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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
  • 525355
  • 48
  • 5071

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Posts

tips for the patient diety on 7th circle of the nightmare realm? I thought I won the fight, but then she just revived everybody and time ran out.
author=kalledemos
tips for the patient diety on 7th circle of the nightmare realm? I thought I won the fight, but then she just revived everybody and time ran out.


IIRC, maybe try and take her out first? ... What's your stats?
Yeah, you should be focusing mostly on her or using moves that hit everyone. You've also got to be fairly beefy to win that one.
my stats

they're all at lv. 61
is the verdict to get beefier? or to git gud? (fingers crossed for the former)
Maybe Malandy can weigh in; it's been a while, so I'm not sure if that's good enough. I'm not sure where you're at in the game, but some new equipment becomes available in your town once you make it to the last level, so that might put you over the edge.
I finally beat the final nightmare dimension: the skills from the soul tear scenes helped quite a lot.
Yeah, I was thinking that you might not have had those yet, but I wasn't sure if mentioning them would be a spoiler. Those are game changers.
Okay, I cannot for the life of me figure out the room puzzle in the nightmare castle. I tried to brute force it, but couldn't find the solution. I got the chapel, snow, water, grass, steel, flames, and mirror, but what's after???
I don't remember the solution offhand, but after the mirror, you need to go back through the rooms in the reverse order. I think that your solution is otherwise right, though.
Thanks for the reply! I finally defeated Phobos (ver 1)! Now I need to farm for the endgame equips to beat the rest of the bonus bosses :(

Well... Photobucket is now letting people see a watermarked version of its images...

So, if "Ask Mint" can return, then we can at least see a little bit of what it was originally like.

*shrugs*
Neat; I went ahead and reenabled the section. I'm going to leave it open to be posted in, but Mint's going to hold off on answering questions because she's busy helping me work on another game.
author=Housekeeping
Neat; I went ahead and reenabled the section. I'm going to leave it open to be posted in, but Mint's going to hold off on answering questions because she's busy helping me work on another game.


:shock:

*Eagerly awaits more news*
Aw, and here I wanted to ask Mint if she and Jimmy ever got to hang out. I know he's a lot quieter, but they seem like they'd have so much in common!
author=Croquette
Where can I find a pop gun??


Silver Spring Open Air Market, IIRC. They sell the toy stuff, like the Fun Swords and Toy Crossbows.

All my saves are too early or they aren't selling right now, though.
author=Malandy
author=Croquette
Where can I find a pop gun??
Silver Spring Open Air Market, IIRC. They sell the toy stuff, like the Fun Swords and Toy Crossbows.

All my saves are too early or they aren't selling right now, though.

I remember seeing it there before but I can't find it anymore, am I too late in the game? Am I just going to have to deal with having unfinished crafting recipes?
author=Croquette
author=Malandy
author=Croquette
Where can I find a pop gun??
Silver Spring Open Air Market, IIRC. They sell the toy stuff, like the Fun Swords and Toy Crossbows.

All my saves are too early or they aren't selling right now, though.
I remember seeing it there before but I can't find it anymore, am I too late in the game? Am I just going to have to deal with having unfinished crafting recipes?

Not if you've got the latest patch. Everything can be crafted or bought if you do. If you have the right people in your city, someone in your city should be selling the recipes for the basic equips like Mechanical Girl gear?

Or do you mean you forgot where Silver Spring / its Open Air Market is?

Take a look at this, if so: https://youtu.be/KCDUh5JBs7U?t=312
author=Malandy
author=Croquette
author=Malandy
author=Croquette
Where can I find a pop gun??
Silver Spring Open Air Market, IIRC. They sell the toy stuff, like the Fun Swords and Toy Crossbows.

All my saves are too early or they aren't selling right now, though.
I remember seeing it there before but I can't find it anymore, am I too late in the game? Am I just going to have to deal with having unfinished crafting recipes?
Not if you've got the latest patch. Everything can be crafted or bought if you do. If you have the right people in your city, someone in your city should be selling the recipes for the basic equips like Mechanical Girl gear?

Or do you mean you forgot where Silver Spring / its Open Air Market is?

Take a look at this, if so: https://youtu.be/KCDUh5JBs7U?t=312

I know where the market is and I can't find the person selling the novelty weapons there, I've also recruited every resident for Sanctuary and I can't find it being sold there either. Maybe I'm just missing something but I really don't know where else to look.
author=Croquette
author=Malandy
author=Croquette
author=Malandy
author=Croquette
Where can I find a pop gun??
Silver Spring Open Air Market, IIRC. They sell the toy stuff, like the Fun Swords and Toy Crossbows.

All my saves are too early or they aren't selling right now, though.
I remember seeing it there before but I can't find it anymore, am I too late in the game? Am I just going to have to deal with having unfinished crafting recipes?
Not if you've got the latest patch. Everything can be crafted or bought if you do. If you have the right people in your city, someone in your city should be selling the recipes for the basic equips like Mechanical Girl gear?

Or do you mean you forgot where Silver Spring / its Open Air Market is?

Take a look at this, if so: https://youtu.be/KCDUh5JBs7U?t=312
I know where the market is and I can't find the person selling the novelty weapons there, I've also recruited every resident for Sanctuary and I can't find it being sold there either. Maybe I'm just missing something but I really don't know where else to look.


Ooh, yeah. Just checked. The guy does seem to not sell it after the Bandit King.

I guess you'll need to do a NG+ to craft more BB Guns?