Hey Everyone,

I hope you had a great summer, it was a busy but rewarding few months here working on GC2, I hoped to bring you more than a blogpost, but maybe next time, which will be 2 weeks from now, as I start posting again every second Monday.

I’ve switched to extended working hours at night to rush towards the finish line, so far so good, it’s great seeing the game getting better and closer to the release day by day. Fixed hundreds of errors (with a more few dozen still on the list and surely many still hiding) and backed out of some development dead ends (throwing out already done work is always painful, but I’m positive the game got better and it was worth making these decisions), there’s still a lot to be done, but sooner or later we’ll get there.

Talking about those dead ends, the secondary XP system turned out to be more confusing and a source of errors than what it could have added to the gameplay, so it was removed entirely. There will be one and only XP you can gain similarly to the previous chapters: if you replay a level and beat your previous highest XP, the difference will be added to your total XP. There is a major change though: if you lose a battle, any achievements and stats you gained will be yours (other loot will be left behind though), and half of the XP you earn during battle will still count, so if you play a previously unvisited field and lose the battle, half of the XP will be yours, which can help you level up and ultimately beat that field.

Battle modes were converted to “Battle traits”, which are options you can pick to make the battle more challenging and rewarding, similarly to how it worked in GCL, but with the traits being more varied. Orblets, which were available in a battle mode before, are also a trait now. You can pick how many orblets you want for your orb (up to 7), each one giving you mana gain bonus, but only as long as they are kept safe. If the monsters pick them up, the bonus is gone unless you manage to get the orblet back, and if the orblet leaves the battlefield, you even get a mana gain penalty, so it’s a risky but interesting decision. Picking traits gives you an XP bonus as well of course, so if you feel confident, you can add and mix traits to get a tough challenge with the hope of a great XP reward.

Ok let’s leave something to write about for the remaining posts… Thank you for the continuing patience through the already more than 2 years in development, I wish I could give you a release date today, I still can’t, but we’re getting near! I hope I can show you the game in motion next time!