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The rope winds from the clouds like the long-dried trail of a giant's tear. It whips in the arid wind, down the birdless sky, and into the open mouth of the ravine that splits the dead land. Down and down it goes, the sky darkening to a pinpoint of light above it. This is the sky that Ivy knows.

Ivy and her sister, Mint, peer further into the ravine. It has been one day since their father stopped moving. A dandelion sprouts from the parched earth like hands clasped together in prayer. It is the only living thing they've seen in this dead world. A growl echoes off the cliff walls. Maybe not the only thing.

Sometimes Ivy dreams of a sky that covers everything. When she awakes, she hates herself for still having the dreams of a child. She's fourteen, now, her sister twelve. The rope stretches up above them, up, up, up, further than young eyes can see.

Features:
-Character-centric storyline
-50+ hours of gameplay
-Challenging boss battles
-Original music
-Different equipment sets that modify the ways characters play
-A crafting system featuring over 100 pieces of unique equipment
-LOTS of side quests
-Puzzles that spice up dungeon design
-Recruit an odd assortment of townspeople and pass legislation to develop your own village
-Raise a pig to compete in the Pig Arena and win prizes
-New game+ feature that includes multiple bonus endings--a mechanic I blatantly stole from Chrono Trigger

Latest Blog

Major Update

I've been hinting here and there about wanting to update A Very Long Rope, and I finally got off my ass and did it. I made quite a few changes, and I'll list them below, but I want to talk about the most major one in depth. When I made A Very Long Rope, my goal was to make a game with a strong story, and a lot of the other aspects got brushed aside. This was going to be my way to segue into the community and hopefully find some other people interested in working together. Since then, I've shifted my perspective and focused more on things like design and aesthetics, which this game doesn't really care much about, unfortunately.

So, the update. The chief annoyance I've been hearing about A Very Long Rope is the dungeon design--mainly, levels are way too big, and the random encounters serve to make things worse. So, this update adds an item to your inventory that toggles enemy encounters. This item was available in the game before, but the only way to get it was to beat the game (players who have done this know I'm talking about the saecelium shield). Now, this item is given to the player at the very beginning, meaning you don't have to fight a single random encounter anymore.

Of course, since bosses exist, you'll still need to gain experience. In order to incentivize getting a good amount of experience before each boss, I've made several treasure chests need a currency called "victory points" in order to open them. Basically, you get a single victory point for every enemy you defeat in a battle (other than bosses). Victory points are dependent based on the dungeon, so the ones you earn in the first dungeon will only work in that dungeon. The cost of opening chests is higher depending on what's inside the chest, so you might need to spend between 2-6 points in order to open each of these special chests.

I've also doubled the experience, gold, and item drops from monsters. The net effect here is that if you open every single locked chest, you'll end up fighting about half of the encounters that you would have if you just left random encounters on. I did a full playthrough and felt that these locked chests provided short-term goals that kept me more interested while exploring; I hope they do that for you, too!

Here's the full list of changes:

-Reduced crit damage from triple to double
-Stat cap increased to 9999 (will mainly affect buff stacking)
-Berserk no longer sucks
-One-touch Sprint
-First agricultural upgrade requires three people instead of five.
-Escape rate now a flat 60%
-Added a way to get out of the Goddess Tower if you don't have a portable transceiver
-Fixed a few typos/graphical glitches/small things I don't remember
-Rare drop rates have been increased significantly
-Gold/XP/Drop Rates doubled
-Findable equipment that could be used in recipes is now sold as recipes in your town along with the regular recipes.
-Saecelium Shield now added at the beginning of the game. Players can use their old data and find a Saeclium Shield in a number of places within a blue chest (such as the entrance to your town, on the world map, or next to the save point in Old Town); the blue chests will disappear upon opening one.
-Most chests are now "locked." Gain Victory Points from defeating random mobs in a dungeon to open locked chests. Victory Points are specific to each dungeon.
-Locked chests are weighted based on how good the item is. 2 VP is a potion, 3 VP is gold, a good potion, or monster mats, 4 VP are great potions and large sums of gold, 5 VP are stat-boosting items or rare monster mats, 6 VP are equipment.
-Chests that aren't near easy grinding spots (e.g. chests in certain puzzles, chests in towns) will never be locked. Several other random chests in dungeons will also not be locked.
-Arena fights now give experience
-Can now use saecelium shield during soul tear scenes
-Only need to find the wolf four times instead of nine (what was I thinking?!) in Marina's soul tear scene.


That's it! Oh, and make sure to subscribe to my new project: Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass.
  • Completed
  • Housekeeping
  • RPG Maker VX
  • RPG
  • 11/26/2013 04:56 PM
  • 05/29/2023 03:05 PM
  • 12/01/2013
  • 525457
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Posts

It's easy to forget about someone, but, right now, I think that's everyone you can get.
author=Mizushimi
author=pthariensflame
Babette in Silver Spring is the only one I can think of.
so all that i recruited are the ones who can recruit in the entire game except babette?


No. :) She's just the only one (that I remember) that you can recruit at the moment.
@housekeeping: i got a stick from rose's prison :(
@pthariensflame: okay okay. thanks
@pthariensflame:
where exactly is babette

edit: nvm. found her
author=pthariensflame
@Mizushimi Check the pub/bar! ^.^

EDIT: On a separate note,
is level 47 (on all characters) sufficient to complete Oliver's Corona Lucis temple quest without excessive luck? I feel like at least one of my characters is dying nearly every battle, and I have yet to even get to whatever the gimmick of this dungeon is (something to do with fire, maybe, based on the sign in front?).


EDIT 2: Also,
at the point I'm at in the story (which should be obvious from the above hidden text), have I gotten all of the people I can get for Sanctuary? I've currently got:

- Alan
- Albert
- Amos
- Amy
- Anne
- Babette
- Beatrice
- Cecille
- Connor
- Deidre
- Desdemona
- Emil
- Genevieve
- Genghis
- Gretchen
- Griff
- Grundy
- Gunner
- Gunther
- Judd
- Juliette
- Kayla
- Lovie
- Luca
- Mackie
- Marco
- Margo
- Miranda
- Moira
- Mort
- Neil
- Nox
- Olson
- Richard
- Richmond
- Spoony
- Svetlana
- Toby
- Walker

I have all 25,000 gold expansions, the commercial district's 50,000 gold expansion, and there are no notices in the council hall right now.


EDIT 3: Alphabetized the list for easier comparison.


u forgot jarvis and esther
Man, how could I have forgotten to tell him about Jarvis; he had some of the funnest dialogue to write (Lovie was the absolute best, though).
@housekeeping: i agree, lol. btw, so
rose is dead? and the stick was like a memento?
Lol. I actually found Jarvis pretty early on, I just forget about him easily. :P

My favorite line of his is the one of about the coconut. XD
Miz:

Yeah, Rose is dead. This was covered in Yvette's dialogue when she gets you out of Avishun dungeon. The stick is actually used in the game in the forest next to Mossvine.


pthariensflame:

Wait till you build the third entertainment section, ohohoho.
guys please help:

i got the polaris keycard and search on every blue building... say, did i miss something? i think im stuck. thanks
Go north from the entrance. You should be heading to the basement of the big building. The other three, smaller buildings just contain items.
author=Housekeeping
Go north from the entrance. You should be heading to the basement of the big building. The other three, smaller buildings just contain items.


god. i've came from there and didn't notice that there was a basement. anyways, thanks!
Any advice on fighting
Weiss
? All my characters are at level 49 now, and I've died 3 times, the same way every time:
I get Weiss down enough for him to pop his buff, and then he immediately nails me with EMP Generator, which invariably paralyzes every single character, leaving him capable of finishing me off in the next round, with nothing I can do about it.
pthariensflame: did u try to equip ant-paralyze acce in all chars?
Yeah; you might want to invest in some rubber gowns from Esther, too.
@housekeeping: whats the name of the tower again that fused with flying mountain?
@Miz:

It's a space elevator. It's not like, exactly a traditional space elevator, but it serves the same purpose using saecelium technology, so I called it a space elevator anyway, haha.
author=Housekeeping
@Miz:

It's a space elevator. It's not like, exactly a traditional space elevator, but it serves the same purpose using saecelium technology, so I called it a space elevator anyway, haha.


the fyling mountain looks like a big flying castle now :D
@housekeeping: is there anything to do to earn more golds fast? :3
Grinding is probably the best option, I'm afraid. The only time I grinded in my playthroughs was for post-game stuff, though, and that was more to get the monster mats I needed to make the best equipment. Where are you at/what are you trying to save up for? You might be able to do without it for a little while.