The World Tower

demo version 1.6 has just been officially accepted

so go and download it why don't ya?

its basically the same as 1.5

BUT

the terrible first dungeon has been completely reworked in its look, layout, and battles

if you exited early because of its awfulness then go ahead and give this game antother try, I promise that dungeon is 100 times more bearable now

I'm going to re-do the entire first section to get rid of the hopeless winding corridors that make backtracking in that section (which must be done often) a serious pain in the ass. Such things work for RPs based on random battles (like all my previous work) but somthing like this needs completely differently designed dungeons. Also going to finally buckle down and do some actual work. If I don't finish "chapter 4" (the one directly aftert the demo) before June then I'll be unhappy with myself, but anyway, if you're waiting for this to come out than it will be awhile, though there are a few things that I won't be fixing in order to make some actual progress and keep my motivation to work up

namely the capitalization errors in the dialogue, I will also be replacing some of the game's features (most of the element stuff) again just to keep myself from being intimidated. This will all be replaced with what I hope will be equally cool things

the spellbooks and bombs will be untouched of course, as well as the completely different positions and dialogues of the NPCs with each chapter, and I will try to keep the quests in.

I'm really looking forward to scraping and re-doing that awful first section, the damn thing has haunted me forever and made game testing a chore I just don't know why I didn't do it sooner

also if you have any good ideas on how to add more variety to the early fights than be sure to let me know, keep in mind that its very important that Jayson does not learn magic until the end of chapter 4

I'm going to be adjusting the first section of the game (the first one with monsters) mostly I am going to reduce the HP of the moles definately and the solider probably in an attempt to make those fights a bit shorter. The first section is basically a couple of long boring fights followed by boring backtracking through a boring corridor to the shop so you don't die in the next couple of boring fights. That's boring. I had to spend 20 minutes arguing with my game tester that this was a smart move but the first section is just too tedious. I can't be boring the players to death here especially since the parts after it is what I want them to see. Its hard to make a game or part of a game easier when you, your tester, and about half your audience feels that it is sufficently challenging but it is better to have a section that is too easy then too tedious and boring, especially if its the first section, the first section is supposed to be easy anyway (and the other 50% of my audience quit during the middle of it, not a sign of good game design)

also the first section's problems are the result of it being the first part I used the game's encounter system on. The later ones are far less sloppy and Jayson is just very weak in that one part of the game. The later section's enemies can remain untouched but this section definately needs a tune up (or tune down)

I'd like to say the demo is mistake free but that'd be lying

so here's a bug report, all of these are fixed but not in the demo I posted

1. Flying Flambe can be used (and wasted) outside of battle

2. Jayson's name is spelled wrong when somthing in the kitchen is checked

3. one of the tombstones doesn't say anything

4. storage closet monster believes he has already fought you

5. Jayson talks even though he is at home sleeping when you check the upper right part of the well

6. not really a bug but folks complained about it, there is now somthing to distinguish your home during the day, also I added "door is locked" messages to the doors you can't go into during the day there

7. also not a bug, but someone mentioned the way back to the unsafe zone is hard to see so I fixed it

8. you're given three bell peppers but when an event happens when you use them all up, only two are taken away

9. hungry guys claims he gave you 50G but he doesn't

10. onion is a waste of money, not really a bug but somthing that needed to be fixed

EDIT: a bug was discovered that was so big and easy to find that I need to take the demo down and replace it with a new one, all the previous ones and this huge one are already fixed and won't be in the new demo, also a game ending bug was discovered, this has also been fixed

if you already downloaded the first demo and version 1.2 is available then replace it with the new one, trust me

Good news for the 4 or so people interested in this game: I have finished what is perhaps the most demanding mapping, eventing, and databasing portion of the demo, there's still some significant work to do but I am at the point where I can confidently say that this thing WILL be done sometime next week. I'm very happy with the game so far but I'll just have to wait and see how it will be recieved now won't I?

update: expect the demo tomarrow or the day after, I'm very close to finishing it