How the Players Shaped Clover Bite Studio’s Grime DLC: Colors of Rot

Clover Bite and Team Malignant released by Akupara Games Grime We were able to get tons of praise and positive feedback from PC users in August 2021. IGN gave the game nine out of ten, it was reviewed as “Mostly Positive” on Steam, and players all around the globe were joining the Grime We received many positive comments from Discord about the combat style and amazing visuals. But every nine out of ten leaves something to be improved upon, “Mostly Positive” still meant we had some negative reviews, and for all the players who joined the Discord because Grime was a new favorite of theirs, we also saw players join to explain what they didn’t enjoy about the game.

These are the stories of these players.

I’m Buddy, the Marketing Lead for Akupara Games, and today I want to talk a little about how the developers behind GrimeYarden Weissbrot was the most prominent of its employees who responded to negative feedback from players. Which complaints were made by players? They came up with solutions. What is the most important thing about this new content? The Colors of Rot: Grime address some of those concerns with today’s release?

When we first released the material, one of our first experiences with tension was Grime This was the goal of players to quickly travel from one point in the game to the next. Grime This 2.5D mix of genres combines elements from metroidvania and soulslike gameplay. Players can unlock new movement types which allow them to explore interesting areas. Clover Bite was forced to create a compromise between the two genres of metroidvania, and soulslike.

Travel is an essential part of a metroidvania. As you progress further and defeat bosses, you’ll unlock new ways to traverse the map. You can find out more. GrimeAbility like double jump and pull allow you to get around the map in multiple ways. Maybe there’s a secret, hidden passage that leads to a whole new area only accessible to players who can make a long series of double jumps. These mechanics give players an expectation that they should go back to locations they’ve already cleared to see if they can find new nooks and crannies to explore. This exploration can often mean running from A to B and investigating whatever catches your attention.

In a soulslike, however, the expectation has been set by the best games in the genre that you’ll be able to fast travel between all points you’ve saved at. Elden Ring blew the doors down for the soulslike genre in 2022, for instance, and players can teleport between any sites of grace they’ve ever encountered. Grime There are similar checkpoints for sites of grace, called surrogates. A crystalline pillar is where players can increase the power of their vessel. There is also a fast travel system in the game that can be accessed later on, although it has far fewer nodes then something like Elden Ring. This is why?

Metroidvania players shouldn’t be too dependent on speed travel. This can lead to a loss of the sense that there is an open world, which unlocks and expands with time. If fast travel points are sparse, it helps the player backtrack over spots they’ve been to before and discover all those little nooks and crannies they might have otherwise missed! But for a soulslike player, it’s intensely frustrating to be forced to run all the way back to an area you’ve already cleared in order to see if you can get closer to completion. For one player, what is thrilling for the other can end up frustrating. It was more a matter a degree than a complete system redesign that solved the problem. Yarden increased the number of locations that offer fast transportation throughout the game in order to provide players with a balance between exploration and transport. It was already there. The numbers needed to be tweaked.

Another big problem was also present Grime that didn’t have a tweakable system attached to it. Many players questioned why armor in the game was purely cosmetic and didn’t confer any kind of ability or stat bonuses to the player?

Yarden’s fear when initially designing Grime It was common for players to choose stats over visuals. Players in soulslike are well-known for not caring about the character’s appearance in order to get the best stat upgrades. YouTubers Dan Olson and ProZD have made two videos about the subject, one irreverent and one more academic. All stats are removed from the items. GrimeYarden ensured that the armor players used was only for their own expression.

However, players were not happy with the min-maxing system. Without stats, picking up a piece of armor doesn’t have the same excitement to it and for these players, every new piece of armor was a little disappointment, something to disregard because it didn’t key into how they wanted to optimize their character. That’s fair enough.

Because the solution required a completely new approach, it was more complex than any game change. And borrowing the term “transmogrification” from other RPGs like World of WarcraftThis system was also added. Grime through a breakthrough by the game’s technical director, Theodore Kovalev. By allowing players to customize their appearance regardless of the stats of their items, they can choose the items that look the best and pair the stats that compliment a player’s build the most — an elegant solution to a simple problem. It is available in The Colors of Rot: Grime, the free DLC content coming with the game’s release on December 15th, that feedback has been taken to heart as well. With new traversal abilities like sprint and hover as well as brand new items to equip, the team at Clover Bite have outdone themselves in their quest to address all the feedback they’ve gotten from Grime’s community.  We hope that you will enjoy this journey.  

GRIME

Akupara Games

☆☆☆☆☆
1

★★★★★

$24.99

Destroy… Absorb… Grow… GRIME is a methodical and unforgiving 2.5D soulslike metroidvania in which you crush your foes with living weapons that mutate form and function. You can use Parry to absorb prey and gain their skills, and then empower your vessel.