What about using this as a type of marketing opportunity?
Hold a competition for the creation of a font to be used for Grim Dawn, toss up news on Kotaku, Ars and Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Winning font gets a copy of the legendary edition and an in game boss or item (cleverly) named after them.
You guys will get a slew of fonts to choose from, it would be great publicity for the game and you could narrow it down to the top 10 entries and then have the community vote on which one to use, essentially doubling exposure for the same event.
And if you don’t get any entries that really bake your biscuit for the main in game font, you could use it as a type face for promotional material etc.
On top of that, it costs you almost nothing to do.
Ohh man have been waiting to have lil peak at the UI and some more items! It’s looking great, especially the Armour detail and general rustic look.
Items definately fit with the theme and atmosphere, theyre exactly the type of things i’d imagine to come by within Cairn. I also notice the particular Armour/Coats that the Character has worn in previous screenshots.
Regarding the Shield, the one equipped looks the same as the Shields being sold… however it’s become a lil… rusty over time? or just different variety?
Items are looking awesome, just the arms/gauntlets seem waay too small but then equipped on the Character they look great!
All in all Crate, you continue to make our wait for Grim Dawn so much more damn hard!..which is a good thing
Nice work so far, but I did have some (several) thoughts:
Fonts have been mentioned, I agree on something victorian, suiting the game style, and recognizable. Being average fails to catch eyes.
The map button at the top-right seems huge to me, and it digs into the compass negatively.
I understand the idea of moving the health and mana bars closer to the action, but I don’t want to see the game look more like a Diablo clone by duplicating that aspect. I like the way the bars look in TQ and GD, and I feel that properly timed ‘red-out’ effects on screen could help tell players when health is dropping quickly in percentage terms.
I do hope most of the item image issues are just the early build status. They definitely need the dimensional depth aspects for armor, the way TQ shows them at angles. Currently it literally feels like paper doll images, the pants and belt worst of all. Gloves look goofily small. Don’t focus on straight, clean, utilitarian angles. I’d develop the items for the 3D character first, using basic placeholders for all items of the same type, not blow any time working up individual placeholders, and use whatever 3D modeler you develop the items in to take screenshots from angles to give them depth (then photoshop or whatever as desired). I loved the way TQ displayed items, and weapons being 2D where it made sense. Just not so perpendicular; it makes it feel sterile in a world that should be far from it.
The resistances and character rotation arrows don’t fit the style. I’d consider removing the arrows possibly, if we can click and drag to rotate as we like.
Maybe having a currency image will help, but I feel like the number location currently falls between the cracks and doesn’t stick out. It took me awhile to even notice it was there at first. Maybe closer to the border to its right would help.
Level number seems more suited to the bottom left for the character head profile. It currently meshes confusingly with the health bars (beginners may say “is that my Lives number”?), and there is more usable room on the bottom left.
I hope there is a way to hide the non-skillbar buttons. With them so divided up, it feels like they take up more room. And personally I always use the keys. (On the key topic, assigning keys by first letter is fine, but developing a good key alignment, like what WASD did for shooters, would REALLY help. I’ve made up one that works great for TQ and Diablo, if you’re interested…)
I suppose that’s a lot of crits. =D So I’ll say, I love how you guys used the inventory and all to cover up the name of the location! Very sneaky. Loving the work, just trying to be constructive. Thanks!
Hold a competition for the creation of a font to be used for Grim Dawn, toss up news on Kotaku, Ars and Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Winning font gets a copy of the legendary edition and an in game boss or item (cleverly) named after them.
I like the idea however I think that there are only few people who know how to create a font. Fonts are pricy for a reason. You have to make graphics for a few hundred symbols. The letters alone are more than 50 (capital and normal) symbols depending on the language this can go up a bit. Scandinavian alphabet, greek alphabet, etc. Add in all the special symbols and you can go up to a few 100 symbols.
This follows my favorite saying “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it”
Glad to see the formula that worked and I love is alive and well.
New look, yay! new loot, YAY! Thanks for the update!
Agreed, the look is too two-dimensional / flat. Might be due to a lack of color, everything is very grayish/brown. This is also true for the windows themselves, I probably would make them stick out a bit more.
Gloves clearly are too small, they should look similar (size wise) to the boots, if this doesn’t work nicely, maybe show just one (as you do for shoulderpads, even though they come in pairs too ).
Belts should be a little smaller, they are wider than their two slots.
just an idea, if you want the items that size, why don’t you leave them to take those slots but then compensate with a somewhat bigger inventory? my compliments to the efforts:D looks gr8:D:D!
As the inventory background looks now, I think rotating stuff right on top of it would make it hard to see anything without emphasising the item a bit. Maybe putting a thin frame around it with a darker background would do the trick; or maybe just the background part. Hard to say without actually seeing something like it in action
Urge to collect epic gear…rising! The tease is too much! Seriously, this looks great. I love the art style - WWI/ Steampunk are some of my favourite influences. Keep up the fantastic work!
Now excuse me while I go grind in Titan Quest.
I must say that it looks a little cheap at the moment, but some changes really feel good. The overall setting and color use is really bland, like GTA4 was grey/brown, but, just like GTA4, it mixes really well with the world.
Looking at the artwork, though: I feel a graphics designer is badly needed (though this could be done best as a last stage of completion), which makes me feel that this game won’t be ready at the end of this year, or early next year. Looking at the Human Resource Crate has… Would be a real shame to see this game go head-to-head with Diablo3 and fail because of the hype surrounding the former…
But, to end on a positive note: Looks good, keep up the good, and keep the good coming
It’s looking great, especially the Armour detail and general rustic look.
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