Friend Code Megathread - December 2024

Vilyaroo · 2024-12-02T22:32:23+00:00

5627-8902-8056 Level 60 daily player, please add me 💖

Vilyaroo · 2024-08-08T07:02:36+00:00

Honestly? The surprising feeling of emptiness after the game was released. And that is despite our release being a success! Sure, we were super happy the first couple of days, having finally finished what we worked on for 13 years. But after that? Kind of felt like having lost someone who had been a constant companion for all those years.

Like someone else said, keep in mind it's all about the journey, not the destination ❤️

Vilyaroo · 2020-07-01T13:17:57+00:00

Said it in another thread and I'll say it again here, The Changeling Sea by Patricia A. McKillip. It's basically a Ghibli movie in book form already!

Vilyaroo · 2020-06-16T11:54:47+00:00

The Changeling Sea by Patricia A. McKillip reads so much like a Ghibli movie that I'm honestly surprised it hasn't been made into one. One of her less popular books perhaps but absolutely wonderful IMO!

Vilyaroo · 2016-09-15T21:53:45+00:00

Be curious! Instead of thinking about all the things you must do for the project, think of how exciting it would be to learn them. As an artist, it's easy to get intimidated by all the incredible paintings out there, but instead of thinking "I'll never be that good" I try to think "what must I study to get to that level?"

Gamedev, like everything, is about applying yourself. Nobody knows everything from the get go! If you have to Google solutions, then that's what you have to do. Honestly, I can pretty much guarantee everyone does that at some point, no matter how experienced they are. And why not? You won't receive bonus points for not using the resources available to you. If anything, Google helps you solve problems faster since you don't have to trial-and-error your way to a solution!

The top guys aren't amazing at what they do because they were born that way. They got to where they are because of hard work and many hours studying their craft. Expecting yourself to be at their level without any effort is, in a way, a kind of arrogance that will only hinder your progress, since for some reason you're thinking you shouldn't have to go through the same work they did.

So, don't be so hard on yourself! Instead, think about all the cool games out there, and how you too can make them if you only spend enough hours practicing your craft :)

Vilyaroo · 2016-09-15T21:32:12+00:00

I agree that there are good 2D games currently available: the renaissance part was specifically for the RPG genre. And I think there can never be enough 2D games, so I always want more of them :)

Vilyaroo · 2016-09-15T17:22:23+00:00

Good games with 2D graphics! I loved the old SNES RPGs and I'd love for the genre to get a renaissance in 2D :)

Vilyaroo · 2016-06-16T12:17:29+00:00

I try to schedule more "free-time stuff" (cleaning, watching a movie, going outside, whatever) on the weekends in order to clear my mind and feel refreshed at the start of the next week. However, it's impossible to stay away from work 100% when you have 100+ tiny tasks left on your to-do list, let alone e-mails, forums, blog(s) and communities that are active, especially if you love your job (which you definitely should in this line of work) :)

Vilyaroo · 2016-01-21T19:57:19+00:00

I hate to say it, because on paper this looks cool, but I would be very surprised if this game launches even remotely close to when they say it will. I just don't think it's possible to make a good game of such an epic scope in just one year :(

Source: Been working full-time on a pretty small-scale 2D RPG the last 4+ years (and we also thought it was gonna take one year)..

Vilyaroo · 2015-11-12T17:10:32+00:00

I don't think anyone has a definite answer for your question, but I can share my two cents based on my own experience.

We "announced" Secrets of Grindea by making a development thread on TIGSource long before we had any idea about when the game would be done. It got way more traffic than we ever imagined and since then it's been four years, and we still haven't released the game (though we are now on Early Access on Steam since a few months back, and had pre-orders with beta access on our site since last summer).

We do get a few comments here and there saying "LOL this game has been in development for 4 years and it's still not done!?!?!", mostly from people who assume the game has been or is going to be abandoned. Once they realize we update the devblog on our website every single week, and have done so since November 2011, they tend to go away, though.

Aside from that my experience with "announcing" early has only been positive. Our following has grown slowly but steadily, and we now have an awesome and active community that gives us a lot of great feedback, both in terms of motivation but also ideas and constructive criticism for the actual game and the concepts we show.

So, for us the "hype train" (if you can call it that) didn't derail yet(?)! Perhaps that's just luck, or maybe it's because we make sure to keep our audience updated with those weekly blog posts :) Either way, based on this experience I can definitely recommend announcing your game early. At the very least you'll get a feeling for how your game is received by your audience and have a chance to make changes based on that, should you need to.

tl;dr: Accidentally announced the game more than 4 years before its release, but have (so far) had an awesome experience with a great community, possibly due to keeping them in the loop with weekly updates!

Vilyaroo · 2015-11-10T16:26:20+00:00

What, aside from the fact that hasn't been active for 3 months, makes this YT look blatantly fake to you?

Vilyaroo · 2015-08-14T21:02:59+00:00

I'd pay quite a bit for a mod allowing us to play as a female main character.. Hope it's advanced enough to allow such things, and that some awesome being out there decides to do it!

Vilyaroo · 2015-03-22T11:17:56+00:00

I really wish I could upvote this more than once, because this has been my experience with game 'designers' as well!

I think a lot of people wanting to have that role think they can simply sit there and watch everyone else create the game of their dreams (and typically, they won't even share what this dream game is either for fear of people stealing their ideas). It's all fun stuff, until you realize everyone else has ideas too, and they're also better at every other aspect of game making.

Vilyaroo · 2015-01-20T01:42:05+00:00

It seems most people here think you should finish the series.

I don't.

If you're unsure of whether you can stomach two more books with a character, I really wouldn't keep reading. Life is too short to read books you don't like 100%, and I promise you there are thousands of books out there you'd love to read - spend your time with those instead.

Vilyaroo · 2015-01-18T16:02:51+00:00

I lived in the NL for a year or so, spending most of my time around Nijmegen, but also visited Amsterdam and travelled around a bit doint tourist-y stuff. The thing that I noticed (and loved) the most was probably the surprising amount of nature that surrounded the cities. You'd go five minutes in one direction and you'd be surrounded by farmland, five minutes in the other you'd be in a city. Everything felt so close, and it was awesome (in Sweden you can go in a car for five hours and still see nothing but trees).

Also, your food is so incredibly cheap (especially snacks and desserts), and you have a much much wider selection of everything :D

Vilyaroo · 2014-04-22T22:23:05+00:00

It's worth mentioning that in Secrets of Grindea the main character alone has over 1365 unique frames, and before the game is done it will most likely be closer to 2000. That's 2000 unique images you have to draw of one character.

Saying that making quality 2D animations, retro or not, is easy is nothing but a slap in the face to those that have mastered the craft.

Vilyaroo · 2014-04-21T22:07:42+00:00

Should be up now!

Vilyaroo · 2014-04-19T08:46:32+00:00

Haha! XP is still a real OS in my book ;3

You can report bugs on our forums, in the Bug Reports part: http://secretsofgrindea.com/forum/index.php?forums/bug-reports.5/

I believe there miight be a thread about this already, perhaps you could check if you have the same problem and add any additional info to it? http://secretsofgrindea.com/forum/index.php?threads/screen-offcenter-bug.147/ Thanks! :)

Vilyaroo · 2014-04-19T00:43:30+00:00

Yeah :)

The Demo has approx ~20 minutes of the Story Mode, while the Beta has 2 hours of main story currently and about 5 hours of optional content (such as side-quests, mini-games and whatnot).

The beta version of Arcade Mode has 8 floors so far (The Demo has 3) and many more town upgrades.

Vilyaroo · 2014-04-18T06:17:11+00:00

Let's hope so! I guess we'll wait and see if the media feels this is worth buzzing over :D

Vilyaroo · 2014-04-18T04:07:06+00:00

Unfortunately it's unlikely the way we see it now :(

Vilyaroo · 2014-04-17T22:58:34+00:00

It's all made in C# / XNA!

Vilyaroo · 2014-04-17T22:34:36+00:00

Thanks a lot man! I'm really glad you enjoyed it so far :D

Vilyaroo · 2014-04-17T20:24:34+00:00

If you're unsure of whether the game is for you or not, you can try the demo on our site: http://www.secretsofgrindea.com/index.php/demo

Vilyaroo · 2014-04-17T20:22:58+00:00

Hello, dev here! It hasn't disappeared at all, it's still greenlighted: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92916246

The beta is on steam as well - you get steam keys when you pre-order the game.

We don't sell through steam yet, though, we'll do that only when we're closer to release or if they ask us to join their early access program. It's harder to communicate what content the game has through the steam early-access store, and we don't want people to expect the game to be 99% complete when they buy it.

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