galdra-studios

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

Summer is here and after a slow previous month due to some pesky colds, this month has lots of exciting news we’d like to share. So grab some ice cream and let's get started!^^

We are incredibly thrilled to be part of Humble Bundle’s annual LGBTQ bundle! It’s such an impressive lineup of games, and the money will be donated to the Trevor Project, who does amazing work supporting struggling LGBTQ youth. The bundle is live TODAY, so check it out here!

Next up in exciting news… Our demo is ready for the Kickstarter! It’s been a ton of hard work, but after much bug fixing and adjusting graphics, it’s now fully playable. It’s a really great feeling when you see all the separate parts of development coming together like this, and we’re so stoked to finally show you what Arcadia Fallen II will be all about. Which brings us to the matter of the Kickstarter release date!

Mark your calendars and get ready for the launch of the Arcadia Fallen II Kickstarter! There’ll be merch, there’ll be a demo, and we´re even bringing back the Community Stretch Goals! 

We hope it’ll be a great time for everyone!

Click here to sign up for the Kickstarter pre-launch to get an email when the campaign goes live!

This month Puk is the model for our header image, and they are accompanied by some jazzy tunes you’ll also be able to hear in the Kickstarter demo! Enjoy~

Thank you so much for following our journey! And we’ll see you in just a few days for the Kickstarter campaign! ^^ 

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

#arcadia fallen #visual novel #kickstarter #indiegame #vndev #vn development #indiedev #galdra studios

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

Here’s our slightly delayed Devlog due to a very unfortunately timed cold making its way through the office. We’re trying our best to get back on track, but that’s just how things pan out sometimes^^0

We produced our first playable build this month, right before we all got sick xD It has all the graphics and choices working, but it still needs to get hooked up with a couple of key features like the map and the character creator, but we’re getting there!

A final character reveal from the demo whom you’ve already seen on the cover art is Ragnar. Who is he? What’s his story? And how much programming did Daniel have to do to make him fit on the player character’s shoulder like this?! Stay tuned for answers when the Kickstarter finally launches.

Another month means another header image speed paint accompanied by Jesper’s music. Enjoy!

Part of getting ready for the Kickstarter is preparing designs for merchandise. These chibies will be used for charms and a sticker sheet. We hope you find them as cute as we do!

That’s about it for this month, so once again we’ll just leave the pre-launch page for the Kickstarter here. We’ve made it to 245 followers!

Thank you so much for following our journey! And we’ll see you in June for another DevLog!

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

#arcadia fallen #visual novel #kickstarter #indiegame #vndev #vn development #indiedev #galdra studios

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

Spring is here! Which of course in Denmark means it's time for the last annual snow storm ahah! Our poor flowers... Hopefully they will get the sunshine they deserve soon.

With a Kickstarter campaign looming on the horizon, most of our efforts right now are focused on putting together a great demo for everyone to enjoy. We've been working on the game for a while now and created a lot of content, but it’s when you connect all that content together to make something playable that the struggle truly begins xD 

Here’s a little game development fun fact: There’s a saying when you make games, that making the last 20% of a game takes as much time as the first 80%, which is why you end up cutting 10% ^^0 We’re still only making a demo, so the things we cut now might still make it into the final version. 

However, since we’ve already done this once before, we’re a lot more conscious about rating tasks as essentials and nice-to haves in case we don’t have time to finish everything. For example, a pretty CG image showing a scene can-be temporarily replaced with descriptive text and the story will still make sense, but a character needs to have at least one sprite, otherwise it will just be empty air talking - not ideal ^^

One of the most time-consuming art tasks we have is creating the player character sprites. As the player’s representation in the world, they are basically on-screen in every scene, and therefore need to be of the highest quality. 

For the original Arcadia Fallen, we ended up redrawing the female body type three times to make it perfect, but that was also because my art skills improved while we were working^^0 This month, I’ve drawn expressions for the androgynous body type and I fear I might repeat the same pattern again, because I still think I can improve them. That will have to wait until after the Kickstarter though. 

For now, the sprites are in the game, which is a good milestone to be at. I’m not sure we’ll have all three body types ready for the demo, as there are other tasks that have higher priority, but the plan is to have the same three body types with two hairstyles that we had in the first game by the time we’re ready for launch!^^

Another cool thing we worked on this month is the player’s dorm room. Josefine did a wonderful job designing a room that changes depending on who you choose as a roommate. Can you guess which one is Soren’s and which is Nina’s? :P

Jesper is in full swing composing music for the demo, so here’s a sample with this month's header image speed paint!

That’s about it for this month, so we’ll just leave the pre-launch page for our Kickstarter here if you still haven’t seen it. We’re almost at 200 followers!^^

Thank you so much for following our journey! And we’ll see you in May for another DevLog!

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

#arcadia fallen #visual novel #kickstarter #indiegame #vndev #vn development #indiedev #galdra studios

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

February might be the shortest month of the year, but we sure managed to fill it with plenty of things, including a bit of a break after hitting a certain Steam Page milestone. Let’s get into it!

The Arcadia Fallen II Steam page is live! We’ve been working hard to get it all set up with cool new screenshots. We’re still quite some way from release (we’ve got a whole Kickstarter planned after all!), but having a Steam page is super helpful because we can now partake in Steam events. It’s a great way for a small studio like ours to find new players; and if they like what they see, they can wishlist and get an email when the game is ready. A win-win for everyone!^^

Speaking of Steam events! We’re part of the Woman’s Day Sale on Steam! It’s arranged by the brilliant people over at WINGS, who do an amazing job funding teams led by women and gender marginalized folks. With how tough the industry is at the moment, the work they do is invaluable, so be sure to check out the events, talks and sweet deals, and help support the cause!

Prep work for our next Kickstarter continues. We’ve done this twice now, so we’ve had some practice, but it’s always kinda surprising just how much work goes into planning, writing and designing graphics. Marketing is tough! So it’s a great motivator to see that more than a hundred people have already signed up on the pre-launch page.

If you haven’t gotten around to it yet, hit the ‘Notify on launch’ button on the Kickstarter page to be the first to know when our campaign goes live. Thank you so much for your support; we’ll work hard to make sure the campaign will be a party! ❤

Speaking of Kickstarter! We’re very happy to announce that we’ll have an extra pair of hands working to get the demo sparkly and ready for the campaign! Linnea is a combined programmer and producer who used to work with the good folks at Triple Topping. We’re so excited to have them join the team to help Daniel out with coding and help us all keep track of the different projects we’re working on. Welcome, Linnea!

To round up this month's devlog, here's a time-lapse of this month's header image, accompanied by a cute little jingle Jesper whipped up! ^^

Thank you so much for following our journey! And we’ll see you in April for another DevLog!

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

#arcadia fallen #visual novel #kickstarter #indiegame #vndev #vn development #indiedev #galdra studios

[galdra-studios]

Hi Everyone!

Today we are launching the Arcadia Fallen II Steam page! You can go wishlist the game and see all the pretty new screenshots^^

Cheers~

- The Galdra Team

#arcadia fallen #visual novel #indiedev #vndev #vn development #indiegame #galdra studios

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

The new year is in full swing, and there’s so much to do that it’s quite easy to get turned around. Luckily, we have one great beacon we are working towards to help set our course, and that’s the Arcadia Fallen II Kickstarter!

Our pre-launch page for the Arcadia Fallen II Kickstarter is now live. The campaign is still some ways off, however. We haven’t decided on the final launch date yet, but are aiming for sometime this summer. You can sign up to get an email when we do launch, to stop you missing out!^^

Something we’ve been working on this month has been to update our old shading tool for sprites. It’s a tool that uses image processing to color certain areas of a character depending on the light in the scene. It’s great for dynamic, dramatic lighting.

The Seven Winds Academy has a great staff of teachers. One of them is the enigmatic Professor Hyben of the Nature class. He’ll always try his best to push his students to think outside the box. A character trait which, like his singing voice, isn’t always appreciated…

Thank you so much for following our journey! And we’ll see you in March for another DevLog!

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

#arcadia fallen #visual novel #kickstarter #indiedev #vndev #vn development #indiegame #galdra studios

[galdra-studios]

Happy New Year everyone! 

2023 has come to its closure and now that we are all stuffed with marzipan and the roar of fireworks has quieted, it’s a great time to take a moment to look back at the things we’ve worked on this year. 

We ran our Mime Plushie Kickstarter and thanks to everyone’s help there’s now soft squishy Mimes all across the world! We also released Arcadia Fallen for PlayStation and Xbox. We did all the porting ourselves, which was pretty grand. Then we were part of the #DKGAMES exhibition in Copenhagen, and shortly after we could open our webshop so now people can buy Arcadia Fallen merchandise all year round! And while doing all of this and more, we kept steadily working on Arcadia Fallen II.

Our goal at the start of the year was to get a vertical slice ready, and we did that… mostly xD It still has a few unpolished parts but we are very proud of what we have accomplished, and we’re very excited about where this will take us in the new year.

So what’s this new year gonna bring? We have a couple of exciting things planned, first of all, an Arcadia Fallen II Kickstarter!

Just like with the first game, we’d like to have as much great voice acting in the game as possible, and Kickstarter will be a way for us to raise money to do just that.

To launch a Kickstarter we’ll need to have a demo ready, though! So that’s also a goal this year, to give everyone a chance to step into the Seven Winds Academy and meet our newest group of heroes. We hope you will be looking forward to it as much as we're look forward to sharing it!^^

One of the final things we managed to get done in 2023 was to illustrate this key art of the academy gang, greeting the dawn of a new year. As a final treat of this Devlog, please enjoy a timelapse of the process, with a sneak peak of some new music Jesper has been tinkering with ^^~

Thank you so much for following our journey! And we’ll see you in February for another DevLog!

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

#arcadia fallen #indiedev #visual novel #vndev #vn development #indiegame #art #galdra studios

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

December is here and, as the first snow blankets the streets outside, we settle down with candles and cocoa to fend off the cold.

This month we celebrated Arcadia Fallen’s second anniversary. It’s crazy to think it’s already been two years since we were sitting in our office pressing that scary Steam release button hah! But it’s also been two fantastic years working and growing as a team, no small thanks to all you lovely people supporting us. We’re very grateful we get to do this work for a living, and we’re excited and proud to use this opportunity to make Arcadia Fallen II the best possible game it can be!^^

This month we’ve been toying around with designs for the new adventure’s player character. Since the scenario is set in late Fall/Winter, the theme of the day is sweater weather! We’ve had a lot of fun trying to design three body types that are distinct from each other, but who still have a few shared details between them.

The time lapse of this month’s header art! Some cozy lighting for a cozy season^^

In Denmark, Christmas basically starts December first, so come the end of November it’s time to start decorating! I therefore rolled up my sleeves and inhaled a whole bag of cookies before setting to work putting up garlands and braided hearts in the office. I was very proud of myself once the last trinket had been fastened in the window. 

And then it began to snow. It was a stupidly magical moment for a good five minutes, until I discovered the tape I’d been using to fasten the decorations wasn’t strong enough. My decorations came tumbling down and now I had to wade through snow to go to the store and buy stronger tape. But hey, I still had the cookies, so it turned out alright^^0

Thank you so much for following our journey! And we’ll see you in January for another DevLog!

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

#arcadia fallen #indiedev #visual novel #vndev #vn development #indiegame #art #galdra studios

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

The spooky season is here, which is the perfect time to work on our designs for some more villainous characters heh heh!

This month, we bring you some art for Catherine and Julian, another student duo you’ll meet at the Academy, although you don’t run in the same “social circles” so to say. Even though the Seven Winds is meant to be a place for equal learning, some still place a lot of value on lineage. Will you be the one to breach their inner circle? And will it be with tricks or treats in mind?

We made another time lapse of this month’s header art, and this time it’s accompanied by some new music Jesper has been tinkering with~

This coming month Arcadia Fallen will be a part of the Adventure X sale on Steam. So if you, or a friend, needs a cozy adventure for Fall, then here’s your chance!

We have a window in the office that is home to a small collection of house plants. This year I bought a tomato plant, and it actually survived long enough to yield some fruits! However, Fall is a cruel season. Last week, when I opened the window to air the room for a bit, the cold immediately made the poor thing shrivel up and die. Rest in Peace Mr. Tomato.

Thank you so much for following our journey! And we’ll see you in December for another DevLog!

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

#arcadia fallen #indiedev #visual novel #vndev #vn development #indiegame #art #galdra studios

[galdra-studios]

October is here! Time to pull out your sweaters, scented candles and spiced coffee, as we settle in for maximum Fall coziness!… Right after we’re done addressing the big corporate elephant who’s wandered into the room ^^0

Last month, Unity made a startling decision that had us scrambling for a few days.

Unity is the game engine we use for Arcadia Fallen. It’s a popular tool that’s used by many indie developers, and it used to run on a monthly subscription model. But this month they suddenly announced they would change their monetization to instead charge a set fee every time a game runs their installer; more specifically, they wanted 20 cents every time someone installed a game. This sparked quite the stir online, from developers, gamers, and influencers. It was actually quite refreshing to see the industry unified for once, though the circumstances were very…urg.  Eventually, Unity reconsidered these changes and came up with something more reasonable, but we still felt uneasy. Daniel’s been reading through the fine print, and we’re not comfortable with the terms Unity proposes going forward. The difference is, they used to only charge a subscription fee for developing Unity games, but now they have added an implicit fee for distributing Unity games, which they can change at a whim and the change would also affect previously released games under the new terms. When they decide to crank up the fee, there’s no telling how it might affect a small studio like us, which is scary.

So what does this mean for us?

We’re going to continue developing Arcadia Fallen II in Unity, because we’re still on the old terms for the project, but any future projects will likely be moved to another engine. It sucks, because we’ve been developing a lot of really cool tools for our dialogue system that will now have to be remade, but we can’t risk our livelihood and the future of the studio on the whim of unpredictable tech giants. Speaking of which!

We’re on Bluesky now as well!^^ If there’s one thing we’ve learned this month, it's that you should never become dependent on one mega corporation, so we’re trying to spread out a little. We’ll still be posting on Twitter, since Bluesky isn’t very accessible yet with their invite-only system, but hopefully it will be a good alternative to those who have left the old bird app.

Writing is progressing smoothly. Lots of editing of the early chapters is being done at the moment to polish that section. Meanwhile, Hannah’s new sprite is looking super cute. The Illusionist prefect is ready to take on her exams with determination, coffee, and sleepless nights… Wait what?

As a bonus this month, we also have a short time lapse of this month’s header art, enjoy~

Thank you so much for following our journey! And we’ll see you in November for another DevLog!

Cheers!

The Galdra Team

#arcadia fallen #indiedev #visual novel #vndev #vn development #indiegame #galdra studios #art

[galdra-studios]

does the af1 gang have canon heights? mostly asking for art purposes

We once made this chart for the companions and it comes with the note that Mime's height is 154cm ^^

Hope this is useful!

- Cheers~

#ask #answer

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone

Summer is coming to a close and in our office we are spending the last sunny days slowly but steadily making progress on the next Arcadia Fallen game.

We've been doing a lot of editing work on the script this month, which is one of those things that are a little hard to show, but on the graphical side of things—!

Elias got his first sprite polished this month! We’ve been changing his design quite a few times but finally decided on this look. The initial pitch was something along the lines of: “A medical student who wears alt fashion.” Can you still see it?

In case you missed it last month. We’ve opened up an online store where you can buy merchandise for Arcadia Fallen. There’s stickers and enamel pins, and the incredible fabulous Mime plushie who makes for an amazing desk buddy^^ 

Usually all of our work is digital so it’s been very satisfying fulfilling orders putting physical items in a box and sending it off. It adds to the joy when kind souls take pictures of their plushie's new home and share them with us, so thank you very much for that!

The apartment across our street has acquired a new owner. A big golden forest cat who’s made his home in the windowsill. Every day he naps in the spot that’s right in line of sight for my work desk, as if to taunt us puny humans, who can’t spend our days sleeping. When he isn't snoozing he’s keenly observing the streets; a lion on the prowl clearly, and sometimes he stares at me with the grave judgment only cats possess.

“Shouldn’t you get back to writing?” it feels like he says. I think I’ve gotten a strict new boss xD

Thank you so much for following our journey! And we’ll see you in October for another DevLog!

Cheers!

-The Galdra Team

#arcadia fallen #indiedev #visual novel #vndev #vn development #indiegame #galdra studios

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

As the rainy summer season cools down our overheated office, July was a month spent chilling out after the mad rush of mailing out all the Kickstarter rewards. Family has been visited and ice cream eaten and we’re now ready and energized for a new month that starts with a really fun event! The opening of our online store!

With the Kickstarter coming to a close, we’ve worked hard to open up an Online Store! Here, those who didn’t have the opportunity to back the campaign, can buy some of the merchandise, including the adorable Mime plushie! Daniel had a lot of fun setting up the site so it looks fresh and sparkly so we hope you’ll give it a look. There’s even an opening celebration discount on the plushie!^^

As mentioned above, all the rewards from the Mime Kickstarter have been shipped and it has been such a joy watching people post pictures of the packages arriving and Mime getting wonderful new homes. This marks the conclusion of our second Kickstarter! We’ll of course still be around to help if there’s issues with shipping for anyone, but we’re super proud of ourselves for making it, and grateful to everyone who’s supported us!

This month we also had the absolute joy of managing to gather the whole Galdra Team together for the first time ever! We’re all working remotely (some very remotely xD) so the logistics of a physical meet-up has just never quite worked out. But this time, the stars aligned, so here’s a selfie with us all eating cake!

Since we’ve had our hands full with Kickstarter shipping and the opening of the shop the work on Arcadia Fallen 2 has been mainly writing and editing of the script which, as always, is a little difficult to show, but things are progressing well. We learned so much from working on the first game, it’s very satisfying getting to use that experience. It makes us look forward to seeing what we’ll have learned at the end of this production^^

Thank you so much for following our journey! And we’ll see you in September for another DevLog!

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

#arcadia fallen #kickstarter #plushie #Indiegame #indiedev #visual novel #vndev #vn development #Galdra Studios

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

A new month is here and our office fan is working overtime trying to keep us cool as we get to work packaging Kickstarter orders!

The Mime plushies are finally here! They have been through quite the journey but at last they are home and we’ve gone straight to work getting them shipped to Kickstarter Backers. If you wanna see some chill videos of us packing orders, we’re sharing the process on TikTok.

The Steam summer sale is back and Arcadia Fallen is on sale at 40% off! So if you have a friend who you think might wanna give it a try, now’s the time to give them a heads up^^

Something a bit different but really cool! The Royal Danish Library has a collection of the games made here in Denmark, and last week they put on an exhibit showcasing a myriad of games that have been made over time. From the very first and experimental, to big AAA successes like Hitman, and then also tiny indie games like Arcadia Fallen!

So yeah, our game is in a museum, how freaking cool is that?! xD The exhibit runs until January next year, so if you’re in Copenhagen then go give it a look!

This month has been a lot of writing and rewriting which is always a bit hard to show, but we did also manage to finish up Soren and Nina’s final sprites. Do you know who you’d like as your roommate?

Thank you so much for following our journey! And we’ll see you in August for another DevLog!

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

#arcadia fallen #kickstarter #plushie #indiedev #visual novel #vndev #vn development #Galdra Studios

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

June is here! Time sure flies by fast; we're almost halfway through the year! But that also means strawberry season is in sight, so that’s not too bad at all^^

Lots of progress this month on the Kickstarter rewards! We’ve got the enamel pins and postcards home, and the Mime plushies have finished production and are being shipped to us right now! We also bought all the boxes and shipping materials needed, so as soon as she gets through our door, we’re ready to start packing your orders.

This means we’re now going to be sending out reminders for people to update their addresses on Kickstarter and make sure everything is correct! You’ll have 14 days to do so! 

That’s the practicalities out of the way. Now, let’s show you some photos of the enamel pins, because they turned out so great we’re over the moon! 

The stickers and postcards are also looking great!^^

This month’s sneak peek is the sprite of the notorious Professor Tornkvist. She’s in charge of the Mender class, but also teaches the elective course Magic Cyphers, a class only taken on by the brave or the foolish. Which one will you be?

Thank you so much for following our journey! And we’ll see you in July for another DevLog!

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

#arcadia fallen #indiedev #visual novel #vndev #vn development #Galdra Studios #enamel pins

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

May is here and the anemone flowers are finally blooming as production on Arcadia Fallen 2 continues at a steady pace.

There’s not much to report this month while production continues on the plushie and enamel pins. We’ve written the messages for the Food Postcards and are now ready to order them, so hopefully we’ll be able to share them soon. Until then here’s a picture of Mime enjoying the blooming anemone flowers^^

This month we’ll be taking part in LudoNarraCon on Steam from May 4 - 8. Arcadia Fallen will be on sale, and we encourage everyone to go check out the talks and other events. We’re not gonna be making any big reveals ourselves, but there’s a lot of other games that might!

More sprites! This month we’ve been working on sprites for Puk the Tinker Mage. They have a very expressive personality, so their poses were a lot of fun to draw!

For those curious, Puk is a fan of sour apple candy, the stuff that makes your face wrinkle up as soon as you taste it.

Thank you so much for following our journey! And we’ll see you in June for another DevLog!

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team~

#arcadia fallen #indiedev #visual novel #vndev #vn development #Galdra Studios

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

April is here with spring flowers blooming, birds nesting and the third annual snowstorm rolling in because the weather in Denmark is weird like that. We’re having a cozy time in our office, dusting off the leftover glitter from an awesome Kickstarter Campaign.

Let’s talk about what we’ve been up to!

The Mime Plushie Kickstarter was a great success and we ended up 141% funded! Now after we’ve had a moment to breathe, surveys have been answered and Kickstarter has processed payments, we have ordered the plushies and are looking forward to getting them and all the other cool merch home!

A fun extra thing to share with you is the design for the tag that’s gonna be attached to the plushie. We think it turned out really cute!

We also got the first progress pictures from our pin manufacturer. The Kaidan glow in the dark effect is turning out really great. We also added a stamp of the back of the pin, to show that this batch is the first print. We are sure those of you who are into collectibles will appreciate this little detail.

As we’ve mentioned in previous blogs, we’re working towards getting a vertical slice of Arcadia Fallen 2 ready. In game dev lingo, that basically means finishing up a short slice of what could be the final game, so you can show what it will be like before everything else is ready. Therefore we’ve been hard at work slowly swapping out quick doodle placeholder art with the real deal. Here’s Kim and some of his new expressions!

It’s very nostalgic to look back at those very first sprites we made years ago. We’ve improved a lot as a team, and while visuals are just very easy to gauge, we promise the code has had just as big of a glow-upˆˆ

Thank you so much for following our journey! And we’ll see you in May for another DevLog!

Cheers

- The Galdra Team

#arcadia fallen #indiedev #visual novel #vndev #vn development #Galdra Studios