Hello,

There is still some work remaining on the update, but here are some images showcasing what will be possible shortly.

Previously, when placing grass, a plane was added on top of blocks as a separate object, this also meant having to have an actual object with a collider in order to be able to remove it. That also meant that there would need to be a lot of separate planes made, which hasn't been feasible. With the new feature to "paint" grass, asphalt and plazas, this is no longer necessary. This allows for example the side of the slanted block to be grass instead of concrete:



Since there's no longer a need for colliders, instances where before you couldn't place a grass decoration in a tight space due to there already being a deco nearby will no longer be an issue. This is exemplified here:



There's still a bunch of stuff left to do, especially expanding on being able to place separate props (like trees) to make up for the grass decoration being removed. I may update the game tomorrow, or move on to finish the remainder of the props and painting before doing so.

Other than me, no one has worked on Fallen Gods as long as Dan, who jumped into the fray in June 2014. At the time, my ambitions from the project’s visuals were modest: I pictured simple hex tiles like in table-top campaigns and “3/4 perspective combat sprites akin to those of old school jRPGs like Breath of Fire or Ogre Battle.” Dan assured me we could do better, and sent an amazing first pass at the combat sprite for the fighter. There was no looking back.

To “animate” literally means “to breathe life into,” and Dan breathes life into his pixels—with just a few frames, he’s able to convey not only motion but also weight, momentum, and personality. We were very fortunate that when Strangeland needed a step up for some of its key animations (walk cycle, talk cycle, etc.), Dan was there to help on that game, too. So his breath will have infused two Wormwood Studios titles once Fallen Gods is released. (And in addition to doing FG’s pixel work, he has also contributed a number of illustrations to the game.)

Dan is the only Wormwood Studios collaborator I’ve met in person—we used to break bread (or slurp noodles, at any rate) at a dive pho restaurant in Los Angeles—and I just had the great pleasure of meeting up with him at a dive izakaya in Japan, which has been his home for years. Within moments of Dan ordering food for us, one artist, then three artists, had come over and engaged Dan (and, with him translating, me) in conversation. This was not an artists’ bar or Dan’s usual stomping grounds, just a testament to some inherent spark in Dan that kindles artistic communities wherever he goes. He has brought that same light and warmth to the Fallen Gods development team.

You can see more of Dan’s work (including his non-pixel art) at his portfolio and read his answers below.

- Mark Y.


Mark: The sprites in Fallen Gods range from tiny world-map avatars just a few pixels in height to huge foes that fill a quarter of the screen, but somehow you’ve created all of this artwork pixel by pixel. What stays the same in working at these different scales and what, if anything, changes?

Dan: To me, from a drawing standpoint, quite a bit changes. In fact, I look at them completely differently.

Higher resolution digital artwork likes to masquerade as a traditional drawing or painting form, but considering the hand position, the tool shape, the floating posture, and the approach between media and substrate, I see it as closer to spray paint or airbrush. For me, that correlation holds true in the techniques that I apply at higher resolutions. There are more additive and reductive capabilities in terms of color and line, and hand movement has a more direct effect on line gesture and weight. Also, a line can be calibrated gradually by pushing back and forth between negative and positive space on either side, carving its edges with continuous gestural movement.

Smaller resolution work, on the other hand, is to me closer to actual mosaic tile or textile as a technique. There’s a greater emphasis on compositional space, tangent making, and symmetry. Also, the smaller work really emphasizes the magic that is almost unique to pixel art in the precision of color selection. When a desired line crosses a pixel, or two colors must share a single pixel—it’s never as simple as mixing the two, or determining the dominant color by percentage; in my experience it’s always a case-by-case process of experimentation based on “feel” or “impact,” and often the desired result comes in wildly unexpected ways.

Of course, a larger-scale pixel art image can be zeroed in and calibrated on a fine scale, and a smaller sprite contains gesture, but in my experience, smaller sprites can get lost in the weeds very easily, and larger sprites can get stuffy or lose their sense of life if they’re too overcooked, and so I try to preserve the unique capabilities of both.



Mark: What are some of the most challenging aspects you’ve faced in creating the pixel art for Fallen Gods?

Dan: In the animation work itself, sometimes the greatest challenges come out of nowhere. Years ago, I remember being brought to my knees by a slither cycle of a snake sprite, whereas human walk cycles (seemingly much more complex) never gave me too much trouble. More recently, I spent about an hour on a successful drawing of a hand for a cursor, and then set out to draw a second hand sprite in a slightly different position, and it took me about 5 hours. Conversely, sometimes I’ll lose confidence and think that there’s no way I’m capable of animating certain things (such as a recent animation of an eagle turning in mid-air), and I’ll spend a great deal of time agonizing over the hypothetical, but when I finally get past my emotion and start animating, things sometimes go much more smoothly than I thought.

But I think that for me, the larger challenge has been in the massive amount of work that game creation requires. The work itself is a pleasure, and I find it fascinating and massively fulfilling, but once days click over into months and years, it can be both a cause and an effect of feature creep, and this has been a huge learning process. It can be hard to watch out for which visual features are going to take months to accomplish, let alone which ones are worth it or not. And by the time a shiny new aspect is in the game and in the process of climbing that mountain, my capabilities inevitably improve, and eventually it can make the earlier work obsolete, so it’s difficult to avoid this trap of constantly redoing everything.

Another huge challenge for me is the social isolation of this work. I’ve never really felt safe in online communities, including art and gaming communities, and I’ve had some traumatic experiences, so I tend to shy away. But in my day-to-day life, especially as I take in years, the people that I can have an absorbing conversation with about video games can be few and far between, and I can count on one hand the people that would specifically be willing to spend time talking about pixel art. This makes me all the more grateful to be in contact with this incredible team, and our weekly meetings are such sweet succor, but it can be very frustrating to love an art form which for most is disposable, and of which there is little widespread understanding of the massive labor and intricate work involved.



Mark: You joined Fallen Gods just one month into its now decade-long development cycle. Has anything changed about your approach to the game over the years?

Dan: Before FG, I had spent a few years doing throwaway work for throwaway mobile games, where I would give sprites and then have no input or involvement in the back and forth of their implementation. I came to FG with a lot of big, blustery ideas about what pixel art “should” be. I think that in these 10 years, with all the skills and technique I’ve gained, I’ve also softened and been humbled quite a bit. I’ve experienced the sacrifice that is required to connect artwork to programming language, and I’ve gained a lot more patience and perspective. I think I’m much more willing and less emotional when a new approach or a workaround is needed, or when a nice shiny perfect idea needs to be scrapped. I’m no longer a unified pixel grid dogmatist (although I think my dogmatism might have rubbed off on Mark).

Check out the first Word typing game!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2151420/Word/

Updates are in now in beta.

[Patch Notes] v1.0-7d345fe.2024.0331.19
Commanders,
Thank you for your patience. We have made some adjustments to the multi-player mode in the last patch. Should you have any further feedback or suggestions regarding this content, please feel free to contact us at any time!
We have thoroughly read and evaluated all the feedback we have recently received. We will develop and optimize solutions based on priority.
Please continue to follow our updates for more information!

[Patch Notes] v1.0-7d345fe.2024.0331.19
[General]
1. In Tour Mode, before players make their first step in the Tactical Map, they can now abandon the tour without any penalty.
2. The autoloader will be unlocked after completing Snow Ruins Difficult 1.
3. Adjusted the item drop rate for the Creeper Spiders; details are available in the [Enemies] section.
4. Reduced the damage from lightning strikes to players during thunderstorm weather.
5. Added bullet-time operation tips in command mode.
6. Bug fix on Kronos that will affect game difficulty. Please see the [bug fix] section for more details.

[Characters]
1. Reduced the time for characters to harvest wreckage by 50%.
2. Removed the progress bar for picking up turrets.
3. Optimized the CIWS shooting experience when held by operatives.

[Enemies]
1. Creeper Spiders in exploration areas no longer trigger the Sympathetic Detonation effect.
2. Killing Creeper Spiders will always drop items, which may include Care Packages or High Explosives.
3. Significantly reduced the damage from grenades thrown by Envoys.
4. Added tutorial prompts upon the first encounter with Kronos/Crius.


[Missions]
1. Optimized the mission flow and tutorial experience for Operation Starfall.
2. Fixed a bug where Nebulas could see through walls.
3. On the first Exploration Day of Windy Desert, the mission item will now appear at one fixed location.
4. For the three material-type devices (Material Assembler, Power Converter, Disassembler), if they are working at the end of a day, their tasks will automatically be completed at the start of the next day.

[Audio]
1. Improved bullet impact feedback.
2. Enhanced the smoothness of environmental sound transitions between indoor and outdoor settings.


[BUG Fixes]
1. Fixed several crash-related issues.
2. Fixed a bug where Kronos in City Ruins would not fire missiles for a period after spawning.(Please note that this will cause combat difficulty to rise!)
3. Fixed abnormal hand gear appearance when using emotes.
4. Fixed an issue where scorpions would not play the attack animation during the game for client players.
5. Partially fixed an issue where client players might not see distant enemies.
6. Partially fixed model residue problems after missiles from Missile Tanks are destroyed.
7. Fixed a bug with the range limit of autoloader.
8. Fixed the activation effect for turrets.
9. Fixed several operational anomalies in the mission [Operation Starfall].
10. Fixed texture issues encountered during the mission [Seraph].
11. Fixed potential mission-stucking issues during the mission [Seraph].
12. Fixed a bug with abnormal object interaction in Abandoned Hospital in Snow Ruins.
13. Partially fixed a bug in the mission [Nebulas] where mission items could clip through models, preventing pickup.
14. Adjusted the drop rate of "keycards": related exploration areas like the [crater] will now at least spawn one keycard.
15. Fixed an issue where springboards in the abandoned lab could be attacked by enemies.
16. Fixed a problem with the sight model being too small in the scene.
17. Fixed an issue where the volume settings would become ineffective when switching between full screen and windowed modes.
18. Fixed a bug where some main missions could get stuck and not progress.
19. Fixed an issue with abnormal text in the loading screen tips at the bottom of the interface.

안녕하세요, 트리 오브 세이비어입니다.


트리 오브 세이비어의 템플러 마스터 '우스카'와 무녀 마스터 '히토미코'의 아련한 첫 사랑의 기억을 담은 영화, '트리 오브 세이비어: 첫 사랑의 습격'이 4월 1일 전세계 동시 개봉합니다!
가까운 극장에서 영화를 무료 관람할 수 있습니다.

Dear gardeners, we have done some pruning tackling some bugs and typos our players pointed out:

- Multiple translation errors
- Fixed Lawn Mowers not working on a saved file after using the Rats
- Fixed Lawn Mowers in general
- Fixed some Tool Dragging errors
- Fixed the Seedbag not working properly when certain amount of empty spaces were remaining

For those who have a saved run with Lawn Mowers used, Used and Unused Lawn mowers data may get inverted. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Hi all,

The update contains the following:

• Increased the chance of getting a legendary (red) marble from gem cutting from 20% to 33%. This is due to obsidian tools being used.
  
• The sulfuric acid pool is now see-through.
  
• The obsidian tools dialog has been fixed to say 100 instead of 50 obsidian shards.

Gem Rifts is still on sale (50% off) and we just need 2 more reviews. Please post a review if you have the game. Ten reviews will display "positive" next to the game's name.

Till later,
André

Added some optimizations for laptops (you can find it in settings).
I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the cats on the completed stage of life. Tomorrow you may notice that they are celebrating.

This week brings a very useful tool for all janitors, the cleaner grenade. Once detonated, it will spread foam across dozens of tiles, cleaning them of any unwanted reagents. Rubber bullets are no longer unobtainable; this does not affect shotgun ammo, however. Stacked explosives now spread their damage to further distances rather than making a combined, smaller explosion. As well as other great additions such as arcade machines providing cool ambience and voicemasks letting you copy species speech sounds.

Try out the new updates.

To try the beta, from Library, right-click Word, choose properties and then betas ; the updates will be live tomorrow if no issues are reported.

Idle Mode
Relax while playing now, with idle mode.
After 5 seconds of no typing, timer is paused and set back to the time of the last keypress; resume typing to continue. You will see text at the bottom of the play screen to indicate idle mode is active.

WPM Logic
Now, the WPM is calculated every 5 characters (every word) and upon last character / level completion. Previously, WPM was calculated continuously.

Addressing the problems with the Leaderboards
In a future update, I will attempt to introduce logic that will continuously reset leaderboards that are obviously wrong:

• 2,147,483,647
  
• WPM of 543

Thanks for your patience and thanks for playing Word!

He is risen and alive! He is active in our lives. His word will not return void.