Hey and hello, readers of this magnificent blog!

First off, the new office is 99% locked in, so you can look forward to Murmel’s Marvelous Moving Mega Blog™. As reported last week, production of On Rusty Trails came to bit of a halt on Stamm’s part, because he wanted to finalize the new office search and had to put aside some time to produce assets for a game pitch, we will submit to a EU games funding campaign.

What he did hand in though, is a first look on the achievement icons. These are work in progress and there will be more, but it’s never too early to let you guys know, we have mechanics that tell you that you are awesome, right?
Stamm’s personal favorite is in the bottom left corner and is awarded for playing through the game without using a single savepoint – obviously one of the more bad ass achievements. Looking forward to seeing one of you posting they did it when we launch!
Next to that, we have a sequence of achievements that counts the number of jumps. Some of the others are not clear yet or will be revealed later. So, without further ado, check out the current state of things:

First Look Achievements

Stamm himself hit a major achievement this week. After two long weeks with a “broken” camera on his Mac, which left us in the dark on the video chats we do for team meetings, he tasked himself to finally fix that thing. Only one day later he announced, proudly, he had magically solved the problem by simply restarting the Mac. Kudos to you, Sir!

At this point, we have to pause the blog for a short announcement from the eater himself. Stamm specifically insisted on me telling everyone through this hallowed medium, he adores Mr. Tom candy bars – or as he in fact calls them: “The best muesli bar in the world”. Since he technically is my boss, I have to oblige, but not without protesting and not without mocking him for calling that sugar-coated brick of peanuts a freaking MUESLI BAR. For a healthy and well-rounded nutrition, Dr. Stamm recommends smoking, booze and the best muesli bar in the world!

On the sane front of the creative friends we have Tobi, who has been spending time in boss-fight-land to deliver some crisp and exciting battles and to fit them in the right spots of the game, he has also discovered gifs to be his new favorite gimmick (welcome to the internet, Tobi), so he decided to only send in those.

The following is a boss fight where the weather is making it hard for Elvis to stand still. Thunder and lightning bring death from above and everything is pretty hectic. This fight also takes place before Elvis learns about the “SCHRECKLICHES GEHEIMNIS!!!” (horrible secret) which I, personally have no clue of, and I guess we will learn at some point, what this is all about. Major teaser planted!

Here is hoping WordPress can display gifs from the get-go, because damn you Tobi, if I have to tinker with these plug-ins:

Runner Boss Fight

A bonus gif arrived shortly after and it introduces a new feature to the game. As you might have gathered from what is known about the game so far, Elvis can change his appearance to influence the world around him. The new mechanic turns everything around by making the world switch its appearance, forcing Elvis to react. The gif shows Elvis hurrying through a level of ever changing blocks, having to masterfully swap between his Shifty Suit™ and his creator-given self.

The Color Changer

On that note, will we ever find out, who created Elvis’ people? And the swampy enemies? What is going on with the weather? And will Stamm collapse from eating too much overly healthy food?

I guess you will have to check back in next week, to maybe get some answers. I can see, how J.J. Abrams gets a kick out of doing Lost. Our ending will be better, though :p

Laters!