Grim Misadventures returns! You may not have heard but, for the first time ever, we left the safety of our caves and showed off Grim Dawn at a public event. Almost the entire team was able to make it out to PAX East 2015, where we mingled with fans and with an unthinkable number of people that have never even heard of Grim Dawn (I know, the nerve).
Grim Dawn Banners
It was an exciting (and exhausting) weekend of handshakes, answering questions and revealing secrets (hey, ever hear of Devotion?). Almost everyone that stopped by was blown away by what Grim Dawn had to offer and our mix of ARPG with traditional roleplaying elements resonated with a lot of players.
But many of you did not have a chance to attend the show, so we would like to offer you a little insight into how the weekend went for us here at Crate Entertainment.
The Setup
If you’ve ever attended one of these shows before, you saw massive booths with awesome decorations and a ton of demo machines. What you did not see is just how crazy the place looks a mere 24 hours before the show begins: a veritable jungle of boxes, forklifts and people rushing about to get everything set up in time for the opening day.
We were there as well, in little booth #6169, clicking away on our two demo machines among dozens of other indie companies. Our banners were up in no time, so most of our time was spent getting the preview build up and running and making sure that everything worked as it did back at home. If you were wondering, we prepared a special build for PAX with eight pre-made characters that spawned at fixed locations around the world. We then blocked off those areas so that you could only explore a limited portion of the game. Riftgates were locked and character saving was disabled so that the next visitor would start in the same place.
The Booth, the day before the crowd was unleashed upon the show floor
Fun lesson learned: bring twine the color of your backdrop, or be prepared to spend 30 minutes with a sharpie, painting your white twine black.
Showtime
When the doors to PAX East opened at 10AM on Friday, the showroom floor was instantly transformed.
Spot the devs
The Grim Dawn booth saw regular crowds gathering around our TV, featuring the gameplay from one of the demo machines. Players got to explore the visually updated Wightmire, the dank Undercity and the Aetherial and Dermapteran-infested Rotting Croplands. The truly brave got to face off against the Dermapteran Queen Ravna.
We had our fair share of press as well and some videos/articles have already started popping up on the interwebs.
How Devoted are you?
Yup, we finally spilled. Devotion really exists. After months of teasers and hints, we are ready to talk about the final layer of Grim Dawn’s character customization.
While the system is still being actively developed by our programmers, the core design is in place. Devotion will feature a brand new UI filled with constellations depicting various Grim Dawn deities and symbols. To unlock these constellations, you will need to travel throughout Cairn and restore shrines dedicated to these celestial symbols. Sometimes, a shrine will require repair using various rare materials. Other times, you will have to cleanse a shrine of corruption by defeating whatever dark spawn inhabits it.
Whenever you claim a shrine, you will earn a Devotion point, which you can then spend in the Devotion Window. This earns you additional attributes and bonuses. However, some constellations feature what we are calling secondary skills. These skills are not applied to your skill bar in the usual sense. Instead, you will apply them to your mastery skills and they will trigger additional effects whenever you use the assigned skill.
As an example, imagine that whenever you trigger Cadence, you will also have a chance to auto-cast a meteor to fall upon your enemies. Or whenever you block with Overguard active you will also gain a short buff that increases your damage. We are working on all sorts of awesome secondary effects, but how you use them will be entirely up to you.
We are eager to share more about this exciting feature, but first we have to finish it! You can look forward to Devotion this summer.
The Six of Eight
From left to right: Westfaliah (programmer), Allminoxy (artist), Zantai (designer), Medierra (designer), Kinree (programmer), Tumbledown (animator)
Not shown: Rhis (programmer), Gonzo (artist)
We were both humbled and exhilarated by the energy the crowd had brought to our booth. It was great to meet some of our fans and thrilling to make some new ones. So, from everyone here at Crate Entertainment, we would like to thank you for your support. The game has come so far over the last few years and we are nearing the finish line. 2015 will be the year of Grim Dawn!
Like knowing what is coming up next for Grim Dawn? Check back on 03/30/2015 for our regular development updates!
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