Do Digital Dragons Dream of Enchanted Pizza?
Flamekeepers!
Welcome to the first episode of Dev Chronicles!
When we announced Flamecraft, we hoped people would be excited, but the actual response completely blew us away. You, along thousands of other curious players, watched the trailer and shared your love and excitement under the announcements. We felt your support, kind words and genuine enthusiasm for the project. It truly means a lot to us – thank you! A big shout out to Rozie and the folks at Cardboard Alchemy for cheering us on and helping share the news far and wide!
We’ve also been blown away by the quality of feedback already coming in. You’ve pointed out things you’d love to see in the game, offered clever suggestions, and asked great questions. And we’re listening – your thoughts are already helping us make the game better!
Something we noticed right away is how much everyone seems to love the animations. Especially over on Cardboard Alchemy Discord, there’s been a lot of excitement about the favourite shops coming to life. So we wanted to take this chance to show off a few of the animations we’re working on.
You’ll probably recognize Pizza Coven – it quickly became one of our favourites! Rozie and Peter gave you a glimpse of these amazing witches some time ago during the announcement livestream (available on Cardboard Alchemy YouTube), but here it is in its full pizza glory:
And here are some of the earlier stages of work:
The lines and text you see here are the “bones” of the animation – they create a “spine” which makes everything move!
Our little town is growing, quite literally, day by day. As the art team sketches out new buildings and the 3D models come to life, we’re gradually assembling a living, breathing city full of magic and whimsical creativity. With each shop, we go through different concept arts before choosing the final shape we want to see in the game. Let’s look at a couple of boards for Critical Roll and Touch O’ Glass:
To help us reach every nook and corner of this incredible town, we knew we needed a smooth and satisfying way to move around. As the dev team kept expanding the town and adding more cozy corners and bustling shops, it became clear that we needed a camera system that could keep up! So we started prototyping, tweaking, and trying things out until it finally felt right. Now you can glide through the streets, zoom into the shops, and peek at all the charming little details of dragon life. We’ve been building many features behind the scenes, and this one is truly making the game feel alive. We’re deep in the polishing phase now, and we can’t wait to show you more in the next update!
Of course, there couldn’t be a Flamecraft Dev Chronicles without showing you one of the dragons! Say hello to Dandelion, one of the cutest little artisans! His animation is now ready and what you’re seeing here is how it looks inside our dev tools. The background is just a placeholder, something we use to test how dragons fit within the card’s space they’ll eventually call their own.
Each day, we stop for a while and admire the work of our artists. With their incredible talent, the world created by Sandara Tang and Manny Vega is expanding in new beautiful directions. From a sketch to the final art, here’s how fast the time flows while enjoying the magic of Flamecraft:
This is just the beginning, but we already feel incredibly lucky to be working on something with such magic and potential! The team is extremely excited to hear from you, so make sure to share your thoughts!
If you haven’t yet, we’d love for you to join our Newsletter for some exclusive bits (like a wallpaper we just sent out – everybody loves a cool wallpaper!) and later along the way – first playtest sign-ups! You can also join Cardboard Alchemy Discord server – It’s the best place to share your feedback and talk with us about the game!
That’s it for now. We’ll be back soon with another update, until then, thank you for your support and keep the feedback coming – make this game special with us!
Stay cozy!
Monster Couch Team
If you like your dragon news freshly baked, be sure to sing up to our newsletter, and if you want to join other Flamekeepers on the official Discord channel – you’re invited! Just click the below links:
