light sockets will show the completion of 3 battle modes, instead of 3 difficulties.
Endurance mode won’t be an extension of a normal battle anymore, you can start an endurance run from wave 1, and it will have its own XP and completing an endurance will light up the second socket on the field token. (More on changes to endurance later.)
Each field will have a Trial mode, which will be very similar to vision fields from GCCS, meaning, available skills and mana will be set for each trial, regardless of how far you have advanced in the game, putting you to challenges you can’t hack by getting to wizard level 1000. Precious loot such as skills and unique talisman fragments will be obtainable by winning trails.
Next time (in a month or so?) I’ll tell more about the changes to the skill tab. Thank you for staying tuned!
Today I’ll talk about a new creature you might meet in the game, as well as changes to the strike spells.
Monsters are evolving and finding new ways to put you to a challenge. A new kind of flying creature, called wraith, will appear from time to time through battles, similarly to apparitions and specters, but instead of just flying through or trying to steam a gem, wraiths will provide damage being reduced by 15% for all the monsters, and they will fly around and keep supporting monsters until shot down. More wraiths mean more trouble, their effect can stack up to 90% damage discarded at 6 wraiths, making monsters much more fierce.
Strike spells have been fit for the game’s chilling theme. In addition to freeze, you can cast whiteout on monsters to make them weak and confused, and you can tear through them with ice shards for a huge instant damage.
Each strike spell works in synergy with 2-2-2 gem types (to hopefully bring all gem types more into the game), so for example freezing monsters will make armor tearing more effective as well as critical hits dealing even more damage. The gem type buttons have been rearranged so that each of them are visually in the same column as their corresponding strike spell.
Quite a short post again, but at least we’re getting closer… See you in February with the new GCFW chapter map (not hexagons this time)!
I’ve come today with three kinds of buildings to show, as well as to sum up this year and look at the next one with great hopes.
The last buildable building type I haven’t talked about yet is the pylon. Pylons can be charged by tower shots, and they release their armor ignoring, long range shots when the monsters arrive. Their damage depends on the highest damage tower shots they get, with each incoming shot adding some charge depending on its relative damage. For example, firing at a pylon with a high grade and a low grade gem makes the pylon store high damage shots, with the lower grade gem’s shots adding less charge than the high grade ones.
Walls got a visual upgrade, there are three different types for more battlefield variety, and they can be built by you too, clicking the wall spell button repeatedly changes the wall type to build. In addition to the regular wall from GCCS, there is a “megalithic” wall resembling GCL’s wall style, and shrubs can be built too. Functionally they all work the same way. Shrub colors will be set for each field, e.g. a red leafy forest will have accompanying shrubs, snowy locations might have white ones.
Newly added barricades are road-blocking destructible piles of stone and debris, they can be demolished with lots of shots to open new path segments, with the opportunity to set longer maze paths for the monsters to walk.
It’s the end of the year again, a year has passed since the screenshot with the christmas tree shaped level last December, let’s have a look at it again with the latest game build.
Many tasks have been done since then, but there’s still quite a few months’ work to be done before releasing the game, I’d rather not narrow down the release date, but I’m pretty sure the game will be out in the first half of 2019. I hoped to make it by now (or even much earlier), but at least we are getting closer.
We have just finished the developer validation process on Steam, so our company can put games up on Steam from now on. 🙂 I’ll be on making a Steam home page for us, and a “Coming soon” page for GCFW is coming soon too.
Looking back at this year I see there should have been much more progress made; it must be frustrating waiting for the next GemCraft as I’m keeping you waiting one month after another, always lagging behind my ever sliding schedule, I’m sorry for the slow progress, I hope you’ll enjoy the game so much that it can make up for all the delay in the end.
Everyone have a great new year, see you in January!
Let’s talk about lanterns in today’s post. Lanterns will be a new type of building you can place and put a gem into. Lanterns will periodically damage all monsters in their range.
Gem enhancements will work in lanterns too, making lantern zaps ignore armor, have a greater range, or higher firing speed. As with everything, the actual numbers will have to be tuned to make lanterns a useful, but not overly powerful addition to the wizard’s arsenal.
Even though with reduced damage and firing speed, lanterns can really be useful against dense crowds crawling around in tight mazes and traps, as well as slowed down with a freezing spell or slowing gems. Calling in early waves and lighting them up with lanterns can make a massacre.
More bits of news coming in a hopefully longer post next time, until then, have a great pumpkin carving, enjoying the tons of new game releases, and preparing for the winter holiday season!
Good news for Linux players, lots of Steam games officially released on Windows are now Playable on Linux via the new Steam Player. Not all games are supported (DRM, heavy anti-cheat or server connection can be a problem), but GC Chasing Shadows doesn’t have any of those and seems to work fine.
I don’t have Linux so can’t give any help personally, but I hope everything is covered in the linked Steam post.
(Thanks for the info to Olli, a fellow GC player!) https://steamcommunity.com/games/221410/announcements/detail/1696055855739350561
