News - Crystals Of Irm

Maybe you’ve already heard about it, and if you haven’t, no panic, because you’re about to be informed. And here it comes, the big announcement. Crystals Of Irm now has a publisher, yes you read that right! And not just any publisher, Deck13 Spotlight will publish Crystals Of Irm. Yes, you read that right too. The Deck13 Spotlight known for great games like Chained Echoes or CrossCode. What an honor that Crystals Of Irm is now officially part of this great portfolio.

For me personally this is a huge step and the support from Deck 13 Spotlight will definitely have a positive impact on the game. Actually, it already does and I’m looking forward to everything to come.

Besides this terrific news, a lot has happened in the game again, of course, and I’ve often used the phrase „… it’s growing up!“ in recent weeks. Which best sums up what’s been happening.

The levels of the different dungeons are slowly taking shape. While in the green dungeon you have to walk through winding and overgrown corridors, in the red dungeon you have to be careful not to fall from the narrow paths directly into the fire in the abyss. In the blue dungeon, however, something seems to have gone wrong and some rooms are completely under water? What’s that all about and how do you get through it?

Maybe a bit dryer info – but I created the base so that Crystals Of Irm can come out in different languages and I can integrate them into the game. I also worked out the workflow how to get the different quests and stories into the game. From paper into the game, so to speak.

The BattleSystem also got an important update, which helps me to spawn a lot more projectiles and provide them with interesting movements. But see for yourself

And that’s it with the post for today! Keep your eyes open for more posts, otherwise feel free to check out the old ones and don’t forget to tell everyone to click the Wishlist button on the Crystals Of Irm Steam page.

See you next time

David

Hey and hello

welcome back to the world of Irm. Today I'll give you some insights of my work of the last weeks and a short outlook on the next tasks.

The biggest news at the beginning - Crystals Of Irm is now in production. Which means that I'm adding a whole bunch of things to the game. This includes new items, skills, spells and dungeons. Mainly I spent the last weeks to bring the three dungeons into the game. The version of the green dungeon that you could play in the demo at Steam Next Fest doesn't exist anymore.

The size of the floors has changed significantly. Instead of limited space, the individual floors are now much larger, giving me more room for additional rooms. The concepts for the other two dungeons, are now also being implemented and everything is coming together really well. So everything is going almost as planned. The blue dungeon will be all about water, while the red one will be all about (who would have expected it) fire.

There will be more pictures soon. But here is a little preview (The pictures are not directly from the engine)

The story continues. A lot of new items have made it into the game. That means you will find all kinds of valuable things in the dungeons. You can turn these things into gold in town, which you can then use to buy new and better equipment from the various merchants in town. This is the dungeon loop. A back and forth between exploration, valuable loot and better equipment.

That's it for now to the things of the last weeks. In the next update I'll show you one of the last and biggest innovations in Crystals Of Irm. I am very curious what you say about it. I'll continue with the dungeons and next time there will be some more pictures.

Finally, if you have questions about the game or want to chat with me, I invite you to the Discord server. If you want to support me and the game, take a look at the Ko-Fi page and leave a coffee.

Until the next update

David

Hey & Hallo everyone

Finally i had time to do write a new blog post. This should have been a video but this is just to much work at the moment, so here we are, back with an good old blog post.

This time i want to talk about my experience with the Steam Next Fest and how it had an impact on some of the number of the demo of Crystals Of Irm. After that we’ll take a short look at the what happens next in the Crystals Of Irm Universe

First of all, the Next Fest definitly had an impact on the total wishlist of Crystals Of Irm, who would have thought it 😀

However, when we look at this graph in more detail, we see two significant spikes. The general traffic of the Steam page increased over the event but there where two events that are responsible for the peaks.

The first peak came with the start of the event a was pushed even more after a super nice LetsPlay video was published by the YouTube Channel Retromation which has over 200k subscribers. I doubt that without this extra push from the video, we would see such a spike.

The video by the way is so fun to watch and Retromation had such good words for the game and besides that, having a commented video like this, covering most of the content i build into the demo, is a crazy helpful resource to work with and helps improve the game.

After this high, the curve rapidly flattened out again. But i had two streaming slots left, which i decided to use on over the week end. The idea was to simply play the demo while streaming one hour directly to the event page at Steam.

Both stream had so much viewers, simply by being present at the event page. And these viewers had an impact on the total wishlists aswell, as you can see on the second spike. Honestly i had no idea that streaming gameplay over the game page directly, would have such an impact on the wishlist.

Thats definitly something i’ll do again! So overall the wishlists have increased five times over the week. Which definitly feels crazy. Thats a big win for the game and thanks to everyone who clicked that wishlist button.

One big thing i noticed after the event was that the demo was the best way to introduce you to the battle system. In the past I always had a hard time to explain it thru videos or gifs which mostly led to confusion. Communicating the whole thing through the demo worked much better in this case and I got a lot of positive feedback about the battle system.

In general, I'm very grateful for all the good criticism and overwhelmingly positive feedback. I didn't expect that to be honest.

Besides all that i’m aware that the numbers COI is doing are all rookie numbers, but it still feels like a success and I have the feeling that Crystals Of Irm has a realistic chance to make itself comfortable in a small niche once its released.

In conclusion, I can say that the participation in the event was really worth it. Wishlists went up, there was reach through YouTube videos and streams and most importantly, it was well received, the main game mechanics worked for you and most of you guys had fun with it even if the version was partly rough.

Roadmap & What’s Next

So whats next? The main thing now is to fix bugs and polish the game. This will take a few more days. After that the rest of the features will be implemented, which are primarily related to the battle system and the dungeon crawl parts.

Once that is done, more content will be added and you can look forward to new impressions.

Since the Next Fest worked out so well, I decided to release another demo in the next months, which will be primarily about the battle system and the dungeons again. I think this is the best way to communicate what the game is and what needs improvement or what doesnt work.

So we're doing our own little Crystal Fest in the near future

And that was it again with the blog post for today. I hope you had fun and got a little insight behind the scenes. Thanks again for all the great feedback and the good critique.

And with that bye bye until next time

David

Hey & Hello

it’s been a bit again and as always a lot has happened! So today there is a little update about a big step for me. Maybe you already noticed, if not here comes the biggest news of my adventure with Crystals Of Irm.

The demo is finally playable and live on Steam. And to top it off, the whole thing will also take place at Steam Next Fest 2023! Finally! A big step has been taken with this.

Steam Next Fest kicks off on Steam on Feb. 6, 2023 at 7 p.m. CET and runs all week until Feb. 13.

What awaits you in the demo?

You start in a part of Irm created especially for the demo and have the opportunity to explore the first of three villages. There, a few quests await you, which will bring you to the dungeon of the demo. In this dungeon you can unlock and explore five levels. Of course, there is also Loot waiting for you with which you can strengthen your party.

And of course, in all corners of Irm you can expect fights against different groups of enemies who will attack you with all kinds of attacks.

• overworld with a small part of Irm

• the first of three villages

• different quests

• five dungeon levels

• loot

• fights, fights, fights

What kind of game is Crystals Of Irm?

Crystals Of Irm is a retro RPG with dungeon crawling elements and a focus on fast, grid-based combat.

I’ve recorded a few videos in the last few weeks where I go into more detail about the different parts of the game. If you want to have a look, you can find the playlist here.

How can you participate?

You find a bug, have a question or even a suggestion for improvement? Cool, that’s what the demo is all about. With your feedback Crystals Of Irm will become a better game. The best way to give this feedback is the LotsOfStuff Discord! Here you can find a forum and channels to write with me. Follow this link to get to the channel.

What’s next?

First of all it’s about the coming week! I will use the week for all kinds of things and besides a few videos I will also try to include a stream or two.

I hope you have fun with this little insight into the game and I’m really looking forward to your feedback.

Have fun

David

Hey & Hello!

And already it is December again. That was a fast one. You probably guessed it and how could it be otherwise, a lot has happened at Crystals Of Irm. We have really achieved a lot this year and I am already looking forward to 2023. In February there will be a small (actually very big) surprise and I am already so excited. But first things first - the last BlogPost of the year.

What else happened this year? Recently Crystals Of Irm was voted among the TOP100 upcoming Indie Games on IndieDB. How great and a thousand thanks to all who voted for it.

It sounds great! The soundtrack of the game is taking more and more shape and Irm already sounds absolutely wonderful. Just listen to the main theme... It's awesome! Responsible for this great work is the good Fauni. At this point I recommend you to have a look at his site.

It looks great! Maybe you already noticed the great promo art of Crystals Of Irm. The incredibly talented Saboowas responsible for that. She managed to fill the character with life and I couldn't be happier with the result. Be sure to check out her work as well.

It's playable! Dungeon, villages and demons (ok, not really those) - but things can be explored in Irm now. And I'm working on an extra version for you, so you can finally take a first look into the world of Irm. And it really won't take long this time, I promise. February 2023 will be great and very very exciting. Keep your eyes open.

At this point I could tell you a thousand little things. Things like - the dungeons are completely reworked, the enemies got a make over or there is now an extra section in Irm - just for you to test. But so shortly before the vacation and the celebration I spare you all these details and would suggest that we see each other again at this point in the new year.

Once again, thank you to everyone who supports and believes in me on this project. It really means the world to me and as always, I can't wait for the next steps.

See you next year - Take care

David