April Update: All about rewards and wooooormssss!
24 days ago – Thu, Apr 25, 2024 at 07:11:14 AM

Hello everyone! It's April!

We're feeling a bit more alive now that it's warmer outside ☀️

April is the date we've set for most of the reward goodies to be delivered either to your inbox or directly to your door. We wanted to do this mainly to bridge the gap between now and the launch of the game, to give you something to hold in your hands before launch. 📦 

All the digital rewards such as wallpapers, coloring sheets, commissioned artwork, discord roles, and NPCs are being worked on and/or should be sent to you soon! We have a few ideas for the wallpapers, so we want to run a poll to make sure you like them. 📬

Be sure to join our Discord server so we can assign you your Kickstarter-exclusive role and take part in the poll!

The (Digital) art book and (Digital) OST are due to ship this month as well, but we were wondering if it would make more sense to ship them at the same time as the game. This allows us to include all the concept art and sounds of the whole game rather than the current state. Along with that, we can ship out the plushies and t-shirts in one package rather than ship out multiple packages. 📙🎵

Let us know what you think!

Beta Playtest

The exclusive Kickstarter beta playtest will go live this summer so that hopefully means even more for y'all to look forward to! Stay tuned for any updates and make sure to join our Discord server as well as most of the communication regarding the playtest is going to be on there!

Plushies! 🧸

We have some very exciting news for you about the plush toys! I'm afraid we are not allowed to tell you just yet, but I'm really REALLY excited to show you what we have planned for the Castarock plushie soon! 

As for the Airspirit 🍃, Liz from Stuffed Serotonin has sent us the plushies and we're just blown away by how cute they are! They'll be making their way to their respective backers along with the rest of the physical rewards!

Let me give you a sneak peek:

Now for some development news:

We've added a cute big worm to celebrate the Dune movies... er, I mean, because we thought it would be cute, of course! They will be replacing the compost near the portals!

Our lovely discord community helped us again to find a name for them and ended up with Wigglesworth! 🪱

As you may know from our demo, when you make a gift to your villager friends, they will give you a charm to give you a specific effect to boost one of your abilities. If you don't feel like socializing with your fellow forest neighbours, you can now visit the Ga-Charm Machine. It will give you a random charm in exchange for some of the compost you've collected on your journey. 🎁🕹️

The second machine is the vending machine, where you can get some sparkling, fresh sodas to refill your energy after a long day of watering all those plants. You can randomly encounter both machines in each level you're visiting! 🧃 

Along with that, we've been busy fixing bugs, improving performance, and of course most importantly: Making sure the beta will be ready for all of you soon!

Until the next update!
Your Stardust Team 💜

March Update: From multi-fandom logs to a freshly updated demo!
2 months ago – Tue, Mar 05, 2024 at 07:00:20 AM

It's March, everyone! ☀️ And you might remember our last teaser in our February update! I couldn't wait to finally show you the new character we've been working on! 👀

Do you remember the super out-of-context Power Rangers image I posted? No? Then let me refresh your memory:

As you may know, Grimoire Groves is inspired by many older animated media such as She-Ra, Adventure Time, The Owl House, and many more. These inspirations can be seen in the story, environment, and of course the characters! The Power Rangers are no exception! 💥

From their rather goofy appearance to their color-coded uniforms, we started developing a new - sorry, FOUR new plants that you can meet and harvest in the game! 🪵
 

Let me introduce you to..... the four HUUGE logs Percy, James, Thomas, and Molly! They will accompany our big mushroom boy Sneezus in the Earth Biome!

The concept is that they can fuse together and act as one OR as individual logs. This makes it a bit more difficult to water them properly.

Some clever detectives on our Discord server have already figured out where we got the name inspiration from!

We decided on the names when they looked like this in the first concept art:

I'm sorry, but the trains reference was just so fitting! But as if there weren't enough multi-fandom references, a certain Discord member pointed out that the yellow one resembles a Hufflepuff log... let us know if you find any other references we haven't seen yet! :)

Since this update is already way too long, I'll post the animations we made in the next one! If you're super curious, you can already take a look at our Discord server! If you join, you will not only get regular smaller dev updates, but you will also be able to take part in polls when we have to decide on a new plant design 🌱

Let's move on to the second news!

We're featured in the women's day sale organized by WINGS celebrating games made by women and gender marginalized devs! Check it out HERE

To celebrate, we have uploaded a new and fresh demo of Grimoire Groves to our Steam page! Play it HERE

Here's what we changed:

• Tutorial has been completely reworked
• Implemented a new story
• Added new giant mushroom Sneezus (say hi from me!!)
• Various quality-of-life updates such as performance updates and resolution settings
• Lots of bug fixes

Try the demo now and let us know what you think!!

Special Shoutout

Our friends who are developing Sugardew Island have just launched their Kickstarter campaign! Be sure to check it out and support this great project!

Restore harmony to this enchanting world!
In this cozy farming game, you have to run your own farm shop. Take care of your animals and your farm, sell your goods to the cute Forest Folk, upgrade the island and fulfill small orders from the Harmony Tree to fill the island with life again.

🌽 Farming: Take care of your plants, make fertilizer and sell your farm produce.
🛒 Your farm shop: Sell items in your shop and negotiate with the Forest Folk for prices.
⚒️ Resource Gathering: Collect wood, stones, and weeds for farm improvements.
🐑 Animals: Feed, interact & build bonds with animals for eggs and milk. 
🐈 Pet Companions: Give names to pets, interact with them, and let them follow you around the island.
☯️ Harmony Tree Quests: Fulfill orders to heal the Harmony Tree and upgrade the small island.
💰 Trader Brownie: Purchase seeds, animals, and more from the friendly trader.
👷🏽‍♂️ Upgrade System: Improve your house, barn, and tools to enhance efficiency.
 

Support their Kickstarter HERE

We hope you enjoy the rest of your week! See you in the next update!  👋

Your Stardust-Team
 

February Update: More Plants + Backer Survey Reminder 🌱
3 months ago – Thu, Feb 08, 2024 at 08:21:53 AM

Hi everyone! We're back with another update for you all! 💐

If you haven't joined our Discord yet, you might have missed out on some of the things we're working on right now! But don't worry! I'm going to summarise everything for you here! 🌷

Is it a snowball? Is it a marshmallow? 

No! It's a cotton candy bunny!!

Look at this little cutie! 🐰
We really wanted to create a fluffy plant, so we took inspiration from the cotton plant and combined it with the sweet cotton candy that we all love! (Well, most of us, probably?) 😬

Anyway, enough rambling, let's have a look at the sketches our game artist has created:

We loved the giant fluff ball on the top right, but part of us wanted the bunny to have more than one face. (Although, we have to admit, the round ball with lots of faces does look kind of creepy.)

So we decided to ask our super cool Discord and Twitter community for their opinion. And let me tell you, I did not expect this little plant to be compared to a biblically accurate angel. But here we are haha

Oh, and be sure to join our Discord server if you haven't already! You can take part in polls or contribute your ideas for Grimoire Groves!

Anyways they are already fully implemented in the game! :D

Planting them might not be as easy as it seems! When the player tries to water them, the giant cotton candy plant will summon smaller ones to protect themselves! So to water the big one, the player will have to find a way to get anywhere near it. Once the big one is planted, the smaller ones will disappear!

Next month we have a very exciting boss plant to show you! Here's a little teaser for you all, or should I say our main inspiration for the boss 👀

Survey Reminder

Make sure you check your inbox regularly! There are still some unanswered backer surveys. If your email address has changed, please let us know and send us a DM! We will be happy to send them to your preferred email address :)

Special Shoutout

Explore your identity in this cute dating sim!
LongStory 2 is a continuation of the charming and LGBTQ+ friendly dating simulator where you can be and date who you want. From Rollerskating to LARPing, LongStory 2 has it all!

Be sure to check out Longstory 2 on Kickstarter and support the project here!

Thank you all for reading! We'll see you back in the next update <3

Your Stardust-Team

December Update: Get ready for Marlin + Backer Survey Reminder ❄️
5 months ago – Wed, Dec 06, 2023 at 02:31:11 AM

Hello everyone! 

It's been a while since our last update! As we've been working on a new villager for Grimoire Groves, I thought I'd show you what the process of creating one looks like for this update! ✍️

Get ready for Marlin

Meet our new villager, Marlin the Mahwot. She lives in the water biome, can't swim, and has a cute sidekick froggy! 💧🐸

Mahwots were our main inspiration for Marlin. They are huuuuge lizard-like creatures that live mostly in swamps and rarely leave the water. (Don't worry, they are not real! haha) While we experimented with sea creature-like designs for Marlin, we eventually settled on the swampy aesthetic and more human features to fit her in with the rest of the Grimoire Grove cast 🪸

(While posting her designs online, I stumbled across the Mudcore aesthetic. Did you know that was a thing???)

Next, we went through a few different color variations for her! We couldn't decide which one was the best, so we let our Discord community decide which one they liked best! Thank you for your votes! ✅

If you'd like to take part in future votes, be sure to join our Discord!

As mentioned, Marlin does not live alone in her home base. She has a little froggy by her side (we don't have a name for them yet! Feel free to suggest one in the comments :D)

And that's it! Next, we have to design her home, which is still a work in progress and we can't wait to show you more soon! In the meantime, enjoy this little walking animation we made to bring Marlin to life! 🪸

We have a lot more to show you! For more frequent updates be sure to join the Discord server! We have been preparing the home base for our other water villager Irene 🧜🏿‍♀️, fixing bugs 🪲, and adding new content to the game 🗒️. But I'll save that for another update hehe

Backer Survey Reminder ✍️

Last but not least, make sure you check your inbox regularly! There are still some unanswered backer surveys. If your email address has changed, please let us know and send us a DM! We will be happy to send them to your preferred email address :)

And with that, we wish you a happy holiday! Christmas and the New Year are just around the corner, and we hope you celebrate with your loved ones! 🎉

With love,

The Stardust-Team 💜

Say hi to our new boss plant! 🍄 (+ Special Shoutout!)
7 months ago – Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 08:27:06 AM

It's mushroom season, everyone! And what better way to celebrate autumn than with our new Earth Boss plant! This big mushroom boy has been in the works for a while now! 🍄 

Check out these great concept sketches from our game artist Annika!

While we love each and every one of the sketches, we decided to go with this beautiful mushroom: 

The mechanics of growing this mushroom are already in place and we can't wait to show you more soon! Did you know that this big guy is super allergic to witches? 🤧

On top of that, we have some great news to share with you! Our friends at Gentle Troll Entertainment have launched their Kickstarter for Tavern Talk! 🍹

"Tavern Talk is a cozy visual novel about running a tavern in a D&D-inspired fantasy! Gather rumors, serve magical drinks, and meet adventurers on a life-changing quest." 

Make sure to check out the time-limited and heavily discounted early bird reward tiers like early access to the entire first act of the game (12% off) or the strongly limited in-game guest book entries (16% off).

We met the lovely team at Gamescom this year and even hosted an onsite collaboration! Check out their campaign here!