Secrets of Grindea is an upcoming game that aims to put a modern spin on the beloved SNES era action RPG’s. I discovered it while looking through the list of games that had been Greenlit on Steam. Seeing as many of you CheerfulGhosters like retro-styled games like I do, in addition to sharing my find with all of you I decided to reach out to the developers and see if they were willing to do an interview for us. As it turns out they were happy to oblige!

Whiteboyslim: Could you please introduce us to your team and briefly explain your role in developing Secret of Grindea.

PixelFerrets: Our team consists of three members; Teddy the programmer, Vilya the graphic artist and Fred the animator. Basically Vilya does all the static sprites and user interface, Fred creates enemies, npcs and animates other sprites that need to move, and Teddy puts it all together.

The music is made by Andrew Riley of Lucky Lion Studios, and the sound effects are made by Mariusz Jasionowicz of RareSound Production and Hallvard A. Ulsund of Fark Audio.

Whiteboyslim: Do any of you have a background in game development or is this your first time taking on a project like this?

PixelFerrets: We’ve all studied game development for three years. Teddy released a game called “Dwarfs!?” on Steam a couple of years ago, but that game was nowhere near the scope of Secrets of Grindea!

Whiteboyslim: Congratulations on recently being Greenlit on Steam! How has your experience with Valve been so far?

PixelFerrets: We haven’t talked that much to them since we’re so far from release! What little correspondence there’s been has been nice.

Whiteboyslim: Your website lists the SNES era RPG’s as a driving influence for the game, and Secrets of Grindea has a pretty obvious Secret of Mana / Secret of Evermore vibe to it, but I was was wondering what other games have inspired you guys to make Grindea?

PixelFerrets: Two of our main sources for inspiration have been Ragnarok Online, Zelda: A Link to the Past, games we’ve spend a lot of time playing in our youth.

Whiteboyslim: What is, in your opinion, the best video game related movie ever?

Fred: Anything by Uwe Boll.

Teddy: There’s no good video game movie, but I think Street Fighter II The Animated Movie was okay.

Vilya: I honestly don’t watch a lot of movies (I prefer series!), but if I have to pick one out of the ones I’ve seen I’d say Advent Children, mainly because it felt kind of cool to see the characters rendered so clearly compared to the game art.

Whiteboyslim: Is working on Grindea your day job?

PixelFerrets: Yes and no. We spend just as much time working on Grindea as would be expected of a day job (sometimes more), but that’s obviously not where we get our income. We have some savings, and Fred and Vilya are studying part time to make them last longer.

Whiteboyslim: When you’re not working on Grindea what other games do you like to play?

Teddy: Right now, Battleblock Theater.

Fred: At the moment, Battleblock Theater. With Teddy.

Vilya: I love long epic RPGs. So Baldurs’s Gate I and II, the Elder Scrolls games and classics from the SNES era. I’ve also played a lot of League of Legends, but stopped recently - it takes too much time!

Whiteboyslim: You get on an elevator and suddenly you realize the person standing next to you is J.J. Abrams. You have 30 seconds to tell him what you want to see (or not see) in Star Wars episode VII. What do you say?

Fred: I don’t really care what goes in it so I would probably keep my mouth shut.

Teddy: I want more Jar Jar!

Vilya: I used to be a huge Star Wars fan when I was younger, so I would just tell him I’ll be really disappointed if they disregard the expanded universe and start anew. I’d also say that I expect the Solo kids to be awesome and that we get to meet Mara Jade!

jdodson: Do you anticipate porting your game to Mac and Linux after launch?

PixelFerrets: We’ll definitely look into at after the game has been finished. If we think we can do it within a reasonable timeframe we’ll give it a shot. MonoGame looks good, but we don’t want to make promises we can’t keep!

jdodson: Will you be able to play Secrets of Grindea with a usb controller?

PixelFerrets: For now it’s 360 controllers (X-Input) only, but the goal is to have it support other controllers as well.

Whiteboyslim: Other indie games have seen a lot of success with Kickstarter (like Shovel Knight) or by offering pre-orders (Like Starbound). Did you ever consider going the crowd sourcing route?

PixelFerrets: For now, we have income to keep us alive while working on the game, but as we said earlier, we can’t work full time because of it.

We’ve been thinking about doing a Kickstarter and might go through with one to be able to work full time on the game, but we’re holding off for now since it’s a pretty big undertaking.

Whiteboyslim: Will Grindea use any kind of DRM?

PixelFerrets: No, it would probably cost us more to implement it than we’d gain from having it (likely nothing).

jdodson: When you made it to the final boss in The Secret of Mana I wonder what your thoughts were about the fight and how the game wrapped up?

PixelFerrets: As a kid, the fight with the mana beast was epic to say the least. Going back and playing it today it's not as impressive, mostly from a gameplay perspective. The fight feels really slow and it's pretty easy to grasp to pattern of the boss. I like the setting and the idea, it's too bad the gameplay couldn't keep up. Would be cool to see a remake of it today!

As for the ending, I think it wraps up the entire game pretty spot on. Losing Popoi is still to this day a very emotional gaming moment. Since the entire game pretty much is about companionship and fighting together it really strikes hard when one of the main characters suddenly are gone.

Whiteboyslim: In your trailer for Grindea you say that game abilities have no class restriction. Can you explain a little bit about how the skills work?

PixelFerrets: It means that you don’t select a class in the beginning and stick to it. You can put some points in a one handed weapon skill, and some in a magic spell, and you won’t be punished for it.

Whiteboyslim: I see from your developer blog that in addition to the main storyline there will also be optional puzzles and also a fishing minigame. Are there any other activities to keep us busy in the world of Grindea?

PixelFerrets: There’s an arena with graded challenges, where doing well will give you items. You can also fight against your friends in Versus Mode there. Other than that we have a pet system where you can catch different pets and improve their stats by collecting and feeding them different types of food, as well as plans for a treasure map system. And last but not least: trying to find all the items!

Whiteboyslim: Can you talk a little bit about what kind of character customization you plan to implement?

PixelFerrets: Aside from that you can mix and match any skill combinations, there will be lots of hats, facegear (stuff like glasses, beards, masks) and a bunch of haircuts. You can also change the color on your basic clothing, as well as your gender and skin color!

Whiteboyslim: Thank you for taking the time to answer some of our questions. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

PixelFerrets: Thank you for asking us to do the interview! Hope you enjoy the game when it’s out :)

You can check out more information on the game at http://www.secretsofgrindea.com/.
You can follow Pixelferret on twitter at https://twitter.com/pixelferrets and on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SecretsOfGrindea.

As I posted earlier I recently came across this game and though it looked pretty darn awesome. So awesome, in fact, that I reached out to the developers to see if they would be so kind as to answer a few questions for us in the form of one of our CheerfulGhost interviews. They have agreed and so I wanted to see if you fellow Mirthful Spirits had any questions you'd like me to add to the interview. Post 'em in the comments and I'll pick out the best ones to include with the interview. :)

So I was skimming through some Steam Greenlight games and noticed this game with a serious Secret of Mana / Secret of Evermore vibe was recently greenlit.

This game was nowhere on my radar, but I am glad I stumbled on it by chance 'cause it looks seriously cool. A retro action RPG with on-line co-op? sign me up!

Hello happy haunters!

I wanted to make sure you guys were aware of the special shift code you can redeem for some new skins (meh) and a pretty awesome shotgun (yay!)

http://www.gearboxsoftware.com/community/articles/1005/happy-loverpalooza

Or for the lazy, here's the codes:

PC / Mac Loverpalooza SHiFT Code: W3KJ3-69JR5-9CXT3-JTJJT-WSCK5
Xbox 360 Loverpalooza SHiFT Code: W3W3B-BHX9K-3TSTX-WXJ3J-XCHKH
PlayStation 3 Loverpalooza SHiFT Code: WJCJJ-HCBFB-CCKC3-H3CJT-6FBHW

This seemed like a good time to share these. :)

http://www.2pstart.com/2009/02/11/anti-valentines/

While I don't necessarily hate valentines day I think we can all agree it is deserving of a little fun mocking.

So I have found myself in possession of about 4 extra DotA 2 beta invites. Any one interested?

So sometimes when I'm playing a game I've played and beaten multiple times, I start to come up with "rules" for myself to make the game more interesting. For example, sometimes when I play Final Fantasy tactics, I'll start to ban myself from using certain abilities because they're too powerful, or restrict the gear I'm allowed to use, such as no Knight swords. I've also tried going through Ocarina of Time for as long as possible without a shield just to see how far I could get.

I was wondering if anyone else does that, and if so, what are some of the rules or limitations you put on yourself?

I was curious if any of you fellow Mirthful Specters out there have seen this fan made Castlevania film that just happens to have a couple Star Trek: TNG alums in it. (Michael Dorn and, in later episodes, Marina Sirtis).

I started watching it primarily because I heard Michael Dorn was in it, but the episodes aren't that bad. I'd say they're better than some fantasy shows that have made it to actual television. *cough*Legend of the Seeker*cough*

What are your thoughts?

Over the weekend I got to experience Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood. This year one of the mazes was themed on Silent Hill so I thought I'd share my experiences with you guys. While I unfortunately wasn't able to take any pictures at the event I found the above video on Youtube that takes you through the whole maze.

The video doesn't quite do the maze justice but if you're unable to see this in person, it'll give you a pretty good idea of what it was like. For one thing, the video uses night vision so you don't get a sense of just how dark and creepy the maze really is. In the little hallways between rooms it's especially dark and there are thin strings hanging down from the ceiling that feel like spiderwebs as you're walking through them. It seems like everything in these mazes is meant to mess with your head. I don't know if it's intentional, but the mazes even smell weird (they don't smell bad, just... kind of weird). This was my third year at Halloween Horror nights, and it's quickly become my favorite thing to do during Halloween time.

Enjoy the video and happy Halloween. :)

So we all got access to the Mechromancer early (yay!)

Today it was announced that the next DLC installment will release next week (wha..?)

Here's a link to Joystiq's article on the upcoming DLC, titled Captain Scarlett and her Pirate's Booty:
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/10/11/borderlands-2s-captain-scarlett-dlc-lands-on-october-16/

While I'm happy for more Borderlands, and I definitely am going to buy this* I don't even have 4 gun slots open on any of my characters yet and we're already getting our second dose of DLC. That... seems kind of quick. What are your thoughts on the new DLC?

*Actually I'm just going to spring for the season pass. I know I'm going to buy all the DLC packs anyways.

So last night @jdodson, my brother-in-law and I took the new Mecromancer class for a spin. And wow, is she awesome.

DeathTrap is quite possibly the most helpful special ability in the early levels. At level 9 I ran into a pair of Badasses (one Psycho, one Nomad with a shield) and DT tanked them both without any trouble! His damage so far is pretty impressive too.

As far as the Mechromancer's skills go, I haven't gotten very far into the Little Big Trouble skill tree to comment too much on it. For one, the skills I've gotten so far buff my chance to cause elemental effects, but I've only found a handful of fire weapons. That said, it did seem like the fire SMG I picked up was kicking a little more butt than a green-rarity gun should be doing.

Have any of you guys tried out the Mecromancer yet? Anyone picking up the Ordered Chaos skill tree? I'm very interested in how that plays out.

The Borderlands 2 character skill trees have been posted on the official website. There's even a skill tree calculator you can use. :)

http://www.borderlands2.com/us/#characters

Man, I was already torn between the Soldier and the Gunzerker characters, and now the Assassin and Siren abilities look really cool too!

Sup CheerfulGhosters,

Our Terraria server has been a huge success I think. I've had a lot of fun seeing the houses everyone has built and fighting monsters with you guys. And I dunno about you, but I've ended up with a ton of new loot exploring and mining. :D

There's two things I'd like to run past you guys. First up, while exploring the underworld I found the item necessary to spawn the Wall of Flesh boss character (http://wiki.terrariaonline.com/Wall_of_flesh). We have a little over a week left on our server and I think it would be fun to try and kill this thing and put our world into Hardmode before we're done. However, this is not something I'll do unless it's cool with you guys and if you think we're all ready for Hardmode. Having said that...

I know some of the players on our server are not as well equipped as others. I'd like to help solve that. Both @jdodson and I have the items needed to spawn multiple Eater of Worlds boss characters (http://wiki.terrariaonline.com/Eater_Of_Worlds). He's surprisingly easy, and this would be a good chance for some of our lesser equipped players to get the resources necessary to craft some higher level weapons, armor, and other gear. I'd like to set up a night or two to farm the boss and help you guys get better equipped. :) So let me know in the comments when would be a good time for all of you to meet up and kill us some bosses!

Also, anytime I'm on I'm more than willing to help anyone out with whatever they need. I know looking for loot underground or in the underground jungle is pretty tricky for new characters and I'd be more than happy to come along and help you guys look for life crystals, treasure boxes, or whatever else you want to go looking for. :)

It took longer than two weeks, but it looks like starting in November Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO is going the free-to-play route. According to the article, free players will be able to play through all the class story lines but be limited on what flashpoints (think instances or raids) they can do and have limited access to the auction house.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/175042/After_less_than_a_year_The_Old_Republic_is_going_free_to_play.php

I've gone to the Halloween Horror nights for the past two years, and it is SO MUCH FUN! I was actually going to pass on it this year and try one of the other theme parks, but now that they've announced a Silent Hill themed maze I have to check it out. :D