CrossCode 0.9 Final Jungle Temple + C'Tron + Quests
It's done! Just in time. Today we release CrossCode Version 0.9 as promised in February! This updates comes with another new dungeon, a very big circuit update, a new party member, lots of quests and many, many more features, improvements, and additions!
Grand Krys'kajo - The final temple of the Jungle
With the Grand Krys'kajo we release the final temple of Gaia's Garden. Being the follow up dungeon after the So'najiz and Zir'vitar Temple it will combine puzzle mechanics from both dungeons and finish things off with an epic boss fight! Boss fight... are you thinking contest? That's right! Read more about it further below.
Level 2 Combat Arts
The circuit made a pretty big leap with this update: all passive skill, as well as level 1 and level 2 Combat Arts have been fully implemented. That means the circuit is pretty much complete with the exception of level 3 combat arts. Since so many things changed, you'll get the option to reset your skill tree when you load your old save.
Also: we added a new Practice Arena in the Info Building of Rookie Harbor! You can practice all the Combat Arts to your heart's content without being limited by SP costs.
C'Tron - Now ready to join your Party
C'Tron is now finally ready to join party! When you reach the current end of the story, C'Tron will send you a message, allowing you to invite him to your party via the Social Menu. This will also work with old save states. Note: C'Tron is currently only there for you to enjoy the gameplay with a 3rd party member - scenes and plenty of chit-chat will be added later.
But that's not all! Party Members are now much more capable in general, as they will start using elements and combat arts during battle - and are less likely to fall into water... a bit. You also now have more options for your party's behavior via the new and shiny strategy menu!
Lots of new Quests
This update has Quests. Many Quests. 8 of them. You'll find them in Bergen Village, Maroon Valley, Ba'kii Kum, and Basin Keep. They come with many new boss fights, mini games, and other cool challenges! So make sure to keep an eye out for those flashing exclamation marks!
New Help Menu
Remember when you used to look at a trading offer, trying to figure out what a certain modifier does? Help Menu to the rescue! With a simple button press you now can see on screen explanations for all kind of menu content, including stats, modifiers, and many other things. The new help menu is available in most menu views, including Trading, Shopping, Equipment, Inventory, and many more.
Other Stuff
This update packs a lot of smaller cool features that are also worth mentioning
Contest: Beat the Boss of the Grand Krys'kajo!
This is possibly our final boss contest before the full release!
Show us how you beat the boss of the Grand Krys'kajo!
Just create a public video (Youtube, Twitch, doesn’t matter) and send us a link to contest@radicalfishgames.com.
You can add your live reaction or leave it out, whatever you prefer!
Among all people who send us a video, we’ll draw the following prize:
You get your personal NPC guest role somewhere in CrossWorlds - you decide the location! You can be an Avatar, a regular citizen or maybe something else? We’ll work together to figure out the details!
Deadline: Sunday, March 5, 23:59 PDT
Phews! That's all.
Have fun with the new release and make sure to beat up that new boss for good!
And now comes the time of Bug hunting.
Hotfix 0.9.0-3 released
We released Hotfix 0.9.0-3 that should fix a number of issues, including crashes when talking to NPCs, crashes during Jet's Tutorial and more.
CrossCode Version 0.9 to be released TOMORROW!
Quick news! We now target to release CrossCode Version 0.9 tomorrow, February 27.
The release will likely be late in the evening (Central European Time) and may swap over to February 28 in the worst case, but things are looking good so far.
The release will come with a new dungeon and boss fight so get ready for another contest!
PS: We'll have our Gamedev Stream again tonight (8pm CET / 11am PDT - in less than two hours): http://twitch.tv/radicalfishgames
5th CrossWeek Completed!
The 5th CrossWeek just happened and after 6 days of intensive full-time CrossCode development we're now back with a lot of new stuff to show!
More enemies
We did a lot of planning for upcoming enemies and created plenty of concept art:
Additionally, sprite sheets for several new enemies have been completed and are just waiting to be implemented!
More Quests
Quests have been pretty big this CrossWeek! A total of 4 new quests have been implemented for Bergen and Ba'kii Kum, featuring several new enemies and other challenges!
Here some impressions of things you might fight:
Guards.
https://gfycat.com/FancySatisfiedBird
Penguins.
New Lea Combat Poses
We recently pushed Combat Arts pretty hard and essentially implemented all level 1 and level 2 Combat Arts available.
This CrossWeek, we took a bit of time to polish those attacks with a few additional poses for Lea:
NPC Portraits
The current grayish NPC portraits don't quite match the quality of the colored counterpart. We can't really afford to give each and every NPC a full-colored portrait, but we at least decided to polish the grayish NPC portraits to be a better match quality wise:
More Sounds
A lot of sounds have been added to things that have been surprisingly quite up to this point. Now you have groaning Behesloths and meowing Shokats that will make you feel real bad for beating them up.
Also, you now find a lot of random melodies in Basin Keep:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0678Tv0O0rc
The Final Boss of the Jungle
Yepp, we've been working on the boss, and nope we won't show anything of it. Let's just say it will be... something else. Seriously, we might have overdone it a bit this time, which is also why this fight is still not done yet!
Behind the scenes
Who cares for the actual game content, right?
We know exactly what you want to see:
A bunch of dudes doing gamedev and trying to cook.
Fair task distribution
Hard at work! In the kitchen.
GFluegel creating the next quest you'll all love.
A random Intero dropping by!
Preparing Bacon...
...for our Veggie burgers.
Also for our rice balls / Onigiri. Yes.
The team enjoying some burgers, probably with less bacon but still very tasty!
And that's all for CrossWeek! It was fun, it was productive and we'll probably do it again, sometime later this year!
Now on to wrap things up for the 0.9 release which is still scheduled for later this month.
Until then!
Hi-Lights + Contest Winner + CrossWeek
Welcome to the year 2017, everyball! Yeah it's about time we do another update post. We'll show some recent progress, got the results of the recent Boss Contest for you and other great news as well!
Recent Progress
The next version 0.9.0 is scheduled for Release in February. Not only will this version include the last dungeon of the Jungle with another epic boss fight, it will also finally include the complete circuit tree for all elements with all skills fully implemented, with the exception of Level 3 combat arts.
And yes, that means you'll get all level 1 and level 2 combat arts available!
That's a lot of combat options at your disposal!
GET READY FOR LOTS OF GIFS
Some of the remaining level 1 combat arts that have still been missing.
Entering Neutral Level 2! This is "Final Showdown" the successor of "First Cut".
More Level 2 Neutral Combat Art Madness!
Entering Cold Level 2! Now Lea can downright freeze enemies.
Alternatively, just freeze'em while pushing them upwards!
Entering Heat Level 2! Some of those attacks might remind you of something~
Entering Shock Level 2! As requested by many, we added the almost mandatory "chain lightning" attack.
Shock also features some other attacks that are just incredibly fast.
In fact, some of these attacks have been so fast hitting, that the mass of damage numbers became sort of a problem. That's why we decided to add damage summaries and limited the number of damage numbers that can appear simultaneously for each enemies.
We also worked on party members!
Emilie now can use Combat Arts, too!
And finally: say hello to your new Hexacast companion C'Tron!
Apart from combat stuff, we also worked on several new Quests in Basin Keep and Ba'kii Kum - some of which might surprise you with entirely new tasks!
So'najiz Boss Contest Results
With the release of Version 0.8 we once again held a contest for everyone to beat the new boss within a week and record it in a public video.
And we got a whole of 36 submissions!
In a recent gamedev stream we have computed the random number to pick the winner before an audience.
And the winner is:
valldn034
Congratulations!
You won a guest role in Basin Keep or V'rda Vil, the Shad Settlement of the Jungle! We'll make sure to contact you about the details... soonish!
The next CrossWeek!
With the next release coming close, we decided to have another CrossWeek! It's that time when many of our team members meet in Hannover for a good week of full-time CrossCode development! We usually get a lot of stuff done during those meetups. We also tend to burn stuff. Let's hope that won't happen this time around.
The CrossWeek will start February 1st and last until February 9th! Expect a lot of small updates and images on our Twitter and of course, a big summary at the end!
And that's all for today's post. Until next time!
Happy Holidays! Small CrossCode Update
Happy Holidays, everyball!
This is the second time, we reached the end of the year since CrossCode entered Early Access.
And again, we have a small CrossCode Update for you!
Guess who's back?
This guy!
He's there to offer the same quest from last year in case you didn't solve that one yet. ALSO: he might have an additional present for you!
Make sure to meet him in Bergen Village!
We wish everyone a pleasant time over the holidays and all the best for next year!
With the holidays almost at our doors, it's time to get comfy and play some CrossCode. And what's better to go along with this than a new update? Even though this is not a "new number"-Release this update packs a lot of content so let's check them all out, shall we?
Final part of Gaia's Garden unlocked
South-East of Gaia's Garden lies a small Shad settlement which is now accessible for exploring. However, you might find yourself to be an unwanted guest. What could have happened here? Note: This region will get more Story through optional quest in later updates.
So'Najiz Temple aka The Wave Temple
West of the Rite of Passage inside Gaia's Garden you can now enter the So'Najiz Temple which will not only give you access to the Shock Element but also the final key to open all those golden chests! Oh did we mention this is an underwater temple? Really the best place for an avatar to be, don't you think so too?
Shock Element
The final element is finally here. While Wave was an element designed to help you with healing buffs or pushing away foes, this one is all about quick attacks and fast movements.
Basin Keep Extension
Both the west and east maps of Basin Keep are now accessible. While the west area is home to many high-society residents, the east one is a problematic region for the city in many ways. Both of these maps are already quite far ahead and we wanted people to see them but they will get more NPCs and quests too. You might already find some chests you can't access right now. Look out for a special quest in the eastern part in later updates!
Other Stuff
Like always we made a lot of smaller adjustments or additions. Here's a quick list of most new things:
Contest: Beat the Boss of So'Najiz Temple!
And another contest for you!
Show us how you beat the boss of So'Najiz Temple!
Just create a public video (Youtube, Twitch, doesn’t matter) and send us a link to contest@radicalfishgames.com.
You can add your live reaction or leave it out, whatever you prefer!
And just so you know who the boss is... it's in this room:
Among all people who send us the video, we’ll draw the following prize:
You get your personal NPC guest role in Basin Keep or the Shad Village in Gaia's Garden! You can be an Avatar, a regular citizen or maybe something else? We’ll work together to figure out the details!
Deadline: Sunday, December 18, 23:59 PDT
Aaand... that's all!
Have fun with the new release!
Time to switch to Bug Fighting Mode then. Tell us if you find any!
Release Schedule and more!
Hello everyball!
So November is about to end and some of you are probably waiting for news about the next update. Well, here they are! And not only that, we also plan to talk about planned future updates and finally answer the big question: When will there be more Story?
Release Schedule
The following is an estimate of the future release schedule. Note that there is of course no guarantee that we release all that on time - game development is hard after all. But we'll try our best to stay close to it. So here goes!
CrossCode 0.8.5 Release Date: December 13, 2016
The next update will further extend the jungle!
Includes:
CrossCode 0.9.0 Release Date: February 2017
This update will finally complete the jungle and also include a lot gameplay additions and improvements - like way more skills and combat arts!
Includes:
CrossCode 0.9.5 Release Date: April-May 2017
This update will finally extend the story and also add a smaller area (comparable to Autumn's Fall).
If we'll manage to get it done, you'll also be able to enter Rhombus Square for the first time!
Includes:
CrossCode 1.0 Release Date: June-September 2017
This will be the big release of the full version! It will include an (hopefully) satisfying conclusion to the story.
Includes:
Post Release Content
But wait! That's not all. We made a lot of promises back during the Indiegogo campaign and since it will be hard to deliver all of this with 1.0 we plan to update the game beyond the "full release" for additional end-game content and more!
This includes:
So looking at this release schedule I'm sure some of you have questions!
I want more story already! Why do you release more story so late? Because cliffhangers! The story of CrossCode may seem fairly relaxed so far, but things won't stay that way. When we continue the story further, there will be plot twists and other surprises. And then you'll have to wait. So instead of letting you wait half a year, we thought we'd try to reduce it to a few month by just releasing the story close to the final version. We just hope to deliver the best experience of the story that way! Also: The additional time really helps us to polish things up to the end to have the best final result without changing too much during development.
Didn't you plan to finish the Jungle back in October? Now it's even further postponed to 2017. Yes, things again took a bit longer than expected, partly due to illness of team members. But there is another reason as well: the jungle will be the last big area and following that we will mostly focus on implementing missing features such as skills and maybe more quests. And of course, lots of content for the story we can't release because spoilers. That's why we thought it would be good to kind of spread the content of the jungle over the next few releases instead of releasing everything at once.
Also: More Boss Contests!
Is the Jungle Dungeon the last dungeon? Will the game just end after this? Yes and no. The dungeons of the Jungle Area are the last "proper" dungeons. However, the game will not simply end after that, more stuff will happen. There will be more puzzles (though not of the density of a proper dungeon), more boss fights and in general a lot of exciting stuff! But we won't spoil things!
So wait... Wasn't the release planned for Q2 or even Q1 2017? And now it's September - postponed again? Well, sorta. If things go perfectly, we might be able to hit June for the final release, which is end of Q2, strictly speaking. We might miss that deadline though, mostly because the Jungle area took quite a bit longer than estimated. In the end, we'll try to stay close to our release schedule, but when it comes down to it, what is most important to us is a good end result. If it turns out that we need bit more time to really properly conclude the story, we'll take that time.
Will there be More Quests?
There will always be More Quests.
Anything else we didn't cover with this set of entirely fictional questions? Please ask ahead!
Recent Progress
Okay, so here is what we've been up to recently!
Visit the new area of the jungle...
... enter the Wave Dungeon...
... defeat all the threats...
... to finally collect the last element!
Also in development and hopefully ready next year: the final dungeon of the Jungle!
Steam Awards
Oh boy, it's the Steam Awards, would you look at this! Maybe CrossCode can have one of those? That “I Thought This Game Was Cool Before It Won An Award” Award looks so shiny!
We will try to implement some of the Shock Combat Arts, answer your questions and probably do a drawing again!
You can watch it here: twitch.tv/radicalfishgames Time: 20:00 CET / 11 am PST
And that's all, until next time!
CrossCode 0.8.3 - Happy Halloween!
The title says it all: Happy Halloween! And what's best to go along with it? A new CrossCode update of course. And this time it's a rather spooky one! Let's get into the new additions right away.
Botanics Menu
Another community requested feature is now available making it possible for you to track what plants drop what item and where you can find them. However it's not that simple. A new NPC emerged in Autumn's Rise which requires your help to analyze the Flora of CrossWorlds. Hit plants and collect drops. Each drop increases your progress for each plant. Can you find them all?
Infested Jungle
The infested jungle region of Gaia's Garden is now unlocked and can be accessed in the north-eastern part of the area. Make sure to be ready as the region is full of narrow passages and dangerous foes.
Gaia's Garden and Basin Keep now also have their own music!
A Scary Surprise
In Basin Keep a strange business man seems to be in dire need of your help. Make sure to pay him a visit!
Other than that we fixed a lot of smaller issues and balanced skills and items. You can get the full picture by checking out the changelog in-game.
Now go download the new update and get ready to be scared!
Until next time!
Hi-Lights + Contest Winner
It has been some time, so let's talk about recent progress!
But first: time to conclude the Zir'Vitar Boss Contest!
In last week's gamedev stream we have computed the random number to pick the winner before an audience.
And the winner is:
Cy
Congratulations!
You won a guest role in Basin Keep to be implemented... sometime soon!
Recent Hi-Lights
Alright, now about recent changes! We're currently working hard on completing the Jungle! This includes the water-themed So'najiz Temple to the West where you will get the Shock element as well as the Grand Krys’kajo - the final dungeon of the Jungle. Additionally, we create the maps for the missing areas of the Jungle and Basin Keep!
We hope to release the completed Jungle with version 0.8.5 around end of November or beginning of December.
Anyway, here some pictures and gif of recent progress!
Interiors for Basin Keep!
Time to enter the So'najiz Temple...
...which is underwater...
... and also full of water.
And that's all for now!
Oh, just on more thing:
Gamedev Stream
Tonight is another gamedev stream!
We will work on some maps, answer your questions and probably do a drawing again!
