PAX East!
over 8 years ago – Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 10:41:30 PM

Hey Battle Chefs! We spent April preparing for and then serving a big helping of fully-colored BCB at PAX East.

 We had an excellent corner spot (thanks @IndieMegabooth!), which really helped our rented TV stand draw in the crowds. We also sold the extra T-Shirts, Aprons, and Posters - which everyone loved.

Despite our utter exhaustion, it was a great show. We met a ton of great indies, players (including backers!), and streamers. In fact, we shared the PAX demo with some of the more cooking-minded folks and they've already put up hilarious playthroughs. Click 'em to watch 'em!

A few other outlets stopped by, including PCGamer, resulting in this ridiculous interview where my true height is revealed :D

I also had a little time to work on Thrash this week. His style is completely different from Mina, which I love! Check out the prototype version of his Consume spell in the unfinished Caverns biome:

Phew, there you have it, Battle Chefs! Catch you next month :)

P.S. We went to a cheap (but delicious) sushi place in Boston's Chinatown where they serve on tiny styrofoam plates. Eric drew on one in the hopes that it would be added to the walls with hundreds of others:

Set Art to Max Power
over 8 years ago – Fri, Apr 01, 2016 at 12:26:47 AM

Hey Battle Chefs! Extra-fresh update this month, chock-full of those tastes you crave!

PAX East

We'll be at PAX East in the Indie MEGABOOTH! Please come play the latest build and tell us what to improve :D There are a ton of great games to play alongside BCB!

We'll also have posters, aprons, and t-shirts available for those who missed them during the Kickstarter.

GDC

In the middle of March, we journeyed to San Francisco for the annual Game Developers Conference. We did so much business and hand-shaking that I (Tom) ended up sick for a week afterwards. The important part is that we had a bunch of meetings that will result in some awesome surprises for you :)

GDC was also a great excuse to polish up a lot of art, including lots of background coloring! Here's Mina in shock at how good the town now looks.

UI

Benn Marion has been sending over gorgeous mockups of the judging sequence. Check out this screen! To make it even better, it's already in the game thanks to Chris Wade.

Color Sheep

Did you know that Trinket's first game was only in development for two months? That meant we left quite a few things on the cutting-room floor. We recently did a weekend game jam to add a few of those features back in. If you haven't played Color Sheep, there's not a better time to give Sir Woolson a whirl!

 Check it out here :)

Looking for Artists

After doing another round of project planning and estimates, we decided that we need another super-skilled 2D artist. Here's the tweet we sent out. We've got over 100 portfolios to review already, but if you are or know someone who can rock BCB's style, please email us!

Thrashing

Thrash is officially in the pipeline now! Most of his key poses have been sent over to Ben Li for animating and we've begun testing combat. Look for a lot more of Thrash in the coming weeks on Twitter.

That's all for this week, Battle Chefs! See you at PAX, Indy PopCon, and just maybe an upcoming beta...

Colorful February!
over 8 years ago – Mon, Feb 29, 2016 at 06:28:11 PM

Hey Battle Chefs! Time for this month's delicious platter of visual delights! We've got toasty Caverns progress, colorful Skylands monsters, and key poses for Thrash!

Schedule

First up, however, is a schedule note. As our updates have indicated, BCB will not be releasing in April. That estimate was for our original, tiny version of BCB. You helped us reach for a much juicier version of BCB, for which we are very thankful!

Our 2016 convention schedule looks like this:

• March: GDC
• April: PAX East and Greenlight
• June: Indy PopCon

Those showings provide great milestones for us to test and finalize game and visual designs. We'll be able to make estimates about the beta and launch dates on the other side of convention season. Hope to see as many of you as possible at PAX East!

Thrash readies for battle!

Eric has started on keyframes for Thrash and they are looking great. Looking forward to revealing Thrash's moveset and special ability in a future update :)

Caverns prototyping

There's a ton to be done in the Caverns - it's packed with Backer-designed monsters, lava, and secret rooms!

 You can see a bunch more of my horrible programmer art monsters, as well as all the beautiful art that replaces it, right here: @BattleChefGame!

 Skylands Monsters in Technicolor

Indie G Zine

Since you're a fan of beautiful indie game art, you probably already know about the Indie G Zine that's got a couple days left on Kickstarter. BCB is one of the featured games, so go check it!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/corintio/indie-g-zine-indie-g-bible

That's all for now, Battle Chefs! Have a great day :)

Delicious Combat
almost 9 years ago – Fri, Jan 29, 2016 at 08:34:14 PM

Hello Battle Chefs! Feels like it's been forever since I skipped out on the December update :) That just means we have so much to share!

Also, Happy New Year!

Aprons and T-Shirts and Posters, oh my!

The first set of physical rewards were sent out at the start of January. There have been lots of excellent tweets from you wearing them :) If you pledged for the T-Shirt+Poster and/or Apron rewards and have not received them, please email me at [email protected] as soon as possible!

We're super proud of the quality of the rewards - we spent a lot of time feeling t-shirts and reviewing proofs. We hope you're all loving them!

Combat

We did a full pass on combat this month, including new animations, better hit reactions, chunky animation pauses on hits, and input queuing! As a reminder, you can see mini-updates all the time if you follow @BattleChefGame on Twitter!

Backstab Teleport

Dodge

Hit box testing (upgraded the system a bit)

Uppercut (in slo-mo so you can more easily see the hit pauses)

New ground combo (hits short monsters much better than the old one, also in slo-mo)

Dialogue poses and story

The story structure and town have taken a big leap forward. Now, Eric can draw poses for the characters to use when talking to the player. Here are a few of them! They really help bring Brigade Town and the characters to life.

We highly recommend following @TrinketEric on Twitter - there's a ton more great stuff there, including Summons sketches!

Skyland

Thew has been hard at work finalizing the Skyland composition. It's looking gorgeous! I'm thinking of doing a video capture of it soon so that you can see how beautiful the parallax layers are.

Phew, that's a lot! I skipped over UI but I'll show that off in a future update. Have a great February, Battle Chefs!

Post-Turkey Update
almost 9 years ago – Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 07:00:50 PM

Hey Battle Chefs! For those Americans, we hope you had a great Thanksgiving! While we weren't eating, a lot got done in November, so let's show it off!

Skyland roughs

The amazing Thew has begun rehabbing the Skyland. While the layout is still in flux, we're getting a feel for the floating island sizes, background parallax, and upside down trees.

 Ziggy like you never imagined

I know that during the campaign you were all wondering "Sure, Ziggy looks great in concept art, but how will he really look in-game?"

Well, I guess we haven't really answered the question yet ;) This is Ziggy is his roughest-possible form: drawn by Tom! I traced over Mina so that we could start prototyping Ziggy's moveset but he was too funny not to share!

Campaign Areas

Eric sketched up a few more of the smaller areas you'll be visiting during your adventure.

Character concepts

Eric also started expanding the cast of competitors. Here's my favorite:

Ability Upgrades

On the path towards a proper progression ramp for the campaign, Ben started on the ability upgrade system. Check out the first two he experimented with: Triple Dagger and Dash Speed Boost!

T-Shirts and Aprons

The physical rewards are so close to being printed! After some shirt size and fabric issues, we gave the greenlight to print them. I'll lockdown your addresses once and for all once they're ready to ship!

That's all for this month, Battle Chefs! Have a great December - I might slip a quick update in before the holidays, but if I don't, see you all in 2016!