galdra-studios

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

It’s been another busy month in our new office. Things have finally settled down a little and we’ve got a steady internet connection again, yay! Moving further out into the countryside has given us easier access to nature, and a lot of our breaks are now spent outside looking at flowers. 11/10, it’s a great energy boost!^^ So let’s take a look at what we’ve been working on…

The female body type now has sprites! There’s still some work left on implementing everything in the character creator, but we hope you can appreciate her floofy hair and cute scarf. Ragnar sure does!

This month, Daniel implemented a search mechanic for the game. Now, when there’s an opportunity to snoop around say, a professor’s office, you can click the background to investigate! What secrets might you find?

Soren listens to a lot of cool music, and Jesper is having a lot of fun adding lively numbers to his collection. Listen to this month’s track here with the timelapse of the June header image.

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

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

It’s been a busy month with settling into a new office, and figuring out how to work when half the equipment is in boxes and the internet isn’t working. Thankfully the weather is nice, so grab an ice cream and let’s see what we’ve been working on^^

The lovely people over at Valiant Studio have released their game Kreaturekind and we’ve joined a bundle with them on Steam! 

Debate monsters, recruit friends, and start a movement! In this wholesome and approachable card battler/deck builder, you use the debate skills in your card decks to convince opponents to join your cause. Balance your team and your decks carefully - or you won't be able to save magic!

If cozy deckbuilding in a world where you talk your way to solutions sounds good to you, you can find the bundle here.

This month we’ve been working on CGs, which are all very spoilery. In general we’re moving into the part of production where it becomes a bit difficult to share progress pictures because everything is spoilers xD However, we do have one new location to share. The Entrance Hall of the Academy. Just how many stories can these ancient walls tell? Mostly gossip, but those are the fun stories, right?

Jesper is busy at work putting in sound effects in the scene but he's also fiddling with music. Here's a new piece together with the time lapse of this month's header image.

We’ve set up our new office and it’s turned out so cozy!

Bonus picture of a cat that likes to visit and our new Mr. Tomato jr.

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

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

Happy April! This month, we’ve had the pleasure of having Lilybelle interning with us, and she drew this month’s header image of Hannah. Doesn’t she look enchanting? ^^ March was a busy month and April is shaping up to be even busier, so let’s get onto the news!

Today we’re adding Arcadia Fallen II emotes to our Discord! And, due to popular demand, everyone’s favorite flower mage Quinn now has one too! Thank you Lilybelle again for helping us get the server looking sharp for Spring, and we hope you’ll all enjoy using them!^^

Our little home office was starting to be rather cramped. A small army of Mime plushies will do that xD So, after much deliberation, we’re finally moving into a bigger space. We’ll share pictures of our new office once we get everything settled. Wish us luck heaving our heavy desks down the stairs! x,D

This month, Elias got a few new sprites and we also drew the background for the Mender Ward where you might find him helping accident-prone students get patched up.

One aspect of game development you might be less familiar with is how we approach showcase season. We want as many people as possible to hear about Arcadia Fallen II, and online showcases are a great way to reach our future players.

Showcase season is coming up, but a few months in advance we busy ourselves writing applications and preparing trailers. We're right in the middle of that process now, and we'll let you know which showcases we make it into. Fingers crossed for us and for everyone else going through the same process right now!^^

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

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

[galdra-studios]

Hi Everyone!

While the weather outside our office is grey and dreary, the snowdrop flowers are blooming defiantly, as if to remind us that spring is coming^^ Progress on Arcadia Fallen II continues at a slow but steady pace. Let’s take a look at what we’ve been working on this month! 

We’re part of the Woman’s Day sale on Steam! Arcadia Fallen is 70% off together with a bunch of other really great indie games made by teams that are predominantly run by women and gender marginalized folks so be sure to check it out here!^^

This month Kim’s sprites got an update and some new expressions! He was the first character we drew for the Kickstarter demo, so a few of the earliest sprites needed a bit of a touch up to keep the look consistent. We hope you like them^^

We’re also carrying on the work on backgrounds and this month we now have the Dining hall to show off. This is the home turf of Mrs. Honning the school chef, who’s put her own personal touch on the decor to make sure everyone feels at home in her kitchen~

The implementation of foley sounds continues, but Jesper still has time to experiment with new music tracks so here’s the latest sample together with the time-lapse of this month’s header image.

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

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

[galdra-studios]

Hi Everyone!

The first month of the year is over and to be real with you all: It has been a lot^^0 

Between sickness, news of the wildfires, a sudden global focus on our home country Denmark and more, the office’s stress levels have been quite high. The month therefore hasn’t been as efficient as we usually strive for, but we find that it is important to give each other grace in times where the chaos of the world around us hits. We’ll get to the finish line all in good time, together^^

This month, it was time to work on expressions for the companions. These are some of the new expressions for Hannah, Kim, and Puk. What could Puk possibly have said that would make Catherine this furious? We had planned to work on Kim and Elias as well, but we’ll get to the lads next month instead, no worries~

We also have some new backgrounds to share! The school’s library is a refuge for those who need quiet to study or just to think while petting one of the cats who have claimed the space as their home. Will your character spend a lot of time here, or avoid it at all costs?

Jesper is continuing his work on music and foley sounds, and this month we finally got the scenes set up in a way so he can play them and add sounds on the go as he sees fit. It’s a lot more effective this way, since he can make decisions and tweaks much faster, without having to bother a programmer to get them into the game.

As for the music, here's a sample of a new track he's been working on together with a timelapse of this month's header image.

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

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

[galdra-studios]

Happy New Year Everyone!

Time has once again, like a gust of wind impossible to grasp, rushed by and left us breathless. Between family gatherings, cookie baking and a bad cold to top it all off, December went by in a flash and here we stand at the start of a brand new year, out of breath, with runny noses, but smiling, because despite all the tumult, 2024 holds many great memories for us to look back on. So let’s take a moment to do just that!

The big event of the year, of course, was the Arcadia Fallen II Kickstarter! So much work went into planning it, from designing merchandise and promotional material, to building and releasing our very first playable demo. We’ve tried running Kickstarters a couple of times now, and we’ve learned a lot from each of them, but things online change so quickly these days, there was really no way to know how it would do. Thankfully, we were blown away by the result! We’re so grateful to all of you who supported us and we’re looking forward to using that generosity to make the game the best it can be^^

What else…? Oh! We continued working on the game! xD We’ve been writing so many new scenes, character sprites have been drawn, music composed, and weird sound effects recorded! Backgrounds have been drawn, GUI updated and it’s just a satisfying feeling to see all these different parts of the game coming together. We’re looking forward to continuing production-mode in the new year.

One of the things we’re looking forward to in the new year is getting more mini-games into the game. Daniel has been swamped by other tasks for months now so it’s gonna be great having him back into programmer mode again. We’re gonna continue producing assets like music and art and we’re gonna be working on hooking scenes up, putting all the pieces together. One big milestone we’re looking towards is wrapping up all the content for the extended demo so we can share it with you all. We hope you’ll look forward to that^^

Thank you so much for your support this year! We’re looking forward to making 2025 a year to remember!

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

It’s December, which means our festive nisse has moved back in, hiding candy and cookies all around the office (I swear it wasn’t just me indulging my sugar cravings! ^^0) It also heralds the end of the year and, with hot cocoa and candlelight in abundance, we’re gonna do our best to finish strong!

Before we jump into what we’ve been up to this month, November 17th was Arcadia Fallen’s third birthday! Where did all the time go ahah?! The game is currently part of the Steam Autumn sale with a 66% discount, so if you have a friend who would enjoy a good adventure this December then be sure to let them know. 

Thank you so much to everyone who’s played our game. You’re the reason we get to work on cool stuff every single day, and we’re looking forward to sharing more wonderful tales with you in the future!

This month we’ve been taking a look at the game’s interfaces. In a visual novel, a lot of time is spent reading. That’s why we wanna make sure the text boxes look cool with a bit of variety when possible. Here are some of our experiments^^

We also added new character icons to the map, so you can see who you’re visiting before entering a location.

We did our first playtest of Chapter 2, so we now have the full story content for the extended demo. There’s still a lot of placeholder art that needs replacing before we can let any beta testers at it, but we’re very pleased about reaching this milestone^^

Another month, another cozy track Jesper’s been working on. The perfect accompaniment to a candy thief on the prowl~

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

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

Happy Day of Spooks to all of you! We’re all enjoying the season of sweet tricks to spice up the Fall, and in this newsletter we have a couple of treats for you all to help fend off the cold.

Last month we did a lot of test sketches for the side characters, and this month we got started on rendering the final sprites. Professor Hyben is now ready to grace everyone at the morning assembly with his cheery tunes, and a warm smile will await you if you visit Mrs Honning in the Dining Hall.

It’s been another productive month on the writing front, answering all of life’s greatest questions like: How many lizards does it take to pick up a key? Is revenge best served in the form of dessert? How much should you trust someone before you teach them to create fire? Writing is a serious business, we swear!

Jesper has been working on foley sounds this month. That would be all the sounds the environment makes in the game: Slamming doors, creaky floors, and lots of magical sparkling~ Here’s a sample together with the speed-paint from this month’s header image.

Enjoy~

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

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

Fall is finally here! It’s time to dust off the thick sweaters and candles, and get those warm drinks brewing!

This month, the focus has been on drawing expressions for all the new characters, or more precisely to sketch out expressions so we can start testing them in the game. We do it like this because then we can test the mood of the expressions together with the dialogue and sound in the game before we spend a lot of time drawing the final sprite. We still have the placeholder sketches for all the main characters as well, so now when we play it looks like a sketchbook.

It’s a nice milestone to reach though, because it means technically all the expressions are in the game. Now on to actually making them look pretty!

Writing continues this month on a bunch of different scenes, with a bit of a romance theme. Catherine in particular is getting a lot of attention now that we’re expanding her story to include a romance. We hope you’ll enjoy all the things we’ve added!

Jesper is always on the lookout for different sounds we can use in the game, and on one rainy day last week he suddenly got the idea to go record the ambience by a nearby lake. So he packed all his gear and set out! Trekking through the forest he found a good spot and started recording. It was great! The sound of the rainfall hitting the still water, the leaves rustling in the faint wind: perfect cozy aesthetic!

Aaaand then the rain stopped. Typical Danish weather never stays the same for more than five minutes at a time. But Jesper is nothing if not dedicated, so he waited for another shower to roll in… and that’s how he ended up spending two hours waiting in a forest, with no luck. He returned home with the bright, warm sunshine mocking him the entire way.

Thankfully, those first five minutes of rain turned out great!

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

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

August has been another productive month, while we sit at home and watch everyone’s pictures from fun conventions all across the globe (we’re totally not jealous! xD). We’re looking forward to the day when we’ll be going to a con with Arcadia Fallen II, but that means we have to, you know… build the game, so back to work! ^^

This month Katie and Mette have been wrangling all the subplots and tying red strings between them all. We’re feeling this image a lot these days. We swear, it’s all connected! xD

This has been a month of character designs! So here’s a bunch of new characters you haven’t yet met, including some of their progress sketches.

We’ve also gotten started on some of the design rewards from the Kickstarter. Everyone has such cute cats; we’re gonna have so much fun hiding them all across the Academy!

This month I went to visit family, and the morning when I was sitting and writing this newsletter, feeling a bit drained, the family dog Kimo came to sit by my feet. While sitting down, he then let out a big fart. The sound spooked him so much it sent him flying across the room. I laughed so hard, and the world seemed a little less overwhelming. Thank you Kimo for lifting my spirits!

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

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

Welcome to our first post-Kickstarter Devlog! It’s already been almost a month since we wrapped up the campaign and we’ve been celebrating with some well-deserved time off to enjoy the Summer, but now we’re all back at work and ready to make a video game!

Katie and Mette are busy at work on the script! Now that we have a budget for voice acting, we’re finalizing the scope of the story. We’ve got a Catherine romance to add, cats to hide, and lots of lines to prep for voice acting, so we’re gonna be engrossed in that for a while.

On another note: You may have heard that the voice actors of SAG-AFTRA are currently striking for better conditions and protections against AI stealing their work. We fully support their efforts and wish them all the best in getting a better deal! For those who might be concerned this will affect our work on Arcadia Fallen II, we’re still quite some time from our first recording session, and if for some reason the strike drags out, SAG-AFTRA has made an interim agreement that gives actors the protections they are asking for, and we don’t mind signing that if it becomes necessary – So we should be good!^^

Sketches sketches sketches! Just like with writing, we’re finalizing the scope for art as well. The goal is to get all art assets into the game as rough sketches so we can get a feel of the flow and the amount of drawings we have left to do.

Here’s some examples of expression sketches for some of the characters! Some being… more detailed than others ^^0

Jesper is also back at work composing music and adding foley sounds. He’s gonna be very busy once we start recording voice acting, so he’s getting as much work done on this as possible to get ahead^^ Here’s a snippet of what he’s been working on together with the final timelapse for Catherine’s postcard.

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

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

[galdra-studios]

That’s a wrap for the Arcadia Fallen II Kickstarter campaign!

828 incredible backers managed to fund the game with a whooping 450%! Clearing five Stretch Goals and all the Community Goals.

Thank you to everyone who's helped us spread the word about the campaign. You're all the best!

We'll now go eat cake... probably take a nap xD and then we'll see you all in next month's Devlog as we get back to working on the game!

Cheers~

- The Galdra Team

[galdra-studios]

Hi everyone!

We’re now in the final 48 hours of the Arcadia Fallen II Kickstarter Campaign, it’s been an exciting month with three stretch goals reached and the love and support from the community coming together to unlock all the community goals! 

Now’s the final stretch! 

Every penny counts to get us both as much voice acting as possible, but also financial stability for us so we can add more fun things like weather effects and more CGs to the game! We’re incredibly grateful that your support allows us to do this for a living. It’s not an easy time to be an indie developer, but you’re making it possible!

Thank you all and let’s go finish this thing with bang that’ll make Soren proud!^^

Cheers~

- The Galdra Team

[galdra-studios]

Hi Everyone!

We're so happy to announce that the Arcadia Fallen II Kickstarter is now officially LIVE!! :D

Click here to go to the page

You’re so close to the end of your mage studies you can taste it. Exams are raising your stress levels to an all-time high. Adventure and new friendships are the last thing on your mind, but one secret is all it takes to change everything. - Arcadia Fallen II is a roleplaying visual novel. You don’t need to have played the first game to enjoy this sequel set in a Scandinavian-inspired world of magic and mystery.

Play the Demo on either Steam or Itch.io

*This is our official Kickstarter launch post for Tumblr! Likes and Reblogs will count towards our Community Goals!

Help us spread the word and earn rewards for the community! <3

We've put a lot of work and love into this campaign and we hope you'll all have a fun time enjoying what we have prepared!^^

See you all in the next update!

Cheers~

The Galdra Team

[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

[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

[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