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.

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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.



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