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"Why do you descend?"

Version 1.32 released March 28th, 2014.



-The Drop is a unique take on the dungeon crawler and follow-up to 2009's The Reconstruction.
-No typical HP & MP monotony. Instead, player and enemy alike have Body, Mind, and Soul ratings which serve as both health and magical power. Knocking any of these to zero means defeat, so spelunkers beware!
-Create your own player character. Choose a race, appearance, starting weapon, elemental alignment, perks, and a background. Or, choose from an array of pre-made characters, including a few familiar faces.
-Randomized dungeons. Hundreds of items, dozens of monsters and spells, and all sorts of weirdness lurks around every corner!
-Use magic and items to manipulate the environment to your advantage. Freeze water to trap foes in place. Set fire to grass to create a smokescreen. Evaporate spilled poison to create a toxic cloud. Electrify puddles of water. Many interactions await!
-Exploit your enemies' fears and emotions. Lull, befriend, or terrorize enemies by using the proper item or spell!
-Experiment with items to discover their properties with interactions like eating, applying, and throwing. A plant that makes you sick when eaten may have healing properties when applied to your wounds instead. Collect them all!
-Use stealth and line-of-sight to your advantage. Sneak up on enemies to attack from behind, or avoid them entirely. But be careful - enemies you can't see can do the same to you!
-Customizable BGM playlist. Add or remove songs from the dungeon's soundtrack, or even import your own music!
-Hardcore mode awaits! A true roguelike experience with permanent death and limited saving available. Do you feel lucky?



THE RECONSTRUCTION (2009). The Drop is a direct sequel to this game, and is set in the same world. Many characters, monsters, and spells are returning, but familiarity with the game is not necessary to enjoy The Drop.

I MISS THE SUNRISE (2012). A prequel to The Reconstruction and only distantly related to The Drop. It's quite different in tone and setting.

Official wiki here! Beware of spoilers!

TV Tropes Page available here! Beware of spoilers!



Updated March 28th, 2014.

Version 1.32 is live, as well as the complete soundtrack download and the "classic" track pack!

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You can look back at my semi-weekly progress reports by visiting http://www.tilde-one.com/, clicking the Show Archive button, and looking for anything with "Drop" in the title (newest entries are on top).

Latest Blog

The Drop - Version 1.32! New character!

Happy almost-April-1st! If you're reading this, The Drop Version 1.32 is now available for download! Why is this one so special? Well, an idea I've had for some time has finally come to fruition, and hopefully you can wring a few more hours out of The Drop while I'm still working on How Far. Maybe. Anyway, here are the change notes:

-Here comes a new challenger! Dehl Sikohlon is now a playable character! You can choose him from the second page of the "Special Characters" screen at any time.
-Magic Stitch now correctly heals Body health.
-Fixed an issue where it's possible to walk outside of the map in a certain area.
-Fixed a crash bug (again) that can occur after defeating the final boss.
-The final secret character now begins with some Soul-damaging magic as well.
-Removed all floor elements from the final boss' lair. Beware: it's an actual fight now!
-The spell "Calamity" now correctly inflicts Mind damage.
-The spell "Snowstorm" now correctly inflicts Soul damage.
-The spells "Thunderclash" and "Jolt" now has the correct icon.
-Hints should no longer get stuck on the screen after being defeated in Hardcore mode.

Dehl is a challenging character; if Xopi is defeated, he will fall too! Good luck!

Posts

Deltree's new game O_O... Subscribed.
Hooray! :D I normally hate roguelikes, but this looks really interesting!

I think that those animated tchiitra gifs look strangely cute. And using them for the loading screen was a nice touch. :)

Edit: Oh hey, you're making this in Ace? How does it compare to regular VX?
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Pros: Performance seems a tad better, and multiple tilesets are back. The latter is really all I ever wanted. I can't comment on the built-in mechanic stuff since I've eschewed it almost entirely this time.

Cons: RGSS3 has a few changes I had to get used to, and it has bugs. For instance, for some reason the "Erase Picture" command makes the game crash. It's nice having 99 of them to use though for things I want to draw on the interface but don't want to create objects for, though.

But, the absolute worst part of Ace: If you have a syntax error in a script somewhere, it doesn't tend to jump to the line in the Ruby like the older versions did. Instead it always jumps to the interpreter call, which means you get a nigh-useless error box and you don't know what caused it! Have fun with that!

The hatchling is somewhat of a mascot this time around! If other franchises can get away with it, why not?
woo woo gamepage warming party yea party hard!!!!
grats and good luck!
I dig this page :3
I'm not a huge fan of dungeon crawlers, but I think I'm gonna love this.
Oh, but I must finish "I Miss the Sunrise" first :D
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Thanks for the early support, y'all! I hope to have some new screens and a status update in the near future!
Hexatona
JESEUS MIMLLION SPOLERS
3702
This has a very aesthetically pleasing presentation, good work. Looking forward to your progress!
Really nice. I do wish people would stop disabling comments and ratings, as I like to like stuff and comment on it.
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Sorry about that Rex (or is that Reks?); I like to have one central place to follow comments. Especially considering the mentality of your average Youtube user.
Only one thing to comment about. Actually I don't like the font you used for the game. It look like it an old school game. Btw, this game is great. :D
A few cosmetic bugs:

-Pressing 7 and 8 at the same time will superimpose the two submenu screens over one another. This isn't a problem for the other submenus, though.
-The text for "Forced Purification" is heavily compressed so as to be unreadable. A similar thing seems to occur on the status screen for the kill counter when it exceeds one digit.

By the way, what floor is the maximum power level? I just encountered firefiends on the previous floor (#6), is that the strongest one excluding the boss?
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Thanks!

Floor 6 or so is as strong as the enemies get. Actually, it generates a pool of possible spawns based on your floor (so hatchlings are less frequent but the special soldiers are moreso), and 6 is the last one.
Ah, I see. I guess the only thing left to do is to see if I can take down the boss, then.

By the way, calling it now: the boss is...

zombie/cyborg Havan. Remember, Dehl "killed" him by throwing him off a cliff, and everyone knows that never works in stories!


That or it's something boring like our old friend the Tatzylvurm.

Anyway, it looks pretty good overall! My only criticism is that the active spell/inventory bank feels too small, but that's probably intentional. Once you start learning more spells, it's really fun to analyze the multitude of strategical possibilities you can use to get out of a sticky situation -- it's so much more than just "hit the elemental weakness". I'm afraid I haven't used environmental interactions all that much, though -- it's just so rare that I'm fighting enemies in the exact right spot for it.

Oh, I also find that items are a bit unintuitive. Even after identifying them, I often forget what they do, especially in regards to both use and consume. The only ones I seem to be able to remember are Tanner's Jerky, Shivburry Peppers, and Oil of Whitefield.

(The characters also seem pretty dumb to not know the "if unknown plant, nibble, don't gorge" rule, and they also don't seem to know to point strange objects away from their faces when breaking them. I suppose it's a necessity of the system.)
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Actually,

He got bum rushed by dozens of angry travelers. But wouldn't that be something!


I wanted a constrained feel exactly like you pointed out - it's a common element in all three games, only this time you're limited to one person instead of a party than can cover each other's faults. It's an experimental direction and I hope it works out.

The environmental thing are still pretty infrequent, and I will definitely be upping their spawn rates, as well as variety. Different floor "themes" will have different liquids/plants/minerals and whatnot, so you can take things that don't spawn in a certain habitat and try them out against foreign enemies and whatnot.

Still working on how to describe items. I wanted more flavor than the "potion of cure wounds" nonsense, and I wanted the player's learning process to be a factor too, but I can see how it would be overwhelming.
Fire is overpowered. If a firefiend hits you with Phosphoro Spray, it's instant death. The stunlocking means you're completely helpless against any oncoming attacks, and since you're in the middle of a spread, it's unlikely the fire will go out before the firefiend uses Phosphoro Spray again (and even if it does, you'll only get, what, one attack in before it restores it?). I think that you should be able to move, at least -- maybe make a status effect that's the opposite of paralysis (can't do anything but move)?

By the way, on the environment thing: I think part of the problem may just be range. Once triggered, effects spread one tile beyond the grass patch/pool, so it's kind of difficult to trigger a large environment effect without getting hit yourself, since spell ranges aren't terribly high.

By the way, what's up with the "a sense of oppression and dread" message? It's not in the manual and it doesn't seem to be the boss trigger, as I didn't find one. Does it just mean there are more enemies? (That did seem to be the case.)
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Yeah I can see that. I did reduce the chance of stun from what it was initially, and I'll probably reduce it again and might even remove the fire portion from its attack. (It can still ignite things on the ground, though).

The dread message means the enemy selection is from one floor ahead of the current floor. So, a little tougher.
Hm. This mysterious boss creature seems oddly shy. I got the "low moan" message (complete with red text and accompanying sound effect), but, despite illuminating what I believe is the entire floor, I can't seem to find it.
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Had someone else say the same thing. He got it to appear on another floor, though. I think I know what's going on with that, so it'll be fixed in the next update!