Knock-knock!
As we promised, we are here exactly a week later and we’re very glad to see you. Are you ready for a new edition of developer diaries? Then let’s go, travelers!
New arrivals in the card section
New cards for heroes’ decks continue to come on line. We aren’t going to forget to share our artists’ work with you. We won’t tell you what these cards are capable of just yet, but we’ll definitely show you them in the game soon!
Greetings from the animators’ room
There are three things you can watch forever: a fire burning, water flowing, and our new event animations. And that’s no surprise, because they’re so smooth, beautiful, and… looped :D
Switching to Spine is doing its job!
Pet Friday is back!
What can be better than animals? More animals. Another dose of cuteness from the RedBoon team has arrived to set you up for a great weekend!
The meme is funny, but the situation is scary
After the recent patch in the closed beta, there was a curious bug in the inventory code that caused Persival not only to increase in size but also to get into places he shouldn’t have. We certainly had a good laugh, after which we did an investigation, and eventually, after finding the reason for such behavior, fixed everything.
But you have to admit it, it looks very funny.
How about some chit-chat?
Andrew a.k.a. Innrey, the founder of RedBoon, is here again.
Well, the total rework of the biome maps is complete. Right now, our whole team is actively testing and trying out the result of the diligent and painstaking work of our game designers, artists, and programmers. I can say from myself that it all turned out great and playing in story mode isn’t so tedious anymore. The standard run time has been reduced, and events intertwine harmoniously with battles, not letting you get bored with constant fights (but there are still enough battles). In general, everything turned out just as we planned. I’m really happy.
Our main person for balance and card reworking, a.k.a. designer Ksay, shared his impressions with me after completing this task. His main take-away is “It was very painful and tedious, but I’m happy with the result.” He added that he likes how everything works (still some bugs, but more on that later), how the cards are now more story-oriented, and the overall picture has also become much more organic. On top of that, new diverse backgrounds for battles in free play will be added, which will enhance players’ experiences and gameplay.
According to him, the biggest difficulty arose in working with legacy code, where everything possible is adjusted manually and in no other way. Between two points on the map there can be 20 different settings, and they are all interconnected. Do something wrong in one spot, and as they sometimes say on the Internet, if you make just one mistake, then… you’ll have made one mistake! And it’s a fatal mistake, too — the map simply won’t work until you find the problem. For example, in the Frontier, there are 67 points and 243 roads, and searching for even a small bug turns into an engrossing (not really) amusement ride.
Ksay also noted what a wonderful feeling of freedom and relief he experienced once he finished this long and energy-consuming work. Of course, when you grind for many days in a row without rest, meticulously and carefully thinking everything through, you’ll be happy to reach the end and finally tackle other tasks with even greater enthusiasm.
Of course, massive changes like that leave their mark, and various bugs and conflicts have emerged during testing, and new sets and biome cards have not yet been added either, because they don’t work as intended. But that’s what tests are for — everything will be fixed by the time of the update.
I want to once again highlight what a great job everyone who participated in this process has done; I’m very proud of my team!
In general, there will be even more new content and even more changes! :)
We can end this diary entry here. Don’t forget about our social media! We’re always happy to chat and answer your questions.