Good day to you, fellow Guardians, We're thrilled to share that Crab God was honoured with a [b]Game Connection award[/b] during the week of GDC - a testament to the hard work and love our team pours into this game. GDC was a fantastic opportunity to connect with partners and other like-minded developers who are just as dedicated to the crustacean cause as we are (hello there, Aggrocrab team!). [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//43801058/30d0f482a89b85a492ed5b1c8a54079bcfd28396.jpg[/img] In this dev blog, we invite you to discover how the team works on Crab God. [h2]A day at the Crab God’s shrine[/h2] Our main tasks currently consist of working on the remaining features and [b]implementing content[/b]. We always need to focus on maintaining collaboration between design, development, and art so that the features we are delivering align with the game's vision. We also need to constantly check if all these implemented features are working for players, so we playtest the game every couple of weeks to collect feedback and plan the next set of updates. The most challenging aspect of development has been balancing complexity and depth. We have been working hard to make the game intuitive and easy to pick up while giving players many strategic options for approaching each level. There has been a lot of iteration on balancing the level of behavioural AI for the crablings so that they are independent, easy to manage, and have their unique personalities while still providing plenty of strategic options that feel empowering. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//43801058/502264f45edc3f06af8397dfdc46801347bf3f0b.gif[/img] But development is not only about the challenges! There has also been a lot of fun along the way, primarily related to crabs! Creating crab memes, animating quirky behaviours like a Crabling’s sneeze, and seeing Crablings bug out in ways that look like features… All these moments helped us shape our dear ten-legged companions into loveable members of your colony! [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//43801058/72b0462b63ecd590580eac6f5de8b4cc11aec8be.jpg[/img] [h2]New content for our Crablings[/h2] One of the features we are most excited about is [b]the blessing system[/b]! It has been a lot of fun to develop as we have seen the Crablings come to life with their personalities. Blessings give a mechanical advantage that makes gameplay more interesting (e.g. new abilities and stat increases) but also gives them personality traits that allow players to start telling a story with each of their Crablings. We can’t wait to hear the stories that everyone will create on their great migration through the ocean! [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//43801058/252ca43a033f1c6bda414c6e5151b0ff678edd9b.gif[/img] Creating new content for the game takes weeks of work from multiple team members. Adding a new creature requires concept art, modelling, texturing, rigging, animation, implementation, testing, and balancing. Each of these steps could take anywhere between a few hours and a few days. Adding Crabling animations is generally quicker as they are already implemented into the game, but animating 10 legs can be challenging at times! [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//43801058/3e9ff83a2f8f2d2e891b7b46e773aad8c1a1f1c3.gif[/img] The next steps for Crab God are to complete the remaining features and then focus entirely on [b]content and balancing[/b]. We have just added gamepad support which we are testing and refining with playtesters. There is always lots of playtesting and refinement to be done during development. If you want to participate in future playtests to help us birth a new Crab God, join our [url=https://discord.gg/2hHBaGPb]Discord server[/url] for more info! Thank you for reading this dev blog; if you have questions about development or the game itself, feel free to ask in the comments! Stay tuned for our next updates! -The Crab God Team-