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[Brent]

So many things going on lately it is hard to keep up with everything.

First off, we are currently running an Alpha test with backers, friends, and previous alpha testers which is being streamed by one of our friends: http://www.twitch.tv/johnsgalt

Our Kickstarter and Greenlight campaigns are going really well and we are confident that we will get through Greenlight pretty soon (Currently at 82% from top 100). Kickstarter has been much more difficult but we are still doing well and on kicktraq are projected to succeed (for what its worth).

There has also been some controversy surrounding the title of our game and another game with a similar title which you can read about at PCGamer or on Indiestashcash. One thing I want to make clear about this is that we have done absolutely everything legally and want nothing more than to make our game and be left alone. There are alot of lies being spread by a certain small group of people that are absolutely untrue and the articles above give very fair and accurate reports of the situation as it stands.

We absolutely will not let any of this prevent us from making the game and early on decided to let the professionals handle things and avoided feeding the trolls. Instead we focused on getting our work done and got a ton of work done getting ready for this weekends tests.

[Rosstin]

Backed and lit!

Would you be interested in cross-promoting our games? Email me at [email protected]!

[Brent]

Backed and lit!

Would you be interested in cross-promoting our games? Email me at [email protected]!

Thank you so much! We would love to cross promote I just sent you a email.

[Brent]

Kickstarter Update #4: An Empire at War

Conquest mode is a cornerstone of Grimoire’s development. In a Conquest match House Validus and House Magnus battle over powerful sources of magic scattered throughout the Empire. Soon we will be adding these ancient ritual sites to each map along with their corresponding ley-lines. This is more than just a visual upgrade- we’re adding a unique system to Conquest that will allow players to teleport into action near instantaneously!

Here is how it works:

You can fast-travel from the spawn room...

If you don't press anything you will travel all the way down the line

Enemies can capture ley-lines to block travel

Like a train, you can hop off at any stop

With this system in place we open up more strategic options than ever, offering players the choice to flank, defend against incursions, or go on the offensive-- every time they respawn. This system along with destructible objects will open up a variety of strategic options for clever teams. The best part is that we can build these systems and visuals without a dime of our Kickstarter budget which means...

(Ley-line Concept)
Full-Size Image

You can expect to see these changes arrive soon!

[Krisjet]

Wow, this looks really cool! Did you guys ever try the Wheel of Time FPS? If you know the game, the idea of a WoT fps just sounds like the most horrible idea imaginable, but I've heard it had a pretty tight knit community and that the multiplayer component was quite stellar. It featured spellcasting and some VERY powerful spells (balefire is described as ripping you from the fabric of the universe or something like that in the books), but also a lot of utility spells as defensive countermeasures.

Seems like your game is a lot more fast-paced, almost Unreal meets Skyrim or something, but it just reminded me of this old relic of a game Will be following this thread!

[Brent]

Wow, this looks really cool! Did you guys ever try the Wheel of Time FPS? If you know the game, the idea of a WoT fps just sounds like the most horrible idea imaginable, but I've heard it had a pretty tight knit community and that the multiplayer component was quite stellar. It featured spellcasting and some VERY powerful spells (balefire is described as ripping you from the fabric of the universe or something like that in the books), but also a lot of utility spells as defensive countermeasures.

Seems like your game is a lot more fast-paced, almost Unreal meets Skyrim or something, but it just reminded me of this old relic of a game Will be following this thread!

Thanks for the kind words Krisjet! I remember playing the WoT FPS back in the day as well and it was awesome. I was a huge Heretic/Hexen player so I naturally picked up the WoT game also when it came out. Ironically the game is actually what got me into the books which are by far my favorite Fantasy series. Some of the spells in Grimoire are actually inspired by some of the magic in that series. 

[Brent]

Alpha Tests, Patch Notes, and Greenlight!

 

We're once again very excited to invite backers (and Alpha testers) to play multiplayer Grimoire this Friday at 8 PM EST. As a special thank you, for being so awesome and letting us host a DevLog here, I would like to offer Alpha access to any TIGSource members who PM me before tomorrows test. Testers will receive instructions for getting into this weekend’s test tomorrow afternoon. If you missed the cut-off please check out our Alpha Testing Guide for information on getting access (or just PM me anyways, I'm a sucker for people who like the idea of a Wizard FPS).

We have been hard at work improving the game as much as possible before this weekend’s tests. Changes include improved layouts to all four maps, various bug fixes, polish and features to Conquest mode, new and improved particle effects, and a buff to the Earth class. We would love to hear your thoughts about these changes and have also posted detailed patch notes to our General Forum and website.

Greenlight has been going really well-- at the moment we are ranked #74 out of 2082 games with 5,590 ‘Yes’ votes! There has been an incredible amount of positive support from the Greenlight community for which we are extremely grateful. We look forward to completing the Greenlight process and managing our Alpha tests through Steam. Help us get there by asking your friends to vote for us!

Thank you so much to all of our backers, our amazing community, and communities like this one for your support! We have had awesome feedback and ideas from our last two tests. Come join us this week and let us hear from YOU!

[Brent]

We are happy to announce a Grimoire Alpha test this Saturday, Nov. 1st starting at 5 PM EST! There are a variety of updates to the game since the last test and we are excited to see what you all think!

We also have discounted Pre-Orders now available through our website. All revenue from Pre-Orders will go directly into the development of the game and every dollar now will have a direct impact on our initial Early Release on Steam. If you like what we have done so far please consider supporting us!

This week’s Alpha test will feature all of the new content we have been hard at work implementing these past weeks and includes a brand new movement system which is our take on the traditional “Sprinting” in FPS games. Spells no longer cost mana, instead mana will be used as charges for the new movement system. How it works: by pressing a movement key and Shift players can blink a short distance in whichever direction they were headed. This system can also be used mid-air to change direction and has a variety of uses from dodging enemy spells to simply moving through the maps more quickly.



Also included in this week’s Alpha test is a new key binding system which will allow players to customize their prefered control scheme. In addition to these changes we have also been hard at work on our maps and there are significant additions to 3 out of 4 Conquest maps with the most radical being changes to Breach which completely change the way the map plays and looks. These new map changes are very much a work in progress and as such we are currently using placeholder assets in many places in order to playtest these updates.

[Brent]

Starting Steam Integration and Map updates!

Starting this week we will be doing a weekly post to keep everyone updated on what we are working on. I am really excited to write this week’s post and to officially announce that we have begun integrating our systems with Steam! This is a huge milestone for us and I’m happy to say the the process is going smoothly. We will have more information on this next week but until then you can join our new Steam community group to receive updates and a reminder on Steam for our events. This is one of the best ways to gain access to our Alpha tests!



As Grimoire’s Lead Level Designer a large amount of my time lately has been spent working with our artist, Justin, to upgrade the look and feel of Grimoire’s levels. Justin is an amazing talent and together we have been able to “level up” the artistic quality of the maps and are well on our way to giving each map a unique look and feel. The first step was to create a unique hook for each map. This can be most easily seen in the new version of Breach. Both The Pass and Innercity have been significantly updated as well. The next step is to get custom meshes built from a modular building kit; a process that is already well under way.



In addition to changing the way the maps look I have also spent time working on the gameplay layouts of the maps themselves. One of the most common things I heard about the maps was that they were too flat and needed more verticality to them. All of the maps now have some sort of verticality. Breach has seen the largest change with the addition of walkways and different terrain height levels around specific control points. I have also attempted to fix certain issues that came about from the change to our spawning system a few weeks back. This has resulted in changes to the paths between each teams second control point. For example, on Breach the back alley pathway was too far from the Middle control point which was splitting up players to much and focusing battles in places where we didn’t necessarily want them. That back alley path is now much closer to the middle control point and should result in much more streamlined fights and pathing.



Thanks for reading and as always for the support. We are working hard to make this game as amazing as we can and a large part of what keeps us going is all the overwhelmingly positive support and comments. If you want to support us even further we currently have the game available for Pre-Order at a discounted rate.

Best,
Brent Caulfield 

[Siilk]

Looks extremely promising. I really like the idea and look forward to playing it. I do hope though that the spells in the game will feel more like ones from 1999 Wheel of Time game rather than "different skins for guns". Check out this WoT game spell list as an example of unconventional and more complex interactions between spells and players(shields, counterspells, utility spells etc). This made WoT multiplayer a really unique experience, not just a fantasy-themed FPS so I hope Grimoir will be more like that.

Edit: Heh, looks like you already know this one, WoT I mean. Yeah, I totally dig it and to this day consider it to have one of the best sets of spells in videogames. 

[Brent]

Looks extremely promising. I really like the idea and look forward to playing it. I do hope though that the spells in the game will feel more like ones from 1999 Wheel of Time game rather than "different skins for guns". Check out this WoT game spell list as an example of unconventional and more complex interactions between spells and players(shields, counterspells, utility spells etc). This made WoT multiplayer a really unique experience, not just a fantasy-themed FPS so I hope Grimoir will be more like that.

Edit: Heh, looks like you already know this one, WoT I mean. Yeah, I totally dig it and to this day consider it to have one of the best sets of spells in videogames. 

Thanks Siilk! That spell list was actually really helpful. Theres a couple of spells there in particular that I would love to see similar versions of in Grimoire.

[Brent]

Steam Integration: Week One and Class Changes! 

It’s a very exciting time for us right now during the development process of Grimoire. Since being greenlit we have been hard at work with steam implementation! One of the biggest issues with being able to properly test Grimoire in the past has been our lack of an auto updater system and master server functionality. These two issues are now on their way to being resolved due to Steam! For this week’s build we have implemented a “Quick Play” system on our main menu which will allow for us to leave servers running for extended periods of time-allowing our community to play whenever they want(no more redownloading a new build for every test!) As we move closer to early release our server-browsing functionality menu will gradually evolve into a full-fledged server browser, but for now our quick play system is designed for ease of access to put you into the game with other people playing!



In our recent design discussions we decided that mana in Grimoire just didn’t feel like a very fun system.  Running out of mana made the pace feel really slow, and we didn’t really have anything in place to give incentive for using it.  We made the decision to completely back out of spells costing mana and are now migrating into a new movement system called “mana step.”  The system of mana stepping is not quite 100% yet but we believe it is already very fun to use and adds a great feel to the fast paced style combat we’re shooting for with Grimoire.  A brief mana stepping preview can be seen here: http://i.gyazo.com/494a12e7a6d0975a991ba658b92c675d.mp4

Along with our mana system being reworked, we’ve decided there are some definite changes needed to current classes, passives, and their abilities.  In the coming weeks we’ll have more information available on passives as they are implemented, but you can expect the following changes coming to these abilities in the very near future:

    Zooming functionality added to Lightning(2)
    A new crowd control type- a blinding effect added to the explosion of Earth(3)
    Charge-up changes added to both Fire(2) and Nature(2) to make both abilities feel a bit more diverse.

One of our biggest spell changes, however, is for Earth’s ultimate ability.  We have decided the golem doesn’t quite fit the role we’ve intended for earth to be.  Don’t worry-we won’t be entirely abandoning AI for Grimoire’s PVP mode but for now we’ve decided to migrate the ultimate toward something more suiting to the class.  Here’s a quick concept of how it should function:



Aim at a ground-target and your character will instantly teleport above that location, dealing damage and slowing enemies in that area.  You will then be suspended and invulnerable in the air for a short duration while you channel into a earthen shape that will then come crashing back down to earth, dealing massive AoE damage.  As we continue development of Grimoire it is our goal moving forward for abilities to feel a bit more unique and most importantly mechnically fun to use.  This is one we’re all extremely excited to get implemented and begin testing soon!

-Chan

[Brent]

Weekly Update #3 – Earth Mage concept and new Ultimate spell!

Greetings Wizard-folk! This weeks update has been hijacked by the newly appointed “resident artist- at least until they can find someone better at making pictures person” (Editor’s Note: Not gonna happen). As you saw last week we have been looking into a new Earth ultimate, and I have since been looking into fleshing out its visuals a bit more since the original concept sketch was rather contradictory to the classes dominant aesthetic. This is the current Earth Mage.

The magic for each class revolves around a particular shape. For earth that shape is the cube. Applied to the initial concept for the new Earth Ultimate we end up with something more along the lines of this:

The spell is still fairly early on, but it will probably look a little bit like this in 3d:

Further work is required, but I think it will look fairly awesome once its finished. Hmm I wonder what other spells might look like after earth gets his full visual update… Oh? Apparently I’m supposed to get back to work on the maps now… maybe I can show you next time!

-Justin

[Rekuul]

Last week we got in a fully functional version of the new earth ultimate spell, Lodestone.

Here is wind-up spell effect (not final): http://gyazo.com/98c59a9ce029fa40be7ae748c02039d2.mp4
And the explosion (not final): http://gyazo.com/dd10756d4e57c9adf65b88e24408d6ff.mp4

We're really happy with how this spell turned out and excited for people to see it in game. Next build...

[Brent]

Weekly Update #4 - Pre-Order now available through Desura, new Saturday events, and Open Alpha coming soon!
Grimoire and instant Alpha access is now available for discounted Pre-Order through Desura! All Pre-Orders will not only receive the full game but also access to the latest version of the game through our 24/7 Steam Alpha testing. If you like what we are doing please consider directly supporting us by Pre-Ordering the game!

Last week marked another big milestone for Grimoire’s development. We sent out hundreds of keys to those who signed up for Alpha and will be transitioning to Open Alpha starting on Dec. 17th! We hope to make regular weekly updates to add polish, content, and bug fixes in preparation for our Steam Early Release.

We are also starting our weekly “Play with the devs” events again this Saturday at 3 PM EST (9 PM CET) as a way to give players a chance to play the game as its intended (6v6+) as well as play the latest update. If 3 PM EST is a bad time for you please take a moment to vote in our Poll so that we can find the best time.

The current build features the Conquest game mode, 4 maps, 5 classes, 8 selectable spells, updated options menus, a quick play system, and the new movement system: Manastep. If you are interested in a reminder through Steam of each Alpha event and Grimoire news you can join our official Steam group.

As always a huge thanks to our amazing community for their support and feedback. We read everything you all send us so please keep it up! With your help we are confident that we will have an awesome Early Release early next year!

[michelmohr]

When I saw those gifs I was very surprised at the impact and force your spells cause. Very very impressive.
With all those physics explosions in modern games I'm surprised games like Skyrim didn't use these kind of things for fireballs and explosions etc.

Very cool!

[Brent]

Weekly Update #5: Options menu, new spells, and effects!

Hi all, Kyle here with another weekly update! This makes our fifth weekly update in a row: which has to be some sort of record around here. In any case, I wanted to write about what I’ve been working on the last couple weeks.

First off, menus. Over the last couple weeks new options have been added to the options menu including bloom, SSAO, Anti-Aliasing, and FoV. We hope these settings (along with resolution, windowed, and vsync) will allow testers enough control until we get further along in development. We should have a full set of graphical options by release, but for now these settings will allow players to tune graphics to better fit their system specs.

Recently, I’ve jumped into a bit of game programming (I typically work on menus, visual effects, and game design). I fixed up a ceiling checker function that allows ‘from the sky’ type attacks like Meteor Storm to be cast indoors, added a new movement spell called Juxtapose, and taught an old spell (Repel) some new tricks. It has been an incredibly fun and educational bit of work that Chan (our main gameplay programmer) has mentored me through. I’m happy to have more familiarity with the combat systems because that understanding will help me design really awesome spells!

I also worked with Justin on some super cool new spell effects like this one:

(Lodestone explosion particles)

Finally, I’ve done some design work with Brent and the rest of the team for our upcoming wizard spells. I would tell you all about it… but that’s classified.  If you want the inside scoop on what we have planned there is no better way to get info than by coming to our weekly test event on Saturday at 3PM EST.

Hope to see you there!

[Brent]

We have a nice build coming this week which includes map changes, new models, bug fixes, and balance tweaks. Once again we would like to invite all Alpha testers to play with us in Saturday’s event starting at 3 PM EST (9 PM CET). We are operating on a very tight budget right now so if you like what we are doing please consider supporting us by taking advantage of our 34% Pre-Order discount. Open Alpha will also begin soon so if you haven’t gotten your key yet head on over to our site and signup to be one of the first to try out Grimoire’s Alpha!

Our core design strategy has always been gameplay first then art and cosmetics. One of the reasons for this is that as a small indie team we simply didn’t have the resources needed to add custom art to the game. Our primary reason though was to keep focused on creating a fun and rewarding gameplay experience. For weeks now I’ve been working closely with our amazingly talented artist, Justin, and we’re finally ready for a draft of the new assets to see the light of day!



The first map to get these new models is our most heavily tested and which some of our Alpha testers might know as “breach” but which we are renaming to “Slums”. Justin has done an awesome job creating a modular building kit which we can use to efficiently create entire cities. Slums is now ready to enter more testing with its new look and even some new minor layout changes! Please keep in mind this is still a blockout pass for these models and there are many decorative elements missing such as doors, wood trim, adornments, and more. The models are also missing finalized textures in places so please excuse our dust as we construct these new maps and models.


I am extremely excited to continue working with these amazing new models and we hope you enjoy seeing the game evolve as we get closer to our Feb 2015 Steam Early Access release date. I’d also like to give a special thanks to our amazing community for their incredible support! As always we would love to hear any feedback, comments, questions, and concerns.

-Brent

[Brent]

When I saw those gifs I was very surprised at the impact and force your spells cause. Very very impressive.
With all those physics explosions in modern games I'm surprised games like Skyrim didn't use these kind of things for fireballs and explosions etc.

Very cool!

Sorry Shimmergloom I totally missed this! Thanks for the kind words we are doing our best to make players feel like they are in control of powerful magic that has direct and diverse effects on the environment and players. 

[Brent]

We recently got in the new effects for our control points so I decided it was a good time to do a series of screenshots of the 4 conquest maps we are currently testing. In the interest of keeping it simple I've uploaded it to imgur as an album.

http://imgur.com/gallery/YX2bf