Hey everyone, Ash here! Things are coming! This month I’ve got a variety of subjects on our front end visuals, new features and gamemodes, and a couple community events that are coming up, so let’s get into it!
State of the Board, VFX and Emotes
If you were reading this last month then you’ll already know that we’ve paired up with Envar Studio to make a snazzy new board for us to play on! We’re not expecting it to be finished for at least another month or so, but we’re now far enough in development that I can comfortably show you some concept art for the board without being deleted from this timeline.
The images shown are concept art, work in progress images and overall, not final…but it is really cool.
As for Visual Effects, we think it’s really important to have visuals for many aspects of the game. Healing, damage, destroying, bleeding, you name it. All of these visual effects come together to make the game not only more exciting for the average player, but it also can make something complex and unfamiliar easier to follow. It can really be the sauce in a video game, and so I’m happy to share with you our latest progress.
It’s beautiful. No? Okay, not really. At least, not like that. We are working on our VFX though, it’s just not ready to share with you.
What I do have ready to share with you are some emotes! These are a look into how you’ll be able to express yourself in Chrono. They’ve actually been in the Pre-Alpha for a couple weeks now, but we haven’t actually told anyone that. They’ve just been sitting there… alone… unused… waiting for someone to click Alt+1/2/3. Oh well. Here’s a few emotes for your viewing pleasure, please feel free to give us feedback!
Artist Credit to @um_predo
New Features and Gamemodes
These past couple of weeks have been less focused on bug fixes and more on new features for the game. Something that we’re proud to have soon is colloquially known as “Future Sight.” Our game can get pretty intricate which can make it easy for you to forget that some ability is about to trigger, or hard to quickly do math for lethal. So we’ll be adding the ability to visually see what events will take place as soon as you click the Confirm button. We’re not the first game to have a feature like it, but we’re happy we were able to get it to work because it takes a lot of mental strain off of both beginning players and experienced players. I don’t have a visual for you right now while we’re getting it to look nicer and work smoother, but you can expect this to be added to the game soon.
For our Pre-Alpha players, we’ve added some tools to the Solo Testing mode that will allow you to draw specific cards and set your Energy. This will hopefully make it easier for you to recreate states for bug-testing or clear up how an interaction would work. We figured we have these tools on our Dev build, so while shouldn’t you?
Last week we introduced Gauntlet (working title) to our Pre-Alpha players for some testing! A big thank you to all of the players that are helping us figure out what works and what doesn’t in our latest addition to Chrono and I also want to invite players to reach out to us on Discord if you’re interested in joining us. We’re expecting to make some changes soon, but for those of you who haven’t been following, the current way Gauntlet works is as follows:
Gauntlet involves picking 10 sets of cards from a choice of 4 for each pick.
In order, your picks should be this:
-Pick 1: Diver Pick (These are pre-constructed buckets that are made by us that will usually include 1 Agent and 2 Actions that synergize well with them. These don’t actually have to be your Diver when deckbuilding, but they’re a good place to start.)
-Pick 2-3: Synergy Pick (These are sets of random cards only from the Syndicate your Diver Pick was from.)
-Pick 4-8: Random Pick (Random cards. Random Syndicates. It should be impossible to get a set of cards that will allow you to have 4 total Syndicates.)
-Pick 9-10: Filler Pick (You’re more likely to be offered cards that will fill your curve or bring you closer to a 50/50 Action/Agent ratio.)
In this mode, the deck size minimum is 24+2 Divers (26 total) and you are able to have up to 3 syndicates! After a loss, you'll add another pick to your deck. You can then edit your deck again to slim it back down to 24 if you'd like. Play until you have 5 wins, or 2 losses.
With all these new additions, we’re going to shift back towards bugfixing. We’ll continue to work on features, like always, but we had a real heavy focus on them this month.
Upcoming Community Events
Let me just get this out of the way. If you’re not already, follow us on one of our Socials at the bottom of the page (Discord is the best). It’s the easiest way to learn about any of our events and it’ll keep you updated if dates are shifted or cancelled.
With the release of our Draft mode, we really want players to test it out. So while we already do weekly playtests for our NA players, we’re also going to begin hosting EU playtests more often. So if you’re an EU player and you’re already in our Pre-Alpha, we’ll be hosting a Playtest Night this weekend, September 6th. You can find more information on our Discord for a specific time (there is a survey you should take!).
Following that, starting on the week of September 8th, we’ll be hosting another Custom Card Contest for Chrono. It’s got nothing to do with the fact that we’re also developing Set 2 right now! Ahem. This time around there will be a twist. I’ll be providing a variety of Un-Immortalized Agents, with some details missing. Your job will be to fill out those details AND provide the Immortalized form of that agent. Your work will be rewarded though. The winner of this contest will design a new Emote! Got a favorite card you want an emote for? A phrase you want to say every match? A favorite emote from a different game that you also want to see in Chrono? There will be limitations to what you’re allowed to put in the game, of course, but we’ll work with you to create an emote that is yours. Details to come. Join our Discord!
We still host livestreams of our Playtest Nights, and we intend on hosting community tournaments in our Pre-Alpha when we think the game is in a stable enough state, so be sure to follow us on our Socials for what comes next. But for now there’s a hot new Chrono Connections . I was told last month was easy, and that just won’t fly.
Thanks for checking out this month’s Dev Update. We hope that all this new content gets you hyped up for what’s to come because it definitely does for us! We’ll be back next month as always but until then, be sure to give us card ideas for Set 2, come test out Draft, and make sure you’re following our Socials to get in on upcoming events. Thank you!