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 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!





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!


Calmness and tranquility (for the time being)


Have you already chosen whose side you're on?


Ever heard of the cat that was very curious? Exactly.


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!




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.




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.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Knock-knock, seekers!

We're bursting into this Friday to diligently write down a new entry in our diaries, noting everything we did this week.


Summing up the voting for Mortis' notes icon: it ended in favor of the light and graceful quill by a narrow margin. We've made some slight adjustments to the icon's design, and soon it will proudly adorn our dialogue boxes. Thanks to all who participated in the vote!




We get so absorbed in our work that we can’t always keep in mind all the changes that have occurred to the game during its development. But we stumbled upon some early game screenshots in the archives. We laughed, we felt sentimental, we brushed away a nostalgic tear, and we set off to work with renewed vigor. Enjoy this little retrospective as much as we did!




Some new and successful results of the transition from Unity to Spine have come out of the animators room. This week, tranquil (very tranquil, uh huh…) event-backgrounds prevail


Still waters... don’t run deep, relax. At least, not here they don’t.


Orcish urban planning is surely epic.


And how is it that that it all doesn’t fall apart? Now that’s some skill!


Sometimes, you come across incredible things in the great spaces of code. We still haven't quite figured out what the author meant, but just in case, we had a laugh and created another local meme.




Anyway, it’s me, Andrew aka Innrey, the founder of RedBoon, at the keyboard. The past few days have indeed been tough, and here's why.

We're deep into rebalancing the biome maps and making sure not to disturb our game designer, Ksay, so as to not distract him from this laborious task. The Steppes are behind us, the Frontier is in progress, and the Castle is up next. We knew it wouldn't be easy, but unlike samurais, we have a goal — to achieve that elusive balance we've been harping on about for so long. We're looking forward to the end and hoping it turns out great and not too stuffy :)

Also, we recently released a patch for the closed beta and received a bunch of new reports – same good old process. First we'll test the patch thoroughly, and then we'll start thinking about updating the live version. In short, we're making progress. Slowly but surely, we’re moving toward the logical conclusion. There's still a lot to do, and finish, and polish, and we don't want to rush and release an unfinished game just for the sake of releasing it; that's not why we're here.

By the way, this week on Reddit we discussed ambitions and their direct influence on the releases and development of games. We also talked about the role and influence of ambitions and how they can motivate and give that magical push, and also highlighted their problematic aspects during game development. So ultimately what conclusion did we come to? Right, that it's important to find the right balance. And that it’s also important to critically assess one's abilities as well as temper excessive ambitiousness.
Speaking on Reddit, there we often delve into various pressing topics; for instance, you can read a post about professional deformation in game development here.

As for us, we'll go track down our beloved worms we mean bugs and fix them, all while working to bring KOTCL closer to the big day.

Wishing everyone a great weekend and a productive week!

See you next week, same place, same time.



⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Greetings, gamers!

Surely you have seen that an incredible race for the Game of the Year has already begun according to variety of versions. We are really impressed with the results of the Golden Joystick Awards 2023 ;)
But we are still too small to participate in major awards and for now we look at them like this:



But nobody can forbid us to dream and fantasize, right? That’s why we’d like to ask you one question.

If you voted for KOTCL as Indie Game of the Year, what category would it be in?

1. Most Anticipated Game
   
2. Best Graphics
   
3. Best Music Composition
   
4. Best Gameplay Design
   
5. Best Story

Vote in the comments!

Knock, knock!

Another Friday has come around, bringing a new developer diary entry with it. So what's new this week?


Recently, we showed you the results of our work on the bandit's set and mentioned the gloves that players had been eagerly requesting to be added. Admittedly, we rushed things a bit. Adding this element for all the characters caused some pain and a bit of suffering. There's always a chance that someone might lose those gloves (right, Bjorn?) or that the gloves won’t fit properly. But we promised – and we delivered. The bandit set now includes gloves!


Speaking of our scatterbrain, Bjorn. We trusted him enough to let him try on the new sets so that he would get used to them, and not forget where they go. He assured us that he's got it all figured out, but we'll still keep an eye on him. We know what this charming lycan is capable of.
But look how fabulous he is!




New specimens continue to enrich the card arsenal of the heroes' decks. It always feels nice to add something unusual, effective, and useful to the deck. Or something not so useful. It all depends on the level of one’s luck in life. We shared some card sketches on social media, and now we're revealing some of the final results. What do you think of the new additions?





Here are few more high-quality and smooth animations for events, made in Spine, which we hope our players will enjoy. Let's see what’s come out of the animation lab this week!


A belligerent goblin. Be careful around him.


His peaceful neighbor, on the other hand, evokes more trust.


Clearly, a grand strategy is being developed here. Perhaps.


Alright, these guys.


Andrew, aka Innrey, the founder of RedBoon, is here again.
Week after week we continue to work on Knock. Particularly intense effort is being put into reducing the run time and, consequently, into overhauling the cards of all the biomes. Specifically, as I mentioned earlier, our solution is to reduce the number of points on each route. We believe this will not only improve the gameplay experience in KOTCL but also slightly reduce the hardcore nature of the game. After all, it's not always possible to spend quality time during a game that lasts an hour and a half to two hours (and sometimes even more). I can say that there is progress, and we’re eagerly awaiting the result.

This week on Reddit, we discussed an interesting topic: professional deformation in game development.

I’m talking about the moment when a hobby becomes a job and ceases to be just a hobby. When you start looking at every game through the eyes of a developer rather than as an average player, your attention is drawn to details that previously seemed insignificant, your eye catches errors and shortcomings, and sometimes there's a desire to adopt elements from other games and use those tricks in your own work.

When this happens, you might start feeling that only by slightly toning down the voice of your inner developer, can you enjoy the game. But we've come to the conclusion that gaming is an art capable of bringing magic and inspiration into our lives, and an inquisitive player, eager for new experiences, remains within each of us regardless.
What do you think about this? Share your opinion in the comments.

And a few words about the CBT. It's moving towards its logical conclusion. The team and beta participants have done a great job. I’d like to thank everyone involved once more. There were quite a few bugs, but we coped — what else could we do, right? Hopefully, we'll release a patch soon, and life will become more joyous for everyone (but no guarantees) :)

And that’s it for today. See you in a week!


⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Knock, knock, travelers!

A new week means a new diary entry. So, shall we start?

Earlier, we’ve mentioned re-balancing and re-working maps. Update: the process is in full swing! The theoretical part is done, so we've moved on to the practical part. We're eager to show you the results, but no spoilers! As you can see, the number of moves and location points has been reduced. Remember, the main goal was to shorten the time of a run. As for us, we’ve done so much mapping at this point we might as well become cartographers!


Yes, again! The card-producing shop of KOTCL continues working, and nothing can stop it! Biome cards and new additions for Vanadis’ deck have just come off the conveyor belt.





Let's spice up our card business with some more pleasurableness. The tradition of sharing pet pictures has been on the internet for a while, so of course, we couldn't not participate. Our team periodically exchanges photos of their beloved pets. We named this flashmob "Pet Friday". We also asked ourselves, why not post a dose of cuteness in the diary?
Meet the furry companions of the RedBoon team!



We continue to receive a lot of positive feedback on the updated animations (and not only on them!). We also haven't forgotten to supply you with a portion of new moving pictures. Enjoy the fruit of our animators’ work with us.


What do we have here? Oh, it seems we've got into trouble. Or have we?



Oh no, this human needs help! ... Is that a human, though?


It's better not to argue with Kiara too much, but you can always try.

It's been a while since we lifted the veil on the mysteries of the musical world of KOTCL. This time, our sound designer has done some real magic. Have you already guessed what event will this music accompany? Write your guesses in the comments!



Andrew, aka Innrey, the founder of RedBoon, is on the air. Week after week, we continue to work on Knock.

Well, actually the last few days were quite tough, I had a lot of jobs and tasks, but what can I do, that’s the way. I have some time to peek in here and I’d really like to thank Russian Furry, HindrancUS и CharterOak for their comments. They boosted our morale and now we’re ready for new challenges! It’s very pleasant :)

Speaking of the rest, it all remains as before - we’re discussing and deciding, coding and fixing, well, working hard I may say. Hope that next week will bring more interesting and happy news. And you don’t forget to check out our media.

See you next Friday!


⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Knock-knock, seekers!

The developer diaries are back and we’re going to tell you what we've been up to this week.


Before we were just guessing, but now we're 100% sure that KOTCL gets our players’ creative juices flowing.

Just take a look at this fantastic Millenis cosplay by SCHLAFLỢS | cosplay & etc.
Definitely beautiful, and dangerous-looking too – and that means something coming from us!





The ranks of the venders continue to grow as members of various races are joining in. For example, very soon, representatives of the KOTCL trade guild like those below will open their stalls. Look for them on your biome routes!




And, of course, we haven’t forgotten to animate our traders too!





Which means that along with transitioning animations to Spine, we are also continuing to animate well-known and unknown events. The results don’t take long to arrive!


Mushrooms live in the swamps...


Gnomeo and Elfiet


That’s some real trouble, isn’t it!


After putting on bandit armor, the heroes will undoubtedly see new unique cards appear in their decks, there’s simply no way around that. We're going to slightly lift the veil... but only slightly.



As you must have understood by now, we love animals, so we continue adding them to Vanadis’ deck. As the meme goes, ‘if not friend, why friend-shaped’?




You can never have too much good UI, but there is a catch...

We’ve not forgotten about Mortis' notes. This wonderful auxiliary feature hasn't taken its full-fledged form yet, but we're working on it – honest to goodness! That's why we’re turning to you for help once again. Which of these three options for Mortis' note icons do you like the most? We're looking forward to your comments!




In line with past tradition, I, Andrew, aka Innrey, founder of RedBoon Studio, am here again.
And today, I'd like to touch on an interesting topic.

It's no secret to anyone that there are a lot of difficulties that arise when creating a game. Sometimes, the variety of challenges can be truly dumbfounding.

For example, even in the final stages of development, there's often a desire to refine something, revamp a game mechanic, or simply work on the final visual a bit more. There's no limit to perfection, and so on and so forth. All of this leads to an increase in the time spent, but we all know that time is one of the most valuable and expensive resources in game development. Thus, the conversation comes back to our beloved balance.

Here, I'm not referring to game balance but rather the balance between the result and the effort required to achieve that result. As sometimes happens, the value of creating and implementing a small feature is not all that great, while the amount of time spent on it is regrettably large. For example, an event system in a game.

Initially, the events were not interconnected; they were standalone events with immediate outcomes and they didn't influence anything beyond the current run and its result.
However, we really liked the idea that events could evolve, change, and impact other events by altering their outcomes, and some of them could even influence the game's ending.

In the end, we took the risk and, through lots of hard work, after many hours of completely reworking the technical foundation from scratch, events saw the light of day. Well what was the result? The result was that our players loved this feature so much that we decided to further develop the events and create entire event chains. Now it's one of the most memorable features of our game.

Or take for example, class-specific cards and clothing. We spent a long time contemplating how much we needed them, if needed at all. But in the end, we decided to go for it because we really wanted to diversify gameplay for different classes. It turned out great and dynamic; for instance, playing any of Bjorn's classes is so different from playing the others that you definitely won't be bored. Generally, you have to make sacrifices in such situations, after carefully weighing and analyzing everything.
It will always seem that you can add or improve something, somewhere. But, again, done is better than perfect, as they say.

Game developers can be divided into two hypothetical camps: "We are developers, our word is law, and we make the game for ourselves" and "We are developers, and we make the game for players." Both principles can work and bear fruit; they are both partly right. But it's so important to find that golden mean and not slide into development radicalism. Can you feel how it all comes back to balance? Without it, we can't get anywhere, neither in games, nor in work, nor in life.

I think we can wrap it up on this philosophical note. Many challenges and tasks await us, but we'll definitely overcome them.

See you next week!

We wish everyone a great weekend, but make sure that you don’t get as carried away on your time off as this guy :)



⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Happy Halloween! Hope everyone has a frightfully good time, filled with spooky games, delicious treats, and plenty of tricks and treats! 🎃



RedBoon team

Greetings, Travellers!

The thought of how to make a clear and nice interface has been on our mind for quite a long time. And today it dawned on us: what if we move the buffs/debuffs icons closer to the center? Which variant seems more convenient and logical to you?
We are waiting for your opinion in the comments!

1. Classic UI:

2. New suggestion:

Knock knock, travelers!

Once again, we’ll share with you in our diaries what we’ve worked hard on this week.


When you see the biome map as a player, you don’t know where to look first because of the huge number of unexplored places. And even after you’ve studied these places the map is still covered with question marks, literally. “That’s cruel,” we thought and so we decided to correct the situation. Our solution was simple: after unlocking events, icons corresponding to each event will appear on the map. Things in the future will be much clearer because of this, we think.



Do you remember when we showed you some sketches of the demonic set? Well, to make life less of a breeze for enemies, and perhaps even for our players, unique cards will be added to the set. The result looks truly epic (and quite demonic). Do you already feel the presence of supernatural forces?




And we can’t forget Vanadis’ pet cards. Fresh out of the oven! Well, aren’t they beautiful?




We're excited to announce that Knock On The Coffin Lid is participating in Steam Scream: The Revenge fest! This festival is all about spooky, Halloween stuff. It will run from October 26th to November 2nd. If you love spine-chilling horror and want to test your nerves – Steam Scream: The Revenge festival is waiting for you!


Hey, Andrew aka Innrey, the founder of RedBoon, is live in the studio.
As I wrote earlier, Groundhog Day has become our reality. Balancing sets, cards, and enemies is mostly complete; now all that remains to fine-tune the technical side of everything. I consider this a significant victory.
However, sometimes interesting and occasionally challenging tasks break through the monotonous flow of workdays. For example, we are still working on reducing the time for finishing each run; right now our task is to optimize the map, and to optimize it in a way that minimizes the content losses. Spoiler: losses are unavoidable. We’ve got a lot to work on here, but we’re not afraid of challenges. When revising the map, it's important to initially determine what needs to be kept and what has to be sacrificed. There are many events in the world of KOTCL, all of them are exciting, engrossing, and colorful. Sometimes they form quest chains, for example in the Frontier and Rotten Bog this is not uncommon. If you remove even one element from this chain, everything will go awry and break, which is not good at all. You can't simply reduce 13 points on the map to 7. So we need to find workarounds – both literally and figuratively. Namely, we will create more routes and add more forks. We'll have to brainstorm about all of this and then implement it effectively.



On a positive note: our programmers are doing a great job! Of course, this has always been true, but recently they proved it once again. One of their tasks is to create tools for development and testing. Considering that testing is a significant part of game development, solid, convenient tools not only save the team time but also enhance the game's quality. Our team recently completed a "sandbox" for testing event development, significantly reducing testing time. What have we done to deserve such great programmers? :)

I think that's probably enough for now. This has been Andrew, aka Innrey. See you in the next diary!

Don't forget to check out our social media; we're always happy to chat with you and answer your questions.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Knock, knock, travelers!


Right now, we're busy re-balancing and refining the final battle (did we mention it's going to be awesome?),We are also polishing the game, all the while not forgetting about making things look beautiful. But let's go through it step by step, shall we.



Our veteran players remember how challenging KOTCL was at the beginning - tough and merciless. It took enormous luck to complete even a few events on the map and gather at least part of a set. Of course, some players like games to be hardcore, but we wanted to create a game that doesn't constantly push you to your limits. So, we decided to introduce some balance changes. That's why we're creating new sets and cards, some of which we've shown you before.

But what exactly are we changing the game for?
To ensure that players can comfortably complete a few runs in one session without spending all their free time and last nerve cells. Also so that they can enjoy the plot twists, beautiful visuals, and pleasant music. In other words, so that they can appreciate the game and have fun.

Achieving this goal wasn't easy; it required a deep rework of the game, from biomes to the rebalancing of the equipment, enemies, and cards. Basically, we had to change almost everything. As they say, heroes always take the long way. For example, biomes underwent a significant overhaul: events are now distributed more evenly along the routes, and the time it takes to traverse different routes is similar. Enemies have gotten their share of changes too.

We’ve also had an idea to add biome cards to the deck that will work in parallel with sets.

By the way, speaking of sets and other attire, one of the key elements of KOTCL's rebalance was reevaluating sets, non-set clothing, and trophies. Previously, it was chaotic - for example, orcish boots, despite being classless, outperformed some legendary items in terms of properties and strength. It was not ok and provided yet another opportunity to break the game. To minimize such occurrences, every item is being carefully reviewed and adjusted based on power criteria, then reworked. It's all about sleight of hand, no trickery here.

That's how we create new sets that maintain our precious balance. Behind all that we do is logic and a clear adherence to the lore.

Oh, and there's so much more behind the scenes, but it will definitely make an appearance some day! We're even a little envious of the players...



In order to not make unsubstantiated statements, we'll share the results of our meticulous work on the future biome card art. As for the effects the cards provide, trust your imagination and experience in KOTCL give you a hint.




During the card creation process a meme was born :D





Animation transitioning from Unity to Spine continues, and it's great to hear that players have noticed a significant improvement in the quality of game animations. Today, we have such new items on our menu as: "The Birth and Death of the Lycan," "Vanadis' Left Hook," and "He’s made it!"






The voting for the best Bandit Set has concluded. We received a large number of comments and even more opinions and wishes. We want to thank everyone who participated in the poll. We'll never stop emphasizing that you help us make KOTCL better. All feedback is carefully collected and passed on to our artists, and you'll see the results in future episodes. Stay tuned!



Work aside, we also aren’t forgetting to analyze past mistakes and draw lessons from them. We noticed that our UI isn't consistent everywhere (that sort of thing can happen). We promise to fix it all, but for now, let's take a look together at this fun collection of our diverse UI.





Once again, Andrew, aka Innrey, founder of RedBoon, is here to wrap up another week. You could say that every day of working on KOTCL is somewhat like the previous one: bugs, final battles, balancing, art, animations. It's a bit like Groundhog Day. Sometimes patches sneak into this list. But I can say that progress is being made, and that's very encouraging.

The team continues to evolve. This week, game designer Ksay shared his thoughts and impressions with me. He finds it amusing that working on balancing made him realize that sometimes, you have to tame your hardcore tendencies. He recalled a moment from development where, to satisfy our players' needs, difficulty levels were introduced. Initially, there were three, but we received a lot of feedback that the hardest level was too easy. In response, we firmly slammed the table with our coffee mugs and made the level even more challenging, introducing a fourth difficulty level to KOTCL.

One interesting and creative aspect of the game designer's work is creating the concept of new characters. On the one hand, it's an entirely creative process, giving free rein to your imagination and coming up with intricate details. On the other hand, it's analytical work based on gaming experience and hundreds of hours of play.

We've learned and are actively learning how to create UI. It needs to be clear. The big challenge is that many things essentially do the same—a player has a bunch of buffs and debuffs, and they have to spend time and attention on understanding them. What's more important is not what effect is on the hero but how much damage these effects will inflict. Recently, we found out that our UI is cited as a good example of game UI in narrow and wide circles of UI designers. We were surprised but proud!

Ksay also noted that planning sprints for developers has become more mentally satisfying. By looking at the whole scope of work, it's clear that the workload is not as extensive as it used to be. It's almost like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And in this light, bugs keep swirling endlessly... swirling, and swirling, and swirling…’round.

And, on that poetic note, we bid you farewell! :D

Don't forget to visit us on social media and send your greetings to the team - we're always happy to see your comments and suggestions.

Developer diaries will be back next week with more new interesting facts!

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀