next »

[Brent]

For most of Grimoire’s development we only had 3 people and no artist. So for environment art I have relied on various placeholder meshes including some base UDK assets. My primary focus was on the overall layout of the map, timings, paths, cover, and basically everything gameplay related with a minor focus on making them look “Good enough” so that we could produce some marketing material. Three of four playable maps still use mostly these placeholder assets. With the addition of an amazing multi-talented artist to our team we have begun work on a custom building kit for our first environment: a medieval city slums.

Album of Alpha Maps 0.7.8.8 Images:
http://imgur.com/gallery/YX2bf

We are still in closed Alpha but will be moving to Open Alpha as soon as a critical connection bug is fixed (hopefully sometime this week). If the game looks interesting please feel free to sign up on our forums for a key as soon as we move into Open Alpha OR just send me a PM and I will send you one asap.

[Brent]

Weekly Update #7 - Conquest mode and delayed open alpha.

This weeks update is about our first game mode: Conquest which is inspired by classic games such as Day of Defeat and the Battlefield series. 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. Capturing all of the sites results in a large number of bonus points with control points resetting to their default owners and each team starting fresh from spawn. Players begin in a spawn room and then travel through a portal which takes them along the ley-lines to the ancient ritual site their team controls that is closest to the central site.

If you are familiar with multiplayer shooters you might be thinking this sounds just like every other generic control point game mode. In Grimoire however we have added a unique spawn and travel mechanic which we believe will create all sorts of strategic options by offering players the choice to flank, defend against incursions, or go on the offensive-- every time they respawn.
This 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 to your furthest controlled ritual site

Enemies can capture ley-lines to block travel

Like a train, you can hop off at any stop

We have begun implementing this new system by adding new visual effects to represent the ancient ritual sites but the actual travel mechanic and ley-lines are not ingame yet. We hope to complete this new system before early access launch.

You can see more screens of our current four maps here:http://imgur.com/a/YX2bf/all

We would also like to announce that we must delay Open Alpha until we get a critical connection bug fixed. We will however continue to do our Saturday alpha test at 3 PM EST (9 PM CET) as well as the occasional quick test. As always we are extremely grateful to our awesome community for all the support and feedback, thanks everyone!

[Brent]

Weekly update #8 - New utility spell!

Salutations Magi and Magaiezuses (you know who you are)! Everyone was out on lunch break for the week so I (the currently still appointed  “resident artist- at least for now”) decided this update needed to have a dancing ant!



Woooooo, Raise your pincers in the air like you just don’t care!

Happy new years everyone, but now that party ant is out of the way- We have been hard at work testing a new fix for some connectivity issues some users have been having, as well as Working on a new Defensive Spell. Cast it to set a trap where you are standing- anyone that steps on it would then activate the spell and be confined to the trap area for its duration. I have been tinkering away on it’s visuals for the past few days, so here is a little bit of the concept art to help illustrate the spell.



As you can see there will be a little bit of space to move around in, and you can even shoot through the glowy bits in a feeble effort to defend yourself until the spell wears off. Currently the spell is under construction but it may end up looking something like this when its done.



More work is required before this will be ready, but I think it will turn out rather nicely by the time its ready to go in game. Unlike the Earth spell this one can be used by any class since it is one of the selectable defensive spells. On that note I have actually been scheming up some new visuals for some of the other defensive spells as well, but alas there are models that need uvs and texture that need generating~ Perhaps I will get to show you those next time!

-Justin

[Brent]

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Jan. 6, 2015 – Grimoire: Manastorm —a PC multiplayer shooter featuring fast-paced, MOBA-style tactical combat and spectacular magic attacks—is entering Open Alpha. Sign-up’s for alpha access are available through a simple forum registration process and Alpha Opt-In.

Developed with the Unreal SDK by 4-man Indie outfit OmniConnection, Grimoire borrows from DotA 2 and League of Legends to deliver a unique spin on classic multiplayer shooter action. Introducing everything from devastating "ultimate" attacks to atypical shooter abilities like teleportation and invulnerability. Grimoire’s spells include everything from gravity-affected boulders to fireballs that increase in size the longer you charge them- even calling down massive meteor showers.

After an overwhelmingly positive Greenlight reception and the nod from Valve, Grimoire is now playable through Steam! Reinvigorated by this success the team has been working hard to add polish and features to every area of the game in preparation for an early 2015 launch, but they need help! The servers must be filled, bugs must be crushed, and Omniconnection wants feedback on everything from balance to design. There is no better way to get in on the action than by joining the month long Alpha extending from January 6th to February 1st.

Testers can expect weekly updates, regularly scheduled playtimes with the devs, responses to feedback- and all of the community interactions that make Indie development truly great. If you were looking for a game to make your holiday magical; Grimoire might just be it.
 
Journalists seeking press-only events should email [email protected].

Key Features
Fight fire with fire: Exciting magical combat in first and third person
Choose your weapons: 10 powerful wizard classes that can be customized with a variety of spells to evade and disrupt opponents
Three primary game modes: PvP Conquest, Arena—and a unique co-op mode, Safeguard
Enter the shadowy world of Grimoire : Explore an incredible medieval world that stretches from the dizzying heights of magical towers to the cavernous depths of lost civilizations

Feature list pertains to planned content for the Grimoire; the current build contains 5 classes and one game mode, Conquest.
Conquest: Battle to control key sources of magical energy known as ley-lines. The longer the ley-lines are held, the more energy is gained—including a large influx of power if one team manages to take total control of an area. Destructible objects can reveal new territory or bring the environment crashing down on your enemies.
Safeguard (co-op): Join fellow wizards in all-out magical combat against legions of monstrous creatures. The city is your battleground, and its people are in peril. Victory is measured not just in survival, but in how much of the city you manage to save. A special in-match progression system, quest objectives, and procedural event-driven enemy attacks ensure that this mode will have enough depth to satiate even the most diehard co-op fans.
Arena: Small groups of wizards (3v3 - 5v5) face off in tight quarters where death is final. Two teams compete in sanctioned slaughter to claim ancient weapons of incredible power. The bold player who captures one of these artifacts must spend time attuning to its nature. Once attuned, the player’s magical prowess will increase dramatically and assure that house’s victory. Unfortunately, attunement is a complex process that affects wizards negatively. Will you seek the unholy power of the artifact or face your enemies with might alone?

Assets
Grimoire gameplay trailer
Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/335430

Screenshots and Concept Art
IMGUR: http://imgur.com/a/wVYuM

Social Media
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/grimoirethegame
Twitter https://twitter.com/Omniconnection
YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRUCp0JWorTMBPC188FtxSQ

About OmniConnection
OmniConnection is a three-person indie studio focused primarily on creating innovative multiplayer first-person shooters. Developed with the Unreal SDK, Grimoire is the company’s first game. Originally an IT provider founded by Channing Burell, OmniConnection became a game development studio with the arrival of Brent Caulfield, responsible for Grimoire’s level design, and Kyle Phillips—who worked on Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, and StarCraft and Diablo franchises. For more information about OmniConnection, please visit http://OmniConnection.net/

[Brent]

Class Passives, Team growth, and a new official partner!

Hey everyone!  Chan here from Omniconnection to bring you yet another weekly update on Grimoire: Manastorm.  It’s been an extremely exciting week for us.  With our alpha opening up we’re now beginning to see the heightened exposure we’ve anticipated and absolutely need to grow our community!  Here’s a bit of a look at what’s been going on behind the scenes.

For eye candy this week I have included an action screenshot from the map Conquest_Quarry, taken during our open alpha event.


Since the beginning of development with Grimoire, we’ve set out to make sure each class has it’s own unique feel and playstyle.  As of the last few weeks we’ve been working on the design and implementation of a very important element to each class- passive abilities.  Our main focus with passive abilities is to give each class more opportunities to affect your decision making in particular situations.
Lightning Passive(Magnetize) - Damaging an enemy player with a lightning ability applies truesight to the damaged player for 3 seconds.  While truesight is active, the player is visible through walls.  There is a secondary effect to denote the tagged player is behind a wall(no line of sight.)
Ice Passive(Chilling Grasp) - Damaging an enemy player with an ice ability will apply a single stack of frostbite.  Upon a player receiving 3 stacks, the frostbite effect will burst, dealing extra damage.

Earth Passive(Earthen Mantle) - Damage resistance is increased base on the current amount of mana steps you have available.  3 mana steps available - 40% resistance, 2 mana steps available - 25% resistance, 1 mana step available - 15% resistance.

Fire Passive(Path of Fire) - Manastepping leaves behind a trail of fire that will damage enemies.

Nature Passive(Rebirth) - When you normally would die, instead you will transform yourself into a critter.  As a critter you cannot attack, you have a small amount of HP and your movement speed is increased. If you are not killed within ten seconds you revert to mage form with 50% hp/mana. This passive has a 60 second cooldown that does not start until you are back in mage form.

In other news this week, Omniconnection has officially established a partnership with www.Vilayer.com to be our official server provider!  What this will mean is that we can be secure in saying that with our initial release we will have enough servers to cater to the amount of players at release, throughout multiple regions internationally!

To develop Grimoire to the point we can truly be happy with it, our team size will have to expand over time.  With that being said, we are very selective with the process of adding team members, but extremely excited to announce a new addition to the team that we know will help us take Grimoire to the next level!  Prepare to say goodbye to the current sounds of Grimoire.  Daniel “Shrack” Swearengin, a professional sound and audio engineer, will be doing a complete overhaul of our current sound design! 

"I'm really looking forward to working on Grimoire: Manastorm and using the sound design to make the game as immersive as possible and to make you feel like a badass while playing."
- Daniel Swearengin

You should expect to see improvements in our sound effects in upcoming patches over the coming months, so make sure to stay tuned!  We’d love to hear your feedback on the new passives systems or new announcements, so make sure to drop us a line on our forums with your thoughts!

-ChaN

[Brent]

Update #10: Server Browser, Upcoming Class Updates, A Helping Hugo

Hail Wizardfolk,

As you may have noticed we’re rapidly adding content and fixes to the build. This week we added some exciting new passive skills to the wizards. Ice is getting a new passive, Nature is getting a new passive, Fire is getting a new passive, and finally Earth is getting a new passive. Chan detailed these passives in our previous update and I won’t repeat them here… if you haven’t read update #9 yet- do it now! With this update every class is fully implemented… almost. Future spell improvements are coming to Lightning, Earth, Nature.

http://i.gyazo.com/fe205690a3c630b0f8bc051819c86592.mp4
The Nature passive in action.

Lightning Wizards are getting zoom added to Lightning Bolt. Zoom should help cement Lightning’s role as a sniper/long range class and make them even more terrifying at long range. Boulder (default right click) is getting a complete rework. The new spell will split the ground and create a fissure that damages everything in a line in front of the wizard. If you’re familiar with DotA’s Earth Shaker, you know what we’re going for . Nature is getting an improvement to their 2nd skill that makes missed attacks will create a “blossom” on the ground. Allies can pick up the blossom to gain a weakened version of the original “missed” heal. These blossoms have a short lifespan and will wither and die if they aren’t retrieved quickly.

This week we also added the first version of our server browser. The browser is in a rough, unfinished state- but it gets the job done: listing server name, ping, and player count for each server running Grimoire.

Finally, I want to give a big shout out and sincere thank you Hugo, who has been helping us animate our Wizards. Go check out Hugo’s labor of love, Wicked Witches at http://www.ectoplasmstudio.com/ and be sure to vote for it on Greenlight. Grimoire is getting a lot of awesome content because of Hugo, so please go give him a big Yes vote for us.

[Brent]

The new control based class, Nether, has arrived! Alpha testers can try it out starting with the Dev playtest this Sat at 3 PM EST (9 PM CET). We will be streaming the playtest. Open alpha ends next week and Steam Early Access begins Feb 2nd! More alpha keys added.

As Steam early access release approaches the team has been putting in long hours getting bugs fixed, content added, and balancing classes. The two most exciting changes coming this weekend are the addition of Grimoire’s sixth class, Nether, and the finishing touches on our first map made entirely with custom meshes and materials. If you are curious about an exact list of the latest changes please check out our patch notes.

Nether has been designed from the ground up as a control class whose job in battle is to hold enemies in place as well as grab and pull them from their battle line to yours. The first spell (Left click) fires a boomerang-like projectile that returns to the caster. It damage enemies when it flies away from the caster and again on its return trip. The projectile can be thrown again as soon as it returns and will travel through walls. The second spell (Right click) places an area of effect field on the ground that deals damage to mana and health over time and lasts for 3 seconds. The third spell (Q) pulls the target enemy to your location and does minor damage. The fourth spell (E) is an AoE Gravity Well that locks players in place for 3 seconds making them prime targets for combos from allies.
http://i.gyazo.com/de5f6abef8e9271996c784bb840994c1.mp4
Nether spell one in action!

In addition to the new class a ton of progress has been made on Grimoire’s first non-placeholder map, Slums.The first Grimoire conquest map was originally called Breach and was recently renamed to Slums to fit the art direction and ambiance of the level. The original design was roughly based on one of my favorite Day of Defeat maps, Kalt, but has come a long way since then. Slum’s visuals have completely transformed due to the amazing work done by our multi-talented artist, Justin (Asher). Through our combined efforts we can finally show everyone the quality we want in the final version of Grimoire. There is a long way to go but over the coming months you can expect the art found in other maps to move towards the bar set by Slums. There will be more info and screenshots coming as soon as Slums is complete- until then, I wanted to take some space here to show off the progress made and contrast it with where we started.

[Brent]

This week’s update is all about Grimoire’s sixth class: “Nether”. Justin has just finished the spell effects and we are now ready to show them off and get into some of the details of Nether. At it’s core Nether is all about control. Control over space, ley-lines, and paths. And of course control over players. Three of Nether’s four base activatable spells are designed around this control and when used together with other classes can easily turn a fight in favor of the Nether mage. If you want to check out this newest class we will have one more Dev playtest this Saturday the 31st at 3 PM EST (9 PM CET) before Early access release next week. A huge thanks to all of our awesome alpha testers for the feedback and support!


Chakram (Left click) sends out a chakram of Nether energy that returns to you. Can damage enemies twice and travels through solid objects.


Rift (Right click) summons a pool of Nether energy that deals damage to mana and health over time.


Void Tether (Q) launches tendrils of Nether energy that when it hits will pull your target to your location and deals damage.


Vortex (E) creates a powerful gravity well at the target location that sucks in nearby enemies and prevents them from moving or casting spells.

Nether’s addition will increase danger during that first sighting of an enemy mage. Void Tether’ extreme range and potential lethality will force players to be even more on guard for long range attacks.

The best part about Nether is it is our first class to have ‘final art’ for its spell effects. So if you’re jealous of Nether’s cool looking magic- don’t worry- our other five classes will be getting similar treatment in the very near future! Finally, here is a look into the concept art and designs behind Nether’s spells and effects:

[Brent]

Update #13: Early Access launch! (50% off first week)
New Early Access Trailer:


Steam Early Access: http://store.steampowered.com/app/335430
Hi All,
Grimoire: Manastorm has released on Steam Early Access! We spent most of the last week preparing for our early access launch so there is not much to report on the new content front. So instead of what’s new in the game- this update is going to focus on what is coming next. There are two major areas we will be focusing on over the next couple weeks, and they both revolve around one idea: getting more people playing Grimoire. First, we are going to be focused on improving performance. Second, we are going to be adding bots to the game. And last but not least we will be cooperating with various press partners to give out free copies of Grimoire: Manastorm.

Performance is our top goal because we are FPS players and we know how easy it is to get frustrated at a choppy gameplay experience. Up until this point we’ve been focused on getting new art into the game but we did so at the cost of performance. The next couple weeks will be spent paying off some of the performance debt we’ve accrued and getting Grimoire back to the smooth experience everyone wants.

Adding bots to Grimoire: Manastorm has always been a plan for us. As players buy the game and try to find games on Steam in these first few days of Early Access we know how hard it will be to get a game going, especially at non-peak times. To combat this we want to get bots in the game as quickly as possible. This will allow players to learn the mechanics against bots and while they are sitting in servers brushing up their Wizardry- other players will likely see them and join in. It’s the obvious answer to the population problem.

In addition to the above we will be adding official “Early Access play times” to the message in main menu. We believe these efforts will allow far more people to meet up and play Grimoire together and the best part is - we think we can make this stuff happen within the next couple weeks.

[Brent]

Update #14: Bots, Final UI concepts, FFA mode, and Weekly Dev playtests.
Greetings all,
I want to start off this week by letting you know how much fun it’s been playing with you all. Seeing new spell strategies, hearing feedback, and watching the letsplays that have come out has been great and very encouraging for the whole team. Thank you all so much for the overwhelmingly positive support and patience in these early days on Steam.

You may have noticed that the patch notes were a bit light this week and I’d like to give some inside info on why. Chan has been hard at working getting bots ready and has already made great progress. Bots are something that we are hoping will help with the games learning curve and player population issues. Bots are just one part of our overall efforts to try and strengthen these areas of the game and are what we see as the highest priority to fix. In addition to bots he also added Killstreak announcements voiced by @KyleJohnsonVA .

One of the other areas that is in most need of improvement is the games UI which is entirely placeholder. In addition to a change in our Steam branding images Justin (Asher) has also been working on the concepts and art for the new UI which Kyle (Rekuul) will then implement. Below is a preview of the new class select screen.

One of our other main concerns at the moment is the games active player population and how to gather community feedback. For months now we have hosted a weekly Dev playtest which we have now expanded to three different days and times throughout the week. We are hoping that this will give everyone a chance to play the game at least once a week and also gives us the ability to do our own playtesting, gather community input, and answer any questions you might have for us.

Wednesday: 9 PM EST (6 PM PST, 3 AM CET)
Friday: 1 PM EST (10 AM PST, 7 PM CET)
Saturday: 3 PM EST (12 PM PST, 9 PM CET)

Another way we are compensating for the small size of our community is by adding more features to the FFA (Deathmatch) game mode. FFA servers can be found by looking for “FFA” in the server name or by the servers max players (. The first step to completing FFA is by adding a victory condition. The first player to 30 frags or player with most frags after 15 minutes wins and the map will then change. This is also the first game mode that bots will be added to and will hopefully at least serve as a way for players to practice before facing more experienced players.


Thanks again to everyone for the amazing feedback and a special thanks to Howbadisbad for the detailed balance threads and discussion.
For more information about the game: http://store.steampowered.com/app/335430

[Brent]

Devblog #15: Transparency and general updates.

Hey everyone,
One thing that we have always highly valued as gamers is developer transparency. In the case of companies like Valve who have been consistently delivering amazing content for years it is much less important but for a small indie company like ourselves working on our first game we feel that it is extremely important to not just be very clear in what the current state of the game is but also in what we are currently working on. We recently posted a thread on our Steam forums which will be actively updated with what our main focus is on so that you know not just that we are actively developing the game but also exactly what you can see in updates.

Grimoire currently has a small but steadily growing community and for those of you interested in helping develop and shape a game this is the perfect opportunity to have your voice heard. If you have an idea for a spell, map, class -anything- please share your ideas through email or our Steam forums. For our part, we have plans for expanding the community and introducing a much larger audience to Grimoire: Manastorm. We have a large marketing push planned for the middle of next month to promote a major game update including a new UI, bots, new sound effects, and a new map. We are confident this update will make finding matches much easier during primetime and off-hours.

Until then you can see details of our current plans for dealing with the low population in last weeks Devblog but the quick version is: bots, three weekly dev playtests, and FFA mode. We’ll have more exciting updates over the next few weeks but for now we are right in the middle of adding core features that are not quite ready to be shown off. Thanks again to everyone for the feedback, bug reports, and your patience.

[Brent]

Devblog #16: Four pack now available and new UI preview!

Greeting my wizard-hat-donning brethren (and sistren). Today I, Team-Grimoire’s-still-somehow-not-yet-discharged-resident-artist-person, have escaped from the snow storm that has trapped the rest of the team. Before I fetch hot dogs and gram crackers to aid the team’s survival, I have decided to drop an update- before they have a chance to hide all the computers from me again.

As was let slip not that long ago I have been looking at the UI, and after a long staring contest (that I would have totally won by the way) I began work on a new one. The goal is to have it out with the next major update which is creeping ever closer. As always these are actively being worked on, so they may change between now and when you see them in game; but this should give you a solid idea (or at least a slightly better idea) of where its headed... hmm whats this? Looks like Grimoire now comes in a volume of four?!- letting you show off your hip pointy hats in class?! Wizard class that is: Now you can take all your friends to school and teach them all about Wizzard etiquette (or buy the pack and play with your friends, that could work too).

First up lets start with something familiar: Class selection screen.

What is that shadowy looking thi- oh wait its just Nethers place holder, whew- thought I accidentally hinted at the Shadow Mag... oops.

In game HUD should look a little different now as well. You even get a glimpse of what may be the new tab score screen.

And finally we could actually have victory and defeat screens in for matches.

(Editor’s note: To the victor go the victeats...)
Additionally we will be updating spell icons so I have started on those as well.

There are many other aspects to the UI overhaul though, post match screens, profile page, options (but I don’t want to bore you)- and oh yeah Bots are happening. They keep clogging up the hallways here making it hard to get my morning coffee- hopefully we can kick them out of the building and into your game soon so I don’t have to keep fighting them for parking spaces.

-Justin

[Brent]

Devblog #17: Bots you say…?  Plus new groundwork for progression!


All aboard!  The bot train is coming to Grimoire!

What’s up everyone!  Chan here from the Grimoire team.  I wanted to stop by to give everyone a glimpse of some of the systems i’ve been actively working on.  One mistake we absolutely feel we made was releasing Grimoire without bots to play against, so this has become one of my highest priorities.  Now I have given you something to shoot at while player pop is at it’s lows!  We anticipate that with the addition of bots, new progression systems, and heightened marketing we will gradually continue building the community to give everyone the wizard warfare experience they seek!  As of right now we have lightning and fire bots active in FFA mode, however you should expect to see some more AI classes make their way into future updates and game modes!  Make sure to drop us a line on the current state of the bots as we’re always interested in hearing your feedback!


Full fledged bot battle on FFA_Slums!

Progression
A very important aspect we’ve always wanted to expand upon is a fully persistent progression system.  I’ve begun laying the groundwork for player stats and the system is now fully functional.  Your player is given stats at the end of every match, so make sure to stick around to receive your experience points!

Currently saved player stats include:

• Kills
• Deaths
• Experience (you receive 5x your points in experience at the end of the match.  You are also granted 100 bonus experience if your team wins, and 50 bonus experience for completing a match.)
• Level (More to come on progression systems that coincide with this soon!)
• Matches played
• Matches won
• Matches lost
• MVP Score(Player with the highest point total at the end of a match)

Your current progression stats can be seen from the “Prestige” button on the main menu (Yes this is a placeholder menu!)  Are there more stats you’d like to see tracked?  Let us know!
-Chan

[Brent]

Devblog #18: New HUD, Spell Icons, and Menus

Our new HUD includes brand new spell icons for every spell, cooldown timers for all abilities, and a complete visual overhaul. In this update I want to cover a few of the HUD elements and why they are important. First off, here is a look at a few of the new icons and the cooldown timers already in our internal build. A couple more tweaks need to be made but these are very close to patch ready!



While fairly standard in MMOs, we knew this little feature would help players get a much better handle on spell timers and allow them to make better tactical decisions. Along the same lines we didn’t want players completely reliant on looking away from the center of the screen to judge cooldowns. In the heat of battle we understand how important it is to stay focused on the action and so we’ve also included new cooldown indicators just below the crosshair. You can see them in action here:



Whenever you cast a spell the corresponding cooldown indicator will darken. It will light up again when the spell is ready to be cast. Additionally, the new charge bar takes up much less screen real-estate and fits neatly inside your crosshair.

The best part of all of these new HUD changes is we’ve moved to a system where we can add HUD customization in the future, including the potential for draggable UI elements, different types of crosshairs, and the ability to toggle different displays on and off depending on preference. Those features won’t be a part of this first version, but they are changes that are much easier for us to make with the new UI tech if the community shows interest.

The other big thing coming up in the next patch is a completely new main menu and class selection menu. The main menu is already complete and the class selection menu is well underway. Check out the concept pictures from earlier updates if you want to see what it’s going to look like- because it looks exactly the same in game!

[Brent]

Devblog #19: Sound Design - Part I

Hello everyone! My name is Daniel and I am the resident sound designer for Grimoire: Manastorm. I am going to talk a bit about different games I have used for inspiration thus far. In the realm of sound design, the sound of magic (in my opinion!) is one of the more difficult types of sound to create. You have to create a sound for something that doesn’t actually exist in the real world, but it still needs to sound very organic and alive to “feel” right. When I joined the project I went and looked at a few different games that I thought might have some good magic sound design and sort of analyzed them. I listen to all the various sounds and try to come up with ideas for source material they used to create them. A lot of the core source material for magic are: whooshes, chimes, bells, musical instruments, etc with post processing effects. Other organic layers are intertwined depending on the type of spell being created (fire, wind, water, etc).

Here’s a few of the games I looked at:

Guild Wars 2 -



I looked at Guild Wars 2 because:

1. Guild Wars 2 in general has incredible sound and a very well mixed soundscape.
2. It’s a good example of magic SFX working very well in a multiplayer environment with a lot of players casting the same spells.

GW2 takes a very minimalistic, clean approach to the magic sound design. None of their SFX are overly dramatic and always hit the mark just right. In contrast to Grimoire, Guild Wars 2 has a much more light hearted feel to it in general. The sounds in Grimoire will end up being a bit darker.

Skyrim -



The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim is very similar in the fact that none of the spells are overly dramatic. The entire mix of Skyrim is on the quieter side of gaming. I mainly looked at Skyrim because Grimoire has a very similar style of first person combat.

Dragon’s Dogma - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCtARsbRjzM

I have never actually played Dragon’s Dogma, but it does have some fantastic sounding spells. It sounds VERY different than most games and is a really great magic reference in general. Dragon’s Dogma was created by Capcom which likely greatly influenced the sound design direction as well.

In the future I will be writing updates showing how I create specific magic sounds for Grimoire: Manastorm and will try to highlight each class. I also intend to dive a bit into the creation of a couple of level ambiences. The Grimoire team has a lot in store for the game in the coming months and hope everyone will keep up to date with us.

-Daniel

[Brent]

Devblog #20: State of the game and our next marketing push.

Hey everyone! This week’s Devblog is going to be a general update on the state of Grimoire and our next planned marketing push. As some of you may know we had originally planned a large marketing blitz around a key update at the end of this month. We are still planning on doing this same push (with some extra features) but we were recently approved by Valve for a “Free Weekend” starting on April 23rd and so have decided to delay the marketing until then. We will of course continue to add content, fix bugs, and balance the game until then to get the best possible build of the game out for the Free Weekend.

The past few weeks we have been focused on adding more content to the game and replacing placeholder art. I am happy to say that the UI and HUD are coming along great and should be ready fairly soon. We also have some really exciting changes coming in the form of brand new spell effects with Fire being the first class to get the upgrade.

The newest conquest map, currently titled “Forest”, is also coming along well and we have had some very valuable feedback and testing which has allowed me to refine the layout over the past week. You can expect to see this map added soon to the general map rotation and playtested extensively during our weekly Dev-hosted playtests as we finalize and balance the maps layout. I am very excited about the progress made so far and the new scenery is a refreshing change of pace from our “city” based environments.

A special thanks to our awesome community for their extremely positive support and extensive bug testing as well as patience while we get the game ready for a larger audience. As always we would love to hear from you so please feel free to post on our forums or shoot us an email!

[Brent]

Devblog #21: A new look for Fire spell effects!

Compellations to all of my conjuring friends! I have once more tricked the team into pursuing buried treasure at the bottom of the well down the street- before I (the still somehow “resident artist person”) let them back up from said well I wanted to bogart the update while they are preoccupied.



Now that the UI is coming together I have once more begun work on spell effects starting with the warm and lovable Fire class. Unlike some of the other classes Fire is inherently chaotic and thus will not conform to the dominant visual shape of the class as much as some others will. For this reason much of its design is an effort to strike a balance between its chaotic nature and his simpler spherical focus shape. I have also applied a bit of a liquid (molten) element to many of the visuals as this seems a good fit given his fluidity in traversal and his nearly tide like ebb and flow in combat. Lets take a look at the concepts:


As always these may be changed but this was my starting point for the fire magic. Although I don't often go very far with detail on these they are a great way to visualize the motion and flow of the spells.
For Fire 1 I currently have gone with something between 1A and 1B.



Fire 2 will have a different effect when fully charged now- making it easier to see which type of fireball is flying at your face. I used number 3 form the concept if you are curious.
(left to right: uncharged, and charged)

For fire3 I went with the 2nd concept- which lends itself to some interesting visuals in motion.




As you may have guessed the explosions are rather important aspects to these spells so I will leave you with a glimpse as what that might look like.



Whats that? Fire 4 you ask? Why absolutely I can show yo... huh? I think I hear the team shouting from the well- I best away before they catch on to my schemes! Until next time-

-Justin

[michelmohr]

Very cool stuff. I love the particle sketches. I'd love to see more of those.

[Brent]

Devblog #22: A quick progress report.

Greetings all! We have been working hard to get the remaining features, polish, and bug fixes ready for our next big milestone, a Steam Free weekend (and sale) starting on April 23rd! For those of you who have been attending our two weekly Dev-hosted playtests (Wed @ 9 PM EST and Sat @ 3 PM EST) you may have noticed that a few changes we mentioned a few weeks ago aren’t in yet so I wanted to shed some light on where we are at with everything. We are currently working out a few bugs with the minimap system which is the last piece of the new HUD and we expect that to be in very soon. You can see a quick preview of this and the newest map below.



In addition to the UI/HUD update we have a lot of exciting changes coming in sound effect upgrades, new spell effects, and the newest conquest map. As you saw in last week’s Devblog Justin has made great progress upgrading Fire’s spell effects and will soon be moving on to the next class. Daniel has had his hands full replacing our placeholder SFX. Kyle is focused on implementing the HUD and UI changes. And lastly I (Brent) have been focused on getting Forest to a good place so I can get back to polishing the older maps by adding in various visual upgrades like ground clutter, replacing placeholder models, layout/gameplay changes, bug fixes, and a dozen other things that have been neglected while I worked on “Forest”. More to come about all that later.

As you can see our current main focus is on polishing the games existing content and while we still have lots to do, we think that both old players and new will be happy with the changes coming! As always a huge thanks to our awesome community for your patience, bug reports, and of course for supporting us while we attempt to make the best multiplayer wizard shooter ever made!
-Brent

[Brent]

Devblog #23: Updates to Ice spell effects!

Why hello there my fellow holders of pointy hats! The team is currently away, being enthralled by a puppet show, leaving me with another chance to steal the update to myself! As you know I, the resident picture person, don't often let these chances pass me by!

Up next for a effect redesign after Fire is Ice. Ice is rather straight forward in nature and wants to keep close to his target. Because of this I wanted to have his spells linger slightly longer than most of the other classes. The area he is in should give off a strong sense of danger which should would mesh well with the with the lingering visuals. Lets see that concept sheet:



Like usual these effects may change if they need to, but this was my target for the new visual design. Although motion is important in a lot of these effects I found ice demanded much more attention to the nuance of its motion then the other classes have so far. In particular this was true of the new Ice 3 design, which is also now cast instantly on the ground rather than the previous effect which had you shooting a projectile to spawn the ice field.



The Ice 2 projectiles have also been altered to match, and the charged shard, where the projectiles are merged,should look more the part (left UN-charged, right charged)



Ice 4 will now spawn little bits of frost on the ground around you while its active.



And of course impacts have been updated as well, with your ice bolts causing shards of ice to freeze out from the point of contact.



These updates should be hitting the game soon, but there is some some more work to be done before that happens. Once ice is all wrapped up you can expect to see some updates to the spell for the Natures class.

I hear cheering in the other room, the puppet show must be ending, I had better scamper on back to the art cave!

-Justin