CrossCode: Hi-Lights + April To Do List Update + Events + Hotfix
Hello everyball!
Here we are again, back with fully written text!
Since April is now pretty much over, it's time for another update of our Final To Do list. We also have a few new things to show + a couple events in May we will attend!
It may not look like it, but overall April was fairly productive. That's because we completed several tasks that are not directly shown by the numbers including:
Anyway here's hope that content production will accelerate in the next few month, since most of these "preparation tasks" have been completed now.
Here are a few impressions of recently developed content:
Finally you can enter the city of Rhombus Square!
A few impressions of the still empty shopping district.
There will actually be traffic on those streets! And yes there will be more car variations.
Meanwhile in Sapphire Ridge: New combat challenges emerge!
And even though we didn't manage to finish any quest this month, we're still working on it and more quests for Gaia's Garden will follow soon!
As for a release date: Sorry, but we're still not ready. Our goal is to first roughly finish all major gameplay and story content before we fix a release date, so we can be certain that we don't have to delay again and can focus on testing and polishing the content. However, we're getting very close to that point and still aim for a release in Summer 2018!
Upcoming events
Since the release of CrossCode 1.0 is drawing near, we decided it would be worthwhile to present the game once again on certain events. And we ended up deciding to visit the same two events in May that we already visited last year:
We’ll be attending BitSummit in May 12-13 in Kyoto, Japan!
And just on the next weekend...
We’ll also attend Dokomi in May 19-20 in Düsseldorf, Germany!
If you happen to be around, feel free to drop by and say hello! We may have a bit of CrossCode merch with us in fact!
A little hotfix
And just as a side note: With this update we also release another small Hotfix (Version 0.9.8-7), which doesn't add any new content, but actually just fixes one issue that we didn't want to keep in the game until 1.0 which is that the Goat Father has been kicking instakill nukes.
And that's all! Until the next update!
Note: Translations of this post to Japanese/Chinese/Korean will follow soon
Hi-Lights + February To Do List Update + CrossWeek
Hello everyball!
We're slightly late but here it is, the first update of the Final To Do List!
We made good progress all things considered! We finished several boss fights, added two new quests, and also completed the whole plot for Gaia's Garden, including its 3 dungeons - almost at least.
Overall we're pretty close to the schedule, only falling behind slightly as we planned to get to this point until end of February. Let's hope that we'll be able to catch up in March.
Here a few images of recently completed content:
Reaching the end of Zir'vitar Temple.
A most generic bit of dialog from the end of So'najiz Temple scene.
The "space scene" of So'najiz Temple.
One of the new quests for Basin Keep. If that scene might seem confusing to you, that's partly because some graphics are still placeholders. Partly. It will still be about parrots taking hostages.
Much more stuff has been completed, but we really don't want to show most of it since it would really spoil the surprise!
Suddenly: CrossWeek
We just had another CrossWeek where part of the team meets up in Hannover and works on CrossCode for a whole week full-time. We've just been 4 people this time, but still got a lot of work done! Next to a lot of story development we also started creating graphics for the remaining boss enemies!
In fact, we've been so much focused on work that we didn't find a lot of time taking nice pictures but still here are a few:
Working intensely in a very crowded room!
Our task board... with almost everything censored.
Cooking! And again, nothing burned! Our cooking skills actually might have improved over time!
Anyway, that's all for now! The next update of the To Do List will happen end of March (or beginning of April)!
As you can see, the clear majority voted to focus on a 1.0 release! And that is what we will do now! In order to accelerate development we will skip version 0.9.9 and head straight for 1.0!
That also means there won't be any version update for a fairly long time. However, we will make sure to update the Final To Do List on a regular basis (at least every month) to keep you updated on how things are moving forward!
Thanks a lot for the participation in the polls and for being such a patient and awesome community in general!
CrossCode: Getting closer to 1.0
Hello everyball!
Now that we safely entered the year 2018, a lot of you will probably ask the same question: 1.0 Release when? Today we want to talk about recent development and how close we really are to finally leaving Early Access.
Recent development and 1.0 Release Date
After the (sort of expected) drought over the holidays, things have been kicking up again in January and we made a lot of progress, especially with story development!
We still don't want to show anything of that because... well... spoilers.
Instead, here is a more abstract list of things we did over the last few month (also in parallel to the recent releases):
We're getting close... but we're not quite there yet. Things again took longer than expected (yes, we know, it's getting old). It's now early 2018 but we still can't properly fix a release date.
With the way things are going right now, we hope to finish CrossCode sometime around mid 2018.
Still, we ARE really close! So close in fact that we can exactly count the amount of content that is still missing. And since we can't show a lot of screenshots and gifs of recent development due to spoilers we had a little idea:
We'll share with you our Final To-Do List!
This to-do list is made in way to keep things very abstract so it shouldn't spoil a lot of content. Still, it will give you a rough impression of how much content is left and if you want to have the full surprise, you may want to avoid looking at it. So tl;dr: Minor Spoiler Warning!
We plan to update this to-do list over the next few month. That way, you get an impression of how much progress we make over time and how close we really are to a 1.0 release!
With this list we can hopefully show you that things are moving forward and towards a conclusion. We are, once again, very sorry that things are taking longer than expected.
About releasing version 0.9.9
In our previous schedule we planned to release version 0.9.9 before end of 2017, which would include All level 3 combat arts and Rhombus Square. We managed to release all level 3 combat arts with version 0.9.8 still in time, but Rhombus Square isn't quite ready yet. That's why we planned to release version 0.9.9 sometime soon, featuring Rhombus Square and additional Quests, but still no more story.
However, now that we focus on developing the remaining story content there is one thing we realize: releasing another version before 1.0 will be difficult. That is mostly because we really want to avoid leaking story content that will be hidden in all kind of assets of the game (we know that some players will read this). That means we have to take extra care to remove that content prior to the release. All of this costs extra time, of course.
That's why we're considering skipping the release of version 0.9.9 in order to reach version 1.0 faster. However, the flipside is: there won't be any new update for a rather long time that way. Of course, we'll try our best to keep you updated on how development is progressing (that's why we released the to-do list). Still, we understand that some of you might prefer to have the 0.9.9 release to bridge the rather long wait.
That's why we decided to make a simple poll about this:
If the majority still wants to have version 0.9.9, we will release it (probably around March-April). Otherwise, we'll focus on finishing version 1.0.
We'll decide on this by the end of this week!
Aaaand... that's all! Sorry for the lack of actual image material this time! We promise there is a lot of stuff happening, we just don't want to ruin the surprise!
Until then! And once again, sorry for the delay.
CrossCode 0.9.8 - More languages and all the Arts!
On our long journey towards version 1.0 we've now reached another small milestone: Today we release version 0.9.8! This update will add all level 3 combat arts, a Japanese and Korean translation, a couple of quests and several small quality-of-life improvements! Let's go!
New Localizations
After several month of collaboration with our new partners we're happy to announce that CrossCode now supports two more languages!
You can select the new languages within the options. Remember to restart the game!
All the Combat Arts
It's finally done! This version comes with all level 3 combat arts fully implemented!
In order to learn those arts you'll have to collect the Star Shade at the end of the Jungle dungeon. Once learned you'll need to spend 6 SP in order to use them.
The good news is: We'll upgrade your MAX SP to 12 (which means 3 SP on battle start) once you collect the Star Shade! So gathering the necessary SP should be somewhat quicker.
Small Usability Improvements
We made several small improvements for menus and interface.
Quest marking has changed. You can now mark multiple quests inside the menu and you can only switch between marked quest on the field.
We properly integrated a Circuit Reset option! You can visit a terminal in Rookie Harbor that allows you to reset individual Circuit trees. However, resetting isn't as cheap anymore: you'll need to use a Circuit Override item that you will get on several occasions during the plot. We might also add a trading option later on.
To reskill yourself even faster you also now have the option to learn several skills in one go!
There are also several small QoL improvements like grayed trading items in the preview if you can't trade them yet, and number of collected chests visible on the world map.
A few more quests
This version comes with a few more quests as well! Two of them are found in Rookie Harbor and another one in Gaia's Garden!
There's even a little boss fight included!
More Stuff in the Background
Just like the last release, this one is again rather small. We're still working on more content in the background that will be released with version 1.0!
So once again... Sorry for the small update but we hope that the wait will be worth it once version 1.0 will be out!
Anyway that's all!
We hope you have fun with version 0.9.8 and let's hope there's a limit to the amount of bugs!
Hi-Lights + Next Release Date
Hello everyball! Suddenly it's December so some of you might wonder: what about that Version 0.9.9 Release? Well we got some news for you and also some GIFs and Images of Recent Progress!
Release of the next version
In the original schedule we planned for a release of Version 0.9.9 in December including all Level 3 combat arts as well as Rhombus Square. While we already made some progress with Rhombus Square, it's likely not going to be ready before Christmas. However, we did manage to complete all the combat arts! That's why we decided to split the release in two versions: 0.9.8 and 0.9.9. Rhombus Square will be release with version 0.9.9 in the Beginning of next year (January - February).
Version 0.9.8 will be released on December 14 and will include:
Oh... and also: A complete Japanese and Korean localization!
As with the last release, note that this release is smaller since we're still working on more stuff in the background for version 1.0.
Recent Progress
You can now chain activate multiple nodes in the circuit tree! Simply activate the option in the options menu, select a node and watch as all the skills get activated.
We reworked the quest-favorite system. Instead of marking just one quest as favorite, you can now set as many as you want and only toggle through them on the field! No more lingering unfinished quests you need to go through!
Trades you can't make because you lack the resource or money are now grayed out.
We changed the order of modifiers. From now on they will be grouped more logically so you don't find a damage modifier next to a status condition one and so on.
A small change but probably a welcome one too: When hovering above and area on the world map, it will now show how many chests you can still find in that area.
And now, as for level 3 combat arts, there're a lot of them sO GET READY FOR GIFS!
LOTS OF GIFS
LARGE GIFS.
MOBILE USERS, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Let's start with something familiar!
Possible with level 3 arts: your personal meteor storm.
Also: very fierce counter attacks featuring LASERS!
Sky-high streams of fire!
Massive spin attacks!
TANKS!
Gigantic Icicles!
Enormous Lightning Strikes!
Time halting combos!
Lighting-fast tackles!
Even faster melee combos!
Highly-explosive projectiles!
Duplicating dash combos!
Risky HP-absorbing counter blocks!
HP-absorbing... stream-shooting... attacks!
And that's all! See you again in December 14 for the next release!
CrossCode now with Steam Cloud Support!
Good news everyone: We finally implemented support for Steam Cloud!
That means that your CrossCode saves can now be backed up in the Cloud and shared for all CrossCode installations. It even should work cross platform. Hopefully.
If you don't want your saves to be synchronized, you can disable Steam Cloud for CrossCode. (Right click the game, select "Properties", then the "UPDATES" tab and uncheck "Enable Steam Cloud synchronization for CrossCode").
Important: Note that we don't support a proper merging of save states. That means if you have two different sets of saves on two machines and want to use Steam Cloud, you will have to replace one set of saves with the others. Steam should give you a warning in that case and an option to select which saves you want to keep.
If there are any issues with save synchronization, please let us now!
And that's all!
CrossCode 0.9.7 - The Last Area!
It's due time for another update! Today we finally release CrossCode Version 0.9.7 with a bunch of new content and features!
New Area: Sapphire Ridge
With Sapphire Ridge we now added the final outdoor area of CrossCode!
It's a medium sized area, comparable to Autumn's Fall, but stuffed with lots of caves and crazy environment puzzles!
You will also find a total of 4 new enemies, ready to be fought! Including new bugs. Be warned, Emilie.
Sapphire Ridge also includes the Cave Inn - it's not a full fledged town or village, but still a fairly large building.
Inside you'll find a lot of new offers for equipment and more!
Of course, Sapphire Ridge still isn't entirely finished. We still plan to tweak things and add more quests and NPCs to the area in future versions. But otherwise it's ready for exploration!
Trophies
With this version we finally release Trophies, which are essentially achievements! You find a list of all the trophies within the Synopsis menu.
You get Trophies for reaching certain points in the game, defeating certain enemies, mastering certain feats and more! Currently there are a total of 171 trophies that can be collected... at least partly!
Note: Trophies are currently not connected to Steam Achievements, but we plan to do so in the future (at least for some trophies). Once it's done, your trophies will automatically synchronize with Steam achievements. So getting the Trophies now means you'll get the Steam Achievement in the future!
Second Note: Some of the Trophies might still be buggy and might not correctly synchronize with old saves. Sometimes, doing certain things in the game might trigger an evaluation so you'll get the trophies at that point. Otherwise, you can report those issues and we'll see how we can fix it.
More Quests
As always, there are more quests! This time we have 3 new quests for you that you can find in Rookie Harbor and Ba'kii Kum. Each of them features unique gameplay mechanics or even boss fights! So make sure to check them out!
Here some impressions:
A very unique quest featuring a floating "ball" in Autumn's Fall!
Fighting Turrets. Again. This time on the ocean.
A boss fight featuring the most popular type of enemies: Sharksters.
Upgraded Portraits
With this version we finally got around upgrading a lot of the portraits from older versions, including Captain Jet, that Blue Avatar, and Satoshi:
Additionally, we improved all the dark shaded portraits of generic NPCs, adding more details and variations to more closely match the NPC:
We still plan to add more variations in the future.
More Stuff
This update features a couple more smaller changes:
More Stuff... but HIDDEN!
Just in case you wonder why this update is relatively small: we've been working on a lot more content in the background. Content that's relevant to the final plot. Since we don't want to release any more story until version 1.0, the current update turned out rather small. The same will be true for the next update to version 0.9.9. However, in turn you can expect a huge update once we release the complete story. That way, you can enjoy the rest of the story in one go!
In other words: Sorry for the small update, but hopefully it will all pay off once we release version 1.0!
And that's all for this update! We hope you have fun with CrossCode version 0.9.7!
And now let the bug hunt commence!
You know... the one in Sapphire Ridge... and the one in the code. x_x
Hi-Lights + Version 0.9.7 release date
Hello everyball! It's October and that means we're now safely within Autumn. So what about that 0.9.7 release? It's almost ready! Today we announce the release date for the next update and also show recent progress including the output of our recent CrossWeek!
Release Date for version 0.9.7
Let's get right to the point: we plan to release the update next week on October 13, 2017.
On a Friday. Such a nice date, right?
Anyway, here is what you can expect from CrossCode 0.9.7.
As you can probably see, version 0.9.7 doesn't include a lot of new content. That's not because we've been lazy (mostly) but because we've been working on a lot of story content that we still want to keep secret until the 1.0 release. Essentially we're going for a very big 1.0 release that will come with a ton of new content at once so that you play the rest of the story up to its conclusion in one go.
CrossWeek + Recent Progress
Since the last post we made a lot of progress with Sapphire Ridge, which is why we can now share a lot of new screenshots:
Sapphire Ridge also comes with several new caves:
And also plenty new enemies such as...
...new mysterious bugs...
...mechanical pandas....
...and too many spiders.
In addition we've been working on new quests such as:
...fighting strange sharkster boss enemies and...
...fighting floating turrets in the middle of the ocean (this one is still very much WIP).
And finally, as mentioned before, we found the time to polish a lot of old portraits including all those overly simplified NPC portrait
Guards now wear proper helmets!
Random NPCs have... EYES!
Shads are more shiny than ever!
Captain Jet is more fancy looking as well!
Also, a lot of the new stuff you see here has been created during our most recent CrossWeek!
CrossWeek is where part of the team meets up in Hannover, Germany to work on CrossCode full-time for a whole week. That usually means we get a lot of stuff done and that was definitely the case this time!
And if you're curious how CrossWeek looks like here a few photos:
Doing gamedev and cooking at the same time!
Breaking ovens! At least we didn't burn anything this time.
Finishing most of the tasks!
That's all for today! We hope you look forward to the next 0.9.7 update. Until then!
We changed the order of modifiers. From now on they will be grouped more logically so you don't find a damage modifier next to a status condition one and so on.
A small change but probably a welcome one too: When hovering above and area on the world map, it will now show how many chests you can still find in that area.
