Into The Grid News

[h5]Hello Runners, it’s time for another Development Update!

In this edition, we are covering our findings from the last Playtest Round and the decisions we make for the upcoming Demo.

Let’s jump into it, shall we?[/h5]



[h5]First of all, we want to thank everyone who participated in this test round; from the bottom of our hearts, THANKS! 🙏

The feedback you provided was paramount to guide our next efforts and prioritize what’s best for the game and its upcoming Demo.

Here are some stats

• 1,000+ players in 1 week.
  
• Almost 200 daily active players avg.
  
• 80+ Feedback Surveys submitted in 2 days.
  
• 5 live moderated sessions in 3 days.
  
• 500+ new Wishlists.

And some of the survey results

• Overall experience rating: above 4 stars (out of 5). ★★★★✩
  
• 93% of the respondents have played a Roguelike Deckbuilder before. 🃏
  
• 58% said they did it “a lot”. 🎖️
  
• 88% of the respondents agreed that the current state of the game makes them excited about what’s to come, and they should! 🦾

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[h5]A lot of things! We analyzed the feedback from all sources (interviews, surveys, Steam forums, and Discord) and ordered them by how often they were mentioned and the impact they have on gameplay.

We mainly noticed that the improvement opportunities are located in three places: The Trace system, the tutorial, and the game balance. All these are intertwined, as the game is both difficult and complex but also was unbalanced and incorrectly explained.

On a brighter note, we learned that the new mechanics we are introducing (the VIM/Commands System, the Node Map, the Trace system, and the complex enemies with varied effects) are appealing and engaging, and people enjoyed them a lot!

So, with all that in mind, we started to work on the changes for the upcoming demo.[/h5]



[h5]We went back to the drawing board, made some decisions, and started executing them. At this point, we can share the following information:

• The Demo release date has been moved one week to November 11.
• The Demo will include a brand new Tutorial, separated from the storyline.
  
• The Demo will include a Storyline with an intro before jumping Into The Grid (see what I did there?).
  
  
  
  
• Most cards will be rebalanced to make a more clear differentiation between the initial cards (which are supposed to be kinda weak) and the reward cards you obtain during the run.
  
• Card drop rates will be adjusted to showcase more card variety (we have over 80 cards!)
  
• New Node types will be introduced, including one that allows removing cards from the deck!
  
• The Trace System will be adjusted, as well as how some of the Watcher ICE works.
  
• Visual/Animation improvements will be added to the Node Map to make more clear where Clusters begin and end and what things are affecting them.

These are just adjustments done based on our learning from the playtest. On top of that you can expect: more SFX, more VFX, more enemies (models and abilities), more Commands, more of everything!

And, of course, the plan is to keep expanding the demo frequently with more content and new mechanics that are already designed but not yet implemented.[/h5]

[h5]And that’s all for now! We are eager to show you all the cool stuff we are working on and for you to take another dive Into The Grid![/h5]

[h2]In around 5 hours from this post we will close the Feedback Survey.[/h2]

[h5]⚠️ You will still be able to play for a few more days, and discuss in our Discord Server or here in the Steam Forums ⚠️[/h5]

[h5]🙏 We are amazed by the participation and already went through over 70 surveys, and we keep getting a new one every few minutes! 🎉

At this point, we have a very clear understanding of the next steps leading towards the demo launch.

In the upcoming days we will share some of the insights we found from this process for those of you which are curious.

On behalf of the entire Flatline team, our most sincerely THANK YOU![/h5]

[h5]Hello Runners!

It's time for another development update! Without further ado, let’s dive in![/h5]



[h5]Our next playtest round is right around the corner, and it's going to be the biggest to date, both in terms of content and players.

The playtest will include brand new map exploration mechanics along with many visual and mechanical redesigns—it's the full loop!

It will run from Friday, October 25, through Sunday, October 27—that's the upcoming weekend!

Don't miss the chance to be part of it!

Complete this form to apply for the live sessions with the team and get rewarded with a game key, or use the "Join the Playtest" button on our page to be part of the general round and play at your own pace.[/h5]





[h5]Right after the playtest round is over, we will return to coding furiously to implement improvements gathered from your feedback.

We will fix bugs and add any animations, sounds, and visual effects that may be missing in order to get that build polished and ready to be released as our first public demo!

We expect that to happen on Monday, November 4!

We will continue updating the demo with new content and features until we reach the Early Access release.

You can take a look at what the demo will include on our Demo Page:[/h5]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3132890/Into_The_Grid_Demo/

[h3]We hope to see you all on that important date to celebrate this huge milestone with us![/h3]

[h5]Hi Runners!

Event season is just kicking in for Into The Grid, and the first is a very very special one!

We have been selected to be part of the 2024 edition of EVA Play, the biggest gaming event in Argentina, happening in our hometown of Buenos Aires.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
We are also super proud of being nominated for the Best Design Award!



Come join us in our first in-person event ever and be among the first to try a pre-Demo version of Into The Grid!

See you all there!

[/h5]

[h5]Hello Runners!

It’s been some time since our last update and a lot has happened. Let's take a moment to review the news.

Let’s go![/h5]



[h5]Based on our latest estimations, we adjusted some of our date ranges. The most relevant points are:

• New playtests happening around September.
  
• The demo releasing between October and November.
  
• The Early Access launch happening in Q1 2025, after February’s Steam Next Fest.
  

1️⃣ Playtest Round: UI Redesign (Sep)*
2️⃣ Playtest Round: Map Exploration (Sep)*
3️⃣ Demo Launch (Oct-Nov)
4️⃣ Steam Next Fest (Feb 2025)
5️⃣ Early Access Release (Feb-Mar 2025)
6️⃣ 2nd Character Release: The Maker (TBD)[/h5]

Events 1 & 2 may occur simultaneously or separately; this is yet to be determined.



[h5]This year’s Latin American Games Showcase was part of the Summer Game Fest’s official schedule. It was the biggest edition to date, co-broadcasted, and covered by all the main gaming media outlets.

We premiered our latest trailer during the show with a 2-minute deep-dive segment. This brought the game a ton of attention, and we saw a fantastic boost in our wishlist count, which injected us with renewed energy!

You can see the segment below 👇[/h5]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



[h5]As part of our work for the new trailer, we also decided to update our main game art. We believe the new image aligns better with how the game will look in its new iteration once we release the UI redesign update. Considering the full game will have 5 distinct characters, we decided to create a yet-undefined character for the main art instead of tying it to Ursa, our first character.

Below you can see part of the process of creating the new capsule, done by our extremely talented artist Joi.[/h5]







[h5]We are very proud to show you the new designs for the Combat and Decks screens! Let’s compare them and go over some details about the team's decisions.[/h5]



*The new image is missing the background + enemy, don’t worry, they will be there.

[h5]
We dropped the “helmet” effect. It wasn’t adding that much to the immersion we were looking for and was generating visual artifacts, motion-illness, readability, and resolution issues. We decided to re-focus on our early ideas of retro-futuristic interfaces, brightness saturation, and grain filters.


We decided to go a lot more minimalistic regarding health and VIM bars. We also ditched the status effects icons in exchange for abbreviated and color-coded words to add to the “terminal/console” style.




We noticed that we were not giving enough spotlight to one of our most unique mechanics, the VIM and Commands system. By making it look so similar to the Integrity bar and putting the commands as small icons, they usually got overlooked.

Now, the VIM is a central piece of the UI (quite literally!), and the Commands now have a unique design with different states and animations depending on the context.




From dragging and dropping issues to the fact that it didn’t quite feel “hackery” enough, we decided to change the card fan to a straight display of the Runner’s hand of cards. We believe the new look aligns better with the overall linework of the UI and the responsiveness has been improved considerably.




We received a lot of feedback asking for a way to keep track of what happened during the enemy’s turn, a “Battle Log” of sorts. Well, we had that in the plans for quite some time, and now we believe we nailed the way to make it work.

We created a “Terminal” that will not only let you know what happened and show a historical log of actions but also contextual information about many other things happening during combat. It also allows us to trigger immersive and flavorful text fragments to add to the overall experience.

You will be able to trigger actions and discover Easter eggs and secrets directly by prompting the terminal. On top of all that, it also looks sleek and retro AF!




We made changes to how we show the enemy’s intention during your turn. Now, you’ll see a step-by-step breakdown of what the enemy will do during its turn.[/h5]







[h5]
The console is your best friend in The Grid, and as such, it will try to show you as much useful information as it can. Keeping that in mind, we added a new widget to the deck view that lets you quickly check the distribution of card types within the deck. This is essential when planning the turn sequencing and trying to foresee upcoming draws.



It also shows information about keywords on the currently selected/hovered card.




We made big improvements to how selecting and highlighting cards in the different deck views work. We also reworked how tooltips are shown on screens where the side widget is not used.

[/h5]



The redesign also covers the map screens, which we will be revealing soon in a separate post. What we can spoil for now is that it will not be a hexagonal grid!

Mechanically it will work as described in our previous article.



[h5]As a studio, we are proud to implement user research and playtest methodologies to support decisions that can make our games their best possible versions.

Many of the decisions detailed above come from watching and surveying players, and we want to thank all of you who participated from the bottom of our hearts.

Knowing that there are people out there playing and devoting time to expressing their opinions about our game is a feeling that we can’t even describe, and it means the world to us!

During these tests, we received more than 300 survey replies from over 3000 unique players; we interviewed and reviewed recorded playthroughs of dozens of people, and more than 100 new members joined our Discord to chat with us live and share their thoughts.

It’s our commitment to keep working this way and to make you all part of this journey of creating the best game possible.

All these new things we mentioned in this update will be up for you all to test soon ;)[/h5]



[h5]In case you don’t know, every week, we release a new piece of lore about the universe where the game takes place.

It’s one of the many ways in which we show the passion we’re putting into this project and how we envision something much bigger than just a game.

We already have 20 entries you can read on our website, split between The Runners, The Corporations, and Into The Grid’s Short Stories.

Go give them a look; we think you will love them![/h5]



[h5]This covers pretty much everything that’s going on (at least what we can show!) behind the scenes.

As always, don’t forget to join our Discord to chat live with the team and other fellow Runners!



See you in The Grid!

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