Steam Chronicle #28: Trailer, Boss Pixel Art Completed and More!
PixElated Festival
Happy to announce we are part of the PixElated Festival here on Steam! Please check it out and support all the awesome modern pixel art games that are out and upcoming. :)
New Trailer
First, I just wanted to share a reminder of our new trailer for the game for those who haven't seen it yet. It will probably be the last trailer we release before our release date trailer!
Anyways, without further ado, here's what has been going on in the world of Shrine's Legacy since last month!
Dungeon Progress
The Crystal Cavern, a dungeon of illusions is now complete mapping-wise except for some finishing polish! A preview of one of the rooms in the dungeon is shared below.
The secret optional dungeon that's being mapped has also made good progress and is also nearly finished now minus a few incomplete rooms and some polish.
Boss and NPC Pixel Art Progress
An exciting milestone has been reached with all the pixel art for bosses in the game being 100% complete!
We also got an update to the graphics for our very first Shrine's Legacy boss!
Music
More music tracks have been completed. The soundtrack is about 70% complete with 55 out ~75-78 tracks done and over an hour and eleven minutes of raw audio for the music at this time! Below is a soundcloud link to one of the tracks created this past month, extended for looping.
Over half the remaining sound effects that were needed since Alan started working on the sounds recently have now been created!
Closing
Little by little, we chip away at this beast of a project. But we climb this staircase one stair at a time, and the top of the flight is slowly coming into sight. 🌄
Until next time,
Joe
Steam Chronicle #27: Music, Sound, NPCs, and Dungeons
Happy July and I hope everyone had a good weekend!
First I wanted to share some exciting news. We had the opportunity to be briefly showcased on IGN Live, where we shared some footage of a new gameplay trailer! If you haven't seen the new trailer yet, I definitely recommend checking it out, as it has some new footage that hasn't been seen before. I’m planning to add it to Steam here shortly as well!
Dungeon Progress
Mapping for the final dungeon is now complete! Part of me is sad we won't be showing it off, because in my opinion it's turned out really great. But I think it's going to be an awesome surprise for you when you play the finished game. 😉
There's also been a lot of progress in the maps for Veyrlorn Palace. It is now complete minus a bit of fixes and polish, and a few story-oriented rooms we're saving for a bit later.
In addition to progress on previous dungeons, mapping for 2 more dungeons has begun. One of them is a secret optional dungeon. The other one is the Crystal Cavern, which was very briefly shown in our newest trailer recently. Here's a screenshot of how the aesthetic is coming along!
Music
More music tracks have been written. You can hear one in the Veyrlorn Palace video above. 🙂
NPC Placeholders and Dialogue Implemented
Previously we had most of the NPC dialogue written. Now it is implemented in all the towns using placeholder NPCs!
Boss Art
The two bosses pixel arts that were in progress have been completed, and the final remaining boss pixel arts are now in the process of being created (and pretty deep in the progress to getting finished)!
After we finish the boss art, we'll be getting started on new NPC art.
Sound Effects
Alan has been working on a lot of new sound effects to add to the game! We haven’t got them implemented yet, but it’ll be exciting to hear all the new sounds in action when we do.
Closing
Thanks for checking out another Steam Chronicle and I wish you all the best this July. If your climate is anything like ours, don't forget to spend time with your loved ones and enjoy the outside while the weather is still good!
Until next time,
Joe
Steam Chronicle #26: More New Music and Dungeon Work
It's June, and we have a new update for you all.
Dungeon Progress
We've made some good progress with puzzles and mapping for the dungeons. Parum Tunnel is essentially finished now, and the maps for two more dungeons are currently in progress. One of them is Veyrlorn Palace. The other I won't show off because it's the final dungeon and I know I personally don't like seeing a final dungeon before I play a game.
Here's a video of an updated map from Veyrlorn Palace:
Music
The Shrine's Legacy soundtrack is well underway! Most of the music tracks that were in progress last update are now finished and a few more are also finished. I wanted to share one of the more recent tracks I've made.
Here’s a new track for one of the game's dungeons. It's supposed to sound "spoooooky". If you listen, let me know if I pulled it off. 😊
Pixel art for 4 different bosses were completed since the last update. There are 2 more in progress right now with the remaining ones being prepared soon.
Remaining ones... does that mean? Yup! There are only 4 bosses total in the base game that haven't had their art finished yet, the 2 that are in progress now, and 2 more that will be started soon.
Closing
Thanks so much for reading! ✨
We'll keep chipping away! Until next time,
Joe
Steam Chronicle #25: Music and Dungeon Work
Despite some things taking longer than we anticipated, it has been a very productive month since our last update. There's been progress on Dungeons, Concept Art, music, boss sprites, and more!
Concept Art Finished!
Alan's very happy to announce that he's completed all the concept art. That includes concept art for all the characters, NPCs, monsters, bosses, and environments for the game! This is a very exciting milestone. Here's the second to last NPC concept art that was created:
This is Alvin, one of the vulpecs you'll meet on your journey. He lives in the primary hometown of the vulpecs, Illdar.
More Music Tracks Finished!
Wooh! Making music again. 😊 5 new music tracks have been finished with 5 more close or on the way this week! It's been somewhat refreshing but it's definitely tough after working on other stuff for so long.
I can definitely feel the rust shaking off while I come up with tunes. So far it seems the dungeon themes are going to be the toughest to get just right!
Boss Art
Since last month, we finished the three boss sprites that were in progress (last month we mentioned 2, but looking back it appears there were 3 👀) and we have 4 more in progress as of now.
I still don't want to show too much boss stuff yet, especially when it's not implemented into the game, but I did still want to show a taste! This is but one of the heads of the Sand Hydra, a KS Backer-assisted boss that shifts through the sands!
Enemy / Battle Challenge and Puzzles for Dungeons
We made a lot of progress on the general dungeon designs this month! There are still a few dungeons with puzzles that need some mechanics worked on or some puzzles polished, but the battle challenges, enemy placements, and puzzle locations are all roughly laid out for every dungeon besides the secret dungeon now (and even some progress was made on that one)!
Closing
That puts a wrap on this update! Thanks for reading as always and thank you all for being patient as we try to make this game the best it can be. 🙂
Until next time,
Joe
Steam Chronicle #24: Dungeon Puzzles and Challenges Full Steam Ahead!
Happy April and welcome to Steam Chronicle #24! 🙂
Let's jump right into it.
Boss Art
Art for 1 more boss is complete, and 2 more are very close to being complete!
Enemy / Battle Challenge and Puzzles for Dungeons
Three more dungeons (one of them being final dungeon) have had their enemies, challenges, and puzzles placed. Many bugs were fixed with the more complex puzzle types. And in some cases, new ways of using elemental spells or new mechanics were added, such as minecarts in the Tunnel!
Pace should speed up from here since some of the more difficult mechanics and fixes were in the final dungeon, so it is very likely we'll have the remaining dungeons all prepped and ready for mapping for next month's update.
Parum Tunnel Mapping
The mapping for Parum Tunnel is almost finished. Progress went slower than expected this month due to life factors and sickness on our mapper's end, but we're confident the pace will pick up soon.
That said, things are still coming along nicely!
Closing
And with that, we put a close on Steam Chronicle #24. Thanks for reading as always!
Until next time,
Joe
Steam Chronicle #23: Enemies Completed and More
Hi! It's time for Steam Chronicle #23! Here’s some of our progress for this month:
Enemy AI
Enemy AI is now complete! This also includes the recolors we plan on using and their AI.
For example, here's the AI for couple of late game recolors of early game enemies, as seen in our debug room (a place I've been spending a lot of time lately making these AI's):
Boss Art Progress
We have art for 2 new bosses done and 3 more started. We also have the concept art for all bosses except 1 is now complete!
Additionally, and this one is important... The art for the very final boss battle is completed! Please forgive us for keeping most of these boss arts as a surprise for the time being. 😊
Tunnel & Mapping Progress
The Parum Tunnel dungeon now has all of its basic enemy placements, battle challenges, and puzzles roughly in place (subject to change as the mapping progresses). We've also added a new minecart and switch mechanic to keep this mini-dungeon interesting and fresh.
Additionally, our new mapper Deckiller has made his first bit of progress on the mapping for this dungeon. It's still WIP but take a look!
Closing
Thanks for reading Steam Chronicle #23 and hope you have a good March! Now if you'll excuse us for a bit, we're gonna go and play some of the newly released FF7 Rebirth! 😉
We're excited to share that Shrine's Legacy is part of the Remote Play Together event on Steam!
Sync up with a friend and play games together while celebrating the Remote Play Together event from February 12th to the 19th. Check out the event page here to discover some other great couch co-op games you can play with friends anywhere!
Additionally, there is currently a demo live on Steam! We highly recommend you check it out and share your thoughts through the Steam forums or our Discord server. And if you enjoy the game, don't forget to add it to your wishlist to be kept up to date!
This month we have a few fun things to talk about, including progress on the enemy AI, NPC dialogue, and more!
Enemy AI
A lot of progress was made! At this point, there are only 5 unique enemies and a handful of simpler palette swap enemies left to do the AI for. For reference, Shrine's Legacy now has a total number of 56(!) unique enemies not counting bosses so we are finally very near the finish line on this task.
To celebrate this, I did want to another enemy we haven't shown before, the Moophant:
Be wary or be trampled by its powerful stomp!
Despite being slow and big targets, they have a lot of range and damage, so be careful not to stay in one place too long while fighting them!
NPC Dialogue
Alan has also been hard at work writing dialogue for the many towns and locales in the game. In fact, we have a good starting draft to build up the towns with! I've been really used to all the towns in the game past the demo cutoff looking like ghost towns with only the essential NPCs there, so it'll be rewarding seeing them populated soon. 😊
Boss Fight Art Progress
We've made progress on the art for a few more bosses as well! We'll be keeping most of that art secret for now though to avoid spoilers.
Closing
Thanks for reading and that concludes this Steam Chronicle! I'm really looking forward to seeing the dungeons start coming to life with these beasties.
Steam Chronicle #21: Normal Enemy AI Almost Complete!
Happy New Year everyone and hope everyone had a good holiday season too! 🎊🎉🙌
Even More Enemies Completed!
There's still a chunk more enemies to complete the AI for, but I put a very large dent in them this month. We'll be holding back showing most of them so ya'll can be surprised when you play the game. But we did want to show off a couple! And it makes the most sense to show off a couple enemies who you've seen only without AI before now. So, without further ado:
They're the Pinga and the Jama Mouse! 🐭 🥚 Note that they will definitely have some adjustments and also be less tanky in the final game.
Starting on the Boss Fights
Earlier we got the art for the first part of the final boss done, but this past month we finally got to get a real start on the art for other boss fights! We currently have two new boss fights with their art in the works!
Closing
It's been exciting seeing a lot of the enemy art we've been sitting on slowly coming to life in the form of fleshed out real and functional monsters in-game. Expect to start seeing some more final looking screenshots and videos later this year as we get closer and closer to going gold!
Art progress has been going well for enemies. There are only a few enemies left to get art for now, not including bosses! Many of which we haven't shown, so look forward to seeing them for the first time in the final game.
New Enemy AI
More enemy AI have been completed. Below you can see a couple of the new ones which serve as obstacles rather than chasing down the player.
I'm personally a big fan of the wall sliding enemy, and a few among you might recognize its concept from a certain Super Nintendo Action RPG game. We haven't seen an enemy like that used in many (any?) other JRPG games so it seemed like a good homage to make! And the other enemy happens to be another homage, one that may be a little easier to guess! 😊
The purple enemy gets faster every time you deal damage to it! It can become quite comical if you let it get too fast :)
A Look WAYY Back
We shared this image as part of #ThrowbackThursday on Twitter but I wanted to share it here too. It's a great example of how far we've come over the years through hard work, learning, taking feedback, and the help from our Kickstarter backers, too!
The "OLD" image is very old, from back before the Kickstarter, and even further. It was before we really knew what we were doing with the project and how to make a game of this scale. The sprites were 4 times the size (32x32 tiles instead of 16x16 tiles like we have now). This was very hard to work with and contributed to the lack of pixel art quality in the early build. I don't think I even have to mention just how much the character designs or UI has changed and improved. 😂
This was Steam Chronicle #20; thanks for reading as always! By the way, while I can't share a definitive release window for the game yet, we are getting closer and it's only a matter of time before we will be able to!
We'll keep doing our best, and we hope you do too! 🌟
