Ursus Quest: 'Shadow of the Towers' [Archive]

Crythania

11-10-2006, 08:16 PM

I have played through this game and seen the ending. Here's a quick spoiler-free review.

Obright has created an epic-length masterpiece with some very cool things that happen. The game takes a long time to get where it's going. Sometimes a little too long. Story events are few and far between. There are many transitionary regions that must be traversed to get where you need to go, and a lot of random encounters along the way. Fairly early on, you gain the ability to turn off the encounters. You can use this ability as often as you want to make life easier, but eventually you're gonna have to do some training and gain some levels so that you can keep up with the monsters, who get progressively tougher.

This game's best material is saved for last. All of the coolest things happen near the end. It takes a long time to get there, but is was worth the journey for me.

There is an uber cool thing that happens near the end. I can't say what it is. It's an uber spoiler. But it's totally awesome, and it blew me away. This thing is truly inspired, a work of creative genius. I was beyond impressed. :D

The game's strengths are its field maps. The author is an artist who provides us with many sweeping vistas to see, usually from atop a mountain or other high vantage point. There are also some very cool special effects that happen.

For me, the game's weakness is its gameplay. Lots of battles. A large percentage of my time was spent fighting monsters and power-leveling so I could stay ahead of the opposition.

Overall, this game is a long, epic-length journey that takes a while to get where it's going. It was worth the effort to get there and see the ultra cool stuff near the end. That uber cool thing that happens is totally awesome!

Ωbright

11-10-2006, 10:19 PM

Hey, Thanks Cryth! Awesome! Thank you! :D One thing I will say, though...is that you don't have to play it the way you did. Doing it that way is totally fine, it makes the battles easier, and you can afford the best items...even some that you're not 'supposed' to have until later (which also makes things easier), but it means a whole stinking LOT of battles to get there. I believe you even used the 'encounter-up' skill, right? If you wait until you can return to that first shop in the game, you'll already have enough money to get the really expensive things without having to train up for them. This makes the game a wee bit harder, but you have far fewer battles to go through. It's a matter of weighing the pros and cons, and making your game decision based on that. Just about any strategy will have both...you have to compromise a bit.

I know...you started to encounter hard battles even after all of that training...but I think what happened was that the experience curve finally caught up with you...and you caught up to where you were supposed to be in the game. This is very interesting...it means that no matter how you choose to play at the beginning, eventually it all winds up the same.

You know...In the first town, I should REALLY have someone (Aratos) say something about the fact that you'll be able to return later. Only problem is that there's no way for Aratos to know that at that point in the game...hmm. When I play a game (Phantasy Star 3 comes to mind), when there's a town with things that are WAY too expensive to get at the beginning of the game, whether I stay and train long enough to get them depends on whether or not I know that I can come back. If there's any doubt, then I usually roll my eyes and just train long enough to get them. Usually though...when things like that appear in early shops, it means that you'll probably be able to come back eventually. Still, like I said...there needs to be some clue that a return trip might be possible...somehow.

I know that there needs to be more story events, but I ran out of room. :/ It's pretty ironic, too...I LOVE making story events, but I only had room for about 15 total in the game.

THANK YOU again for playing...and BEATING Shadow of the Towers, and if you had fun playing, then all that hard work I went through making it was worth it.

Crythania

11-10-2006, 10:31 PM

The way I play a game like this is: I power-level so I can stay ahead of the opposition. That made the game much longer than it probably should have been. That's my fault, not necessarily the game's fault.

Yeah, I spent extra time gold mining in some areas so I could afford expensive items that I otherwise would've had to pass up. That drew it out even further.

And yes, the experience curve eventually caught up to me. The enemies were not giving out enough experience for it to really be worth my while. It would've taken a LOT of time to power-level and become stronger. As it stands, I was strong enough to finish the game with a party at Level 42. My total play time was almost 40 hours.

Ωbright

11-12-2006, 06:12 AM

As it stands, I was strong enough to finish the game with a party at Level 42. My total play time was almost 40 hours.

I usually finish at about level 45, but I train up in the last area (which is a good place to do that), which is something you didn't do. Oh well...it didn't seem to matter...you prevailed! My data is usually 32-35 hours by the time I reach the final destination, but if I do the optional stuff at the end (like going back to Archaeon to get the Citron Ring ;)), it almost always goes over 40 hours.

I'm glad you liked that effect at the end of chapter 5 :) And thanks again for the nice comments...but...did you mean to say that the use of random battles was a weak point...instead of just saying that the gameplay was a weak point?

Ωbright

11-12-2006, 06:12 AM

I have absolutely no idea why this posted twice...please forgive the double post!

Ωbright

11-16-2006, 07:24 PM

As an added incentive to play Shadow of the Towers, I'm working on an add-on to the game. This will be Valhalla...a warrior's paradise. It's basically just the exact same game, but you can load your characters from your playthrough of the main game, and resume. This add-on gives some more insight into the story, and allows players to fight the 12 bosses of the game again...at a higher level. The legendary weapons will return, but will be much easier to get. The main story elements will be gone, which will make room for a LOT of other things. You'll start the bonus realm in Neftis, and have access to all of the ancient machines in your mansion (including the teleport).

I'll probably just send it to anybody who's beaten the game, but I may make it so that people have to get a perfect 'treasure hunter' score to be given the key to the bonus realm. I could make a 'key treasure' which is the result of getting all treasures, and I may make that what you need to have to enter the bonus game. If I do this, I'll have to edit the original game just slightly, which I don't want to do for as long as possible.

I just started working on this, but it's a thought. Any thoughts from anybody else? I probably won't work on this for a while, I need to finish playing some other people's games!

Ωbright

12-02-2006, 08:38 AM

This game has had several downloads recently, so I thought I'd better get off of my ass and post a few helpful hints for beginning players.

- First, when you gain control of your character, you'll see a save point ahead of you, on the other side of the fountain. Use this before you do anything else! You are about to choose 3 possible battle mates out of a possible 7. You can say 'no' to them over and over, but once you say 'yes', you're stuck with having that character in your party until you get to the last town in the game...or unless you reset.

- There are 32 different possible beginning parties...unless my math is wack.

- One of the things people that have started playing have said, is that there is not enough information about the 7 possible battle members at the beginning to make solid strategic decisions about which 3 you pick...some of this is intentional...it promotes replay...but I'll provide some basic info for those who want it *SPOILER ALERT* of course...

I tried to give each character something special that would make you want to pick them, but at the same time have none of them be mandatory in any way (except for Troy).

The character descriptions are now here (http://www.pavilionboards.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10648).

Well that's everybody...hopefully that will be enough info to get things started!

Ωbright

12-13-2006, 10:40 PM

Well...I've had 2 parallel playtests going for a while, and I've found WAY too many things to fix. Some are things I've known about forever and COMPLETELY forgotten about, some were found by other people after I released the full version, some were just found by me recently, and some are things I'm just considering. None of them have much impact on gameplay, they're more polish than anything. As a matter of fact people who were playing could simply update their game saves and continue...but still I won't upload another version for quite a while unless a ton of people say they want it. Anyway, here's what I've found so far. If you find something else while playing, post it here...especially if it's something that interferes with gameplay somehow.

- Detail the first map a bit more.

- Put everyones skills into the proper order on their skill list, so that they show up that way in the battle menu

- I'm considering redoing the ancient ruins dungeon completely

- Finish changing half of the enemy drops to 'Lucky Magic Ring' instead of the default lucky ring

Perversion

12-13-2006, 10:46 PM

Actually, Obright, the more I read your description of the game, the more I want to play it.:)

Ωbright

01-05-2007, 05:37 PM

I would be honored if you did...seriously. If you do, I hope you enjoy it!!

irate giraffe

01-05-2007, 06:39 PM

I, too, intend to play this once I am finished making my own game. It sounds very cool. I already have my characters picked out from the descriptions you posted above. I just don't have that much free time to allocate.

Ωbright

01-05-2007, 08:38 PM

Ooh...which people? *SPOILER REMOVED*

simple man

01-05-2007, 09:20 PM

excuse me but i dont think its not right without girl characters even though im a man i think the girls wanna be a heroine

Ωbright

01-05-2007, 11:00 PM

I don't think it's not right without girl characters either.

Actually, I didn't do that on purpose. I had MANY, MANY NPC's, and even 2 female hidden playable characters...but I ran out of room and had to delete them. Also, I had 'default' shopkeepers as placeholders while I finished the game. The updated version (whenever it comes out) will have many female shopkeepers, although the playable female characters are gone forever.

Ωbright

01-30-2007, 09:37 PM

One more thing for the new version...sigh. While playtesting a bit today, I realised that one of Joseph's enemy skills was learned in the wrong place. Damn. >: It's fixed now, and the updated version will be corrected. People playing the current version will actually be at an advantage, because they'll have a more powerful spell earlier on. So far, that's the worst overlooked thing I've found...still not too bad, though.

sleepingsnow

02-03-2007, 04:52 PM

I would like to give you credit Obright beacuse a few days ago, I came to this forum and read your walkthrough and everything else for your Ursus games and it is what imspired me to dust off my RPGM3 and create a game of my own^^.I am definately looking forward to playing your game! It looks |337!Sadly i dunt have a Maxdexdrive yet..:(

Ωbright

02-04-2007, 12:09 AM

sleepingsnow

02-04-2007, 02:20 PM

I have been wondering all day what 'Ursus' means? Is it just a title? or would I just have to play the game to find out?

simple man

02-04-2007, 02:39 PM

obright what is the best way of making you in the mood to make games?

Ωbright

02-04-2007, 03:44 PM

I have been wondering all day what 'Ursus' means? Is it just a title? or would I just have to play the game to find out?

'Ursus' means 'bear'. :)

obright what is the best way of making you in the mood to make games?

Give me money. :D j/k

Actually some free time without being worried about 4 thousand things would do it. Playing other games that are almost perfect helps sometimes. Playing really bad games helps too sometimes. There are ways to put almost anything you're inspired to make into a game.

I think the BEST way is to just force yourself to start the damn thing. Once you do that, the more you have made, the easier it gets (until the end).

hitogoroshi

02-04-2007, 03:47 PM

I agree, Obright. Summer is, like, the ONLY time I can work on Torayu. Aside from touch-ups, if I'm gonna work on Torayu, I want a whole day free to do it :D

Wavelength

02-04-2007, 05:46 PM

That's interesting. I don't think I could make it through spending a whole day with RPGM3. I'm just too likely to run into some preset, or simply create something, that I don't like. I generally break it up into 3-4 hour sessions, and lately I've been able to work on it once a week or so, and I'm definitely enjoying doing so.

hitogoroshi

02-04-2007, 06:48 PM

Well, it's not like I do it the whole day (last summer I took Sims 2 breaks). All I mean is that, at any time in the day, if I have an idea, I need to be able to plunk down and do it. Also, by contrast, I need to be able to do it, take a break whenever, and re-start whenver. Soda helps :D

Ωbright

03-07-2007, 05:56 PM

I wish I could have an all-day'er. :( I've been in a slump lately...I load up Tree of Life to work on it, and I'm just like...huh? I'm overwhelmed. I thought making the intro cutscenes would help establish a base to work from, but I'm having lots of trouble with those. Dammit...I thought it was the TECHNICAL part of Tree of Life that would make me scream, but instead it's the damn cutscenes! WTF?

All I want to do is finish playtesting and polishing Shadow of the Towers. It's probably because that game is finished already. It's taken some time for me to get some distance between me and SotT, but now that I have, I can say that I enjoyed playing it. I'd forgotten a lot of things, and I was playing more objectively. I guess I can say I'm kinda proud of it after all, and that feels great!

But that's not getting the new game made...at all. Maybe I'll have to just officially hold off on working on the new game until the last one's closer to perfect. The version that I have is already much more polished than the one that's posted...I should probably just finish it, update it (for the last time), and move on. In any case, it's interfering with my progress on the new game, so...yeah. I'll probably just have to do it.

Would anybody PLEASE volunteer to playtest Shadow of the Towers before I update the file here at the Pavilion? If so that would be awesome...I'd have more teeth on my comb as I try to polish the whole thing.

Perversion

03-07-2007, 07:22 PM

How soon do you need this to happen? Because I would not mind playing it, but I'm now a reviewer for the mag, and I don't want to get put in the situation where I need to play two RPGM games in a set time period. I've still gotta "play" Irate Giraffe's map tour, too. Let me know. And please do not lose focus on Tree of Life. That's one game I really want to play.

Ωbright

03-08-2007, 12:16 AM

That would be awesome! Thanks, Perv! I'm not done polishing the old version yet anyway, so no pressure there. I'd like to send you a final version to play test...might as well. If you find anything in addition to what I've already fixed, then I'll fix it before I upload it here.

Congratulations on becoming a reviewer at the Mag!

Well that settles it...I'll finish polishing Shadow of the Towers, get Perv (and whomever else wants to) to playtest it, then upload it here...and resume working on Tree of Life. I already have a checklist of things to alter, and I've already altered most of them. I need to finish my 2 concurrent playtests before I'm even relatively sure of that, though. I'm currently about halfway through playing both. I just want to be sure and send you the most typo-free version.

Thanks again for doing this, and whenever you can get to it is fine! If you don't like the numerous (yet relatively brief) battles, then you might want to take it in small doses. Hell...if you just HATE it, then I guess there's no point in your continuing playing it.......but hopefully you won't...hopefully you'll really like it!

Ωbright

03-15-2007, 11:05 AM

I just added two things to Shadow of the Towers, and took two away. First off, I got rid of the 'Practice Ring' accessory, which raised INT by 5. Yeah. WHY was that there, again? Sigh...I made it when I didn't know exactly how INT was used yet. Anyway, it's gone, and so I had room to add another Lucky Ring. It always bothered me before that the Lucky Ring was only equipable on 5 characters, so now there's a 'Lucky Magic Ring' for the mages, and a 'Lucky Power Ring' for the fighters. The secret character is the only one who can equip either one. Now, instead of (almost) every single battle party having a very rare chance of dropping a Lucky Ring, it's about 50-50. Each area will have half of the encounters potentialy dropping one, and the other half might drop the other. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, the Lucky Rings encourage fighting RE's. About 99% of battles can drop one, but the chance for each is set to 'Almost Never'. THEY ARE NICE (LUCK +99, a 5-point bonus to all other stats, and nice added effects. The magic one causes the wearer to regain MP with 15-point bonuses to MAG and M-DEF, and the power one causes SWIFT on the character, with 15-point bonuses to STR and DEF). The more RE's you fight, the greater your chances of finding one or both of them.

Unfortunately, even AFTER I deleted a building from the town of Cinnabar, I STILL didn't have enough room to add a proposed event when first entering Caldera (just 2 message boxes and a DISPLAY-OFF code), OR to add ONE variable modify code when the secret character is found. I was going to use that as a key to get into the bonus game, but oh well. Aparently, when you max out the data limit, you have to remove a fairly sizable chunk before the system doesn't think it's capped any longer...I could be wrong about that, but I've even deleted a building, and immediately tried to add it again only to have the system tell me there's not enough room for it...when I JUST deleted it! Weirdness. I've even tried saving with the building gone, and THEN trying to add it again...it doesn't work. I wind up having to delete a lot of things just to make room for what I already had room for before, and then I have the problem of getting THOSE things back into the game. I wish I'd had my own data usage list when I started...:( As far as the secret character variable, I'll just have to use the 'secret character is in your party' variable that activates when he joins...which means that the secret character will have to actually BE in the party, not in the reserves...but again, oh well. Players will be able to switch characters if they didn't have the right party when they converted their data over.

I've also decided that there will be an elemental system in the game. Nothing major, just something to give the battles a little more dimension. I talked about it more in depth in my SotT walkthrough thread, which I just updated to about halfway through chapter 2. Making that walkthrough has been a HUGE playtesting boon...I've found a lot of things to improve that way, so even if it seems silly to make a walkthrough for the game, it's been worth it, if only for that reason.

Ωbright

03-19-2007, 08:07 PM

OMFG.....I .....

Sigh. Ok, the best way to say what just happened is to give a little backstory. As most people know, I ran out of room while making Shadow of the Towers. I wound up having to delete a lot of things to make room for what HAD to be there, and as a result parts of the game seem a bit sparse. For a long time it was a constant, frustrating battle.

Every once in a while, I would discover a way to shave down the data size without actually deleting anything, and of course that was always nice, but they were usually small potatoes. I honestly was doubting that there was ANYthing left to 'tidy up' in this way, which sucked...because although the game is complete, there are 2 things (more events and more chests in dungeons) that needed to be there more than anything else (more NPC's is out of my range).

Well last night I had an epiphany. When the game begins, it's night-time, and you have to choose 3 battle members. All of the seven have about 20 lines of code for the joining event, but they ALSO have these same codes for the DAYTIME. Well, I had the time in the first town set to 'default', which meant that it cycled...so players could just NOT pick party members until the next day if they wanted to.

NOW, however, I set the town properties of the first map to be 'night', DELETED about 160 lines of superfluous code, and added a code to change the time in that town back to 'default' only after 3 people are chosen. It works like a charm, and it let me exchange 160 lines of code for ONE.

IN ADDITION TO THAT, I can now make 12 new chests, and 7 new story events!!!!!!!! AND I'LL STILL HAVE SPACE LEFT!!! I absolutely cannot believe it. I can't believe I could still squeeze so much in, even so close to the end of production! The addition of these little events and chests will make a HUGE difference in the game!!

Not only that, but I found 3 dungeons that had tiny remnants of other floors besides the ones used in the game. I just hit 'clear floor', and freed up about 1/10 of a % for each one! Now, even after putting in new events for the first time you reach Caldera, Sagewater Island, Runeland, Mountain Pass, Galestrom Canyon, Ghrysolid Marsh, and Neftia...even after adding 12 chests...I STILL have a full percent point to work with!! I know that sounds like very little, but it's a LOT more small story events and chests!! I'll save what's left as a buffer, as I playtest until the end. All of the story events I added are just placeholders...they are just invisible auto-events with 2 message boxes and a display-OFF code each. With the buffer there, I can add some message boxes (and chests) here and there if I need to.

Oh yeah...about my playtest data(S). It hasn't been ALL celebrations over here...my PS2 locked up while saving my game data. >: It was no huge deal, I had an immediate backup I'd just made, but there went THREE concurrent playtest saves, all at about 14 hrs EACH. DAMMIT...oh well. Now I can wait, and playtest a better game.

Just about the only things I have left to do (that I'm currently aware of), are to shuffle everyones skills to be more organised in the battle menu, detail Eschelon Island a bit, finish changing half of the enemy drops to 'Magic Lucky Ring', and finish the new events and chests. ALL of the other stuff I had slated to update is done. It looks like I'll be finished with updating long before I thought, and so I can go back to working on Tree of Life full-time!

Draygone

03-19-2007, 08:14 PM

Ωbright

03-20-2007, 06:12 AM

That's good to hear. Shame you're still not gonna have any wandering NPCs in towns (or has that changed). The world seemed empty otherwise. But still, it's always so nice when you find a way to save a large chunk of memory like that. Especially when you're worried about memory constraints.

Thanks! :)

And no, sadly there was still not enough room for enough NPC's to really make a difference. Even if I only had 1 per town, that's still 7 NPC's...and I wouldn't have had enough room. Also, adding message boxes to an NPC will increase the data they use, so even if I'd had room, I'd still have had some pretty boring NPC's if they didn't actually SAY anything. Also, the new story events go a long way in explaining how Mercer's prior ravaging of the land has thinned the population. The world of Shadow of the Towers is sparsely populated, but it's supposed to be that way...there's a good reason for it. So don't blame me, or Agetec for that matter. It's Mercer's fault. Here's the address to complain to:

Mercer Khaminze
Dark Tower, level 11
QCD1134-M

Kinda makes you MAD, doesn't it...

GO KICK HIS ASS!!!!!!

:D

Still, I'm amazed at how much bigger the world feels even with the addition of bright new faces (and some um...old haggered faces) in the shops and sanctuaries. Yup..the old system of default shopkeepers I was using is WAY gone. No 2 people are repeated in any of the 28 shops, sanctuaries, or inns in the game any more.

I just got through adding the last chest in the 4th tower...for a total of 52 new chests! Here's the rundown:

NEW CHESTS:
- 2 in the Ancient Ruins
- 9 in the Tower Complex
- 7 in the Amber Tower
- 11 in Terra Tower
- 14 in the Tower of Winds
- 9 in Vortex Tower

I'll have to playtest more, of course, and maybe take away a few enemy drops so as not to overwhelm players with too many items, but there is now MUCH more tangible reward for exploring the towers, as well as 2 other non-tower dungeons.

The 7 new story events each have 2 message boxes allocated, but my DU is at 99.7%, so if I have to add a message box here and there, I should still have room to do so. I also had room to add a treasure item when the bonus character joins...so that's the key to access the bonus game that I've been looking for. In the little bit of playtesting I've done, I can already tell you that the new story events help TREMENDOUSLY...they really did make a difference, at least for me.

There are several items that are up in the air...the scrolls. Did you use any when you played through before, Draygone? (If you remember, which...nevermind. It was a long time ago.) I've never enjoyed using them, but then I almost NEVER enjoy using the in-battle-only-1-use-stat-boosting-items in games anyway. I guess I need more feedback on them, because the mere fact that they exist in so many games is testament to the fact that at least SOME people enjoy using them. Maybe they would be better if they were more powerful? Hmm...if I get rid of them, I'll be able to make about 8 new items to put in all of those new chests I just made.

Oh yeah...the elemental system is RIGHT out. Aparently I did a good thing when I spent all those hours playtesting and tweaking stats, because the slightest alteration to it breaks it in half. Seriously...the addition of the elemental system threw the whole thing off horribly, so it's out. It was never intended to be such an extreme facet of the game anyway. If the battle system had been built around them initially, then things would be different, but I'm NOT starting all over again from scratch...no way.

All-in-all I must say I'm pretty pleased with the changes, and I'm VERY glad I didn't abandon the project like I almost did so many times for so many reasons...not least of which was the unpopularity of the battle system. Even if nobody ever plays this game...let alone enjoys it...I'll still be proud that I made it. It was an INSANE amount of effort.

Draygone

03-20-2007, 12:25 PM

There are several items that are up in the air...the scrolls. Did you use any when you played through before, Draygone? (If you remember, which...nevermind. It was a long time ago.) I've never enjoyed using them, but then I almost NEVER enjoy using the in-battle-only-1-use-stat-boosting-items in games anyway. I guess I need more feedback on them, because the mere fact that they exist in so many games is testament to the fact that at least SOME people enjoy using them. Maybe they would be better if they were more powerful? Hmm...if I get rid of them, I'll be able to make about 8 new items to put in all of those new chests I just made.
Yeah, it has been a while. I think I did use at least one of them. Couldn't tell you which ones I used, though. I generally don't use 1-time-stat-boosting items myself, but they do come in handy at some points, especially bosses. Though I think I used it for a regular battle.

Ωbright

03-23-2007, 10:37 PM

Ok...I think what I'm going to do with the scrolls is beef them up a bit, and have only 2. I'll get rid of the other ones, and that will allow me to make some new items. There will be at least 1 item (sacrificial doll) that auto-resurrects.

Other than that, I've spent the last 3 solid days rearranging everyone's skills. It was a MAJOR pain in the ass...about 10 hours worth, and I'm not kidding. It was worth it, though...because now everyone's skills appear in the proper order in their battle menus. For instance, Aratos has 4 elemental attacks, with 3 levels of each. I didn't call them 'Fire 1-4', so now the one on the bottom is always the most powerful.

Probably the most major thing I added was an exciting end to chapter 2. It just makes sense in the story, and I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier. Oh well, there was that whole 'data crunch' thing going on then anyway. The event was already there, but now it MAKES chapter 2, and totally sets up chapter 3. I'm really happy with all of the new story events, actually.

I worked on the 4 optional bosses in the 'Cup of Valor' event. Now they are more balanced, and give the proper amount of EXP. If you're at LEAST level 35 when you first fight them, you can go up to level 50 after only fighting all 4 battles twice. Those bosses are immune to STOP and DEATH, but not to critical, poison, or SLOW...have fun. The Cup of Valor was meant to be an optional leveling ground at the end of the game, but also a means of getting 16 of the 18 legendary equips. The last two equips are awarded to players when they beat the Cup of Valor in 'Survival' mode, where they fight all 4 battles back-to-back. I just tested it last night, and it works great. It's pretty hard, but do-able if you prepare well enough ahead of time. There's a strategy to it, and that's just what I was hoping for. The chance of getting one or more of the 4 awards from the battles is fairly slim, but there are 4 things that can be dropped, so that increases the chance of getting at least 1 of them. After playing through those 4 battles about 10 times, I got at least 1 of the 4 legendary drops about half the time. Several times I got 2 of them, and once I got 3. That's just about the ratio I was going for. I'm pretty happy with the event as a means of training for those 2 reasons...but there's another which makes me happy in terms of replay. You can change the environment, weather, and time of year for the battles! This should make things a bit less monotonous when fighting those battles multiple times for the items, EXP, or gold.

The only thing I have left to do is fill some new chests, do a final playtest and tweaking, and send it to my friendly local playtester.

Thanks for your patience...I swear I'm going to put this damn game AWAY and work on Tree of Life just as soon as this final version of SotT is done. I also would like to apologise to anyone who's played/is playing the presently uploaded version. What you have is totally playable, but I was originally hoping I could simply have people update their game data while keeping their play data...but there are things that have made that a tenuous prospect, at best. It will probably be better to begin a new game, but you can try to update if you want. I SWEAR this will be the last update to the file, so strike me dead. I'm going to try my best to make damn sure it's as close to perfect as possible before I upload it.

I have 1 potential playtester, but does anybody else want to be sent the exclusive final version for play testing? The more people I have helping me, the faster and more complete the process will be. As soon as it's uploaded, I'll resume work on Tree of Life.

Dusk Raven

03-24-2007, 10:58 PM

Ωbright

03-25-2007, 03:42 AM

The whole thing sounds facinating. If you ever get it done, then I would love to download it... once I get a Max Drive... and a spare memory card (dang, these games take up a LOT of space!)
EDIT: I don't think I'd mind there not being many NPC's... on the contrary, I think I like it that way... alone (somewhat) in a vast land... and being able to defend yourself. It's a dream come true.

Really, though, I'm eager to play any games I can, so I can see what makes them successful (or unsuccessful: you can always learn from failure), and get ideas for my own games.

It's important for me to make my games good... because I can't stand it if my work is anything less than perfection.

Well if you won't mind that the population has been thinned by a previous dark elf's attitude problem (and it sounds like you won't...THANKS for that! ;)), then maybe you'll enjoy the game!

The story sounds simple, and in a way it is. When I first was conceptualising the game, I was racking my brain for a story that was not cliche', or a parody, or just plain boring. I've played over 100 RPG's, so...I didn't want to repeat something I'd already played verbatim. I also had the logistics of RM3 to consider...I had to work within the limits of what the editor was capable of doing. I always was a bit disappointed when games ended...I wanted to be able to follow what happened to the characters AFTER the last battle. Some games have a great post-game world, and that...in essence...is what SotT is. A post-game. The previous installment was not made into a game, but alluded to in this one. I might make that game...one day, but probably not. That game WOULD be pretty cliche'. I mean look at Troy, the main hero of SotT...now take 20 years off of him. He kinda looks like the cliche 16-year-old-pretty-boy-knight-main-hero, doesn't he? I did that on purpose. What can I say, I'm a sentimental sap. In any case, I like the fact that the other characters have joined Troy not because the felt like they HAD to, but just because they wanted to. That's a pretty good character relationship-building device.

I often wonder what characters get up to after the game, and I sometimes think they should get together for a reunion. That's pretty much where I went with SotT. It represents nearly every RPG I've ever played in some small way or another, so it has a bit of the cliche' in it already...but with a twist.

Again, sentimental. Sap.

And in spite of the fact that the initial catalyst for the game story was not necessity, but a drunken DARE, the story still develops pretty well. I sometimes hate the single-mindedness of game plots anyway. I much prefer to investigate a mystery, so if the story of SotT develops a bit slowly, that's fine with me.

So about the MAX drive, are you having trouble finding one?

I'll be finished with the final version in about a week, and then I'll need some play testers. All I have left to do is put some money/items into some chests and playtest/tweak. The new chests begin showing up only in chapter 2, so I've already got 3 concurrent play saves going. I figure I'll add items in chests as I need them. It's pretty rough taking into account 32 different beginning parties...but having 3 games going, with all characters used at least once, helps a lot.

Here's hoping I can keep all 3 play saves going until the end this time...>:

I can already tell you that every single playthrough will be different. After playing through multiple times, and having 3 concurrent saves, I can tell you that all of the little things that can make the differences between playthroughs add up. For instance, 2 of my playthroughs were almost EXACT in terms of level, money, and time played, right after finishing the 2nd dungeon. However, my Dark Scholar didn't learn 'Hell's Gate' during my trip through the ruins in one playthrough, so I had to hang out in the entrance chamber of the ruins...and try...and try...and TRY to get that damn skill for Joseph. For some reason I just COULD NOT get it during that playthrough. It's set to be dropped 'OFTEN' so, wtf? Anyway, because I had to stay and fight until I found the skill, that playthrough now has about 10 more minutes, 1 more level for everybody, and about 500 gold. This is why writing a walkthrough is so difficult, because every game will be different depending on who you picked at the beginning, which skills the enemies use, your other game choices, etc. etc.

Also, I've added much more rare enemy drops. Most items in most shops have 2 tiers, at least. Weapons, armor, and shields usually have a lower-level selection and a higher-level one for each weapon type. Now, almost all enemy parties have a rare chance of dropping the lower-level equips for the next chapter, and some have a very rare chance of dropping the higher-level one. In one of my current playthroughs I've gotten a rare suit of armor, and in the other 2 I've gotten a Bronze Sword for Troy a full chapter early.

Since I'm adding about 60 chests AND adding all of those new enemy drops, I'll have to play test carefully to watch for item overload. Still, with the item upgrades later in the game, and with a bit of careful inventory maintenance, it shouldn't be a problem. I mainly don't want players to have to run back to town to sell extra stuff in the middle of a dungeon all the time. All of the new enemy drops are 'rare' or 'very rare' anyway.

I know some people might ask why I'm playtesting it so much if I'm trying to get other people to do the same. Well for one thing, I want the version I send out to be as good as (I think) it can be already. That way, when people tell me it's not...in ways I never even thought of...the game will be better as a result. It's the whole 'many eyes aiding in a search' thing. In addition to that, there's no way I can play all 32 different possible beginning parties and get the game out before I'm 50. I've played several, but I never did try it with Troy and the three mages...or with all 4 fighters, etc.

Draygone

03-25-2007, 04:04 PM

That's actually a good idea with playtesting it yourself before sending it to other playtesters. Otherwise it'll be a mess with everyone trying to tell you all the bugs and stuff and you're trying to fix it and send out multiple versions of the game.

Anyway, I just thought of something. I haven't really played your game since I previewed it, so maybe you already did this, but since your game's population is so empty, do you have all those empty houses locked up? It seems wierd to walk into 50 different houses and finding nobody in any of them, not to mention it's a waste of time, yet one finds himself going into them all just in case there's actually something worth going in for.

Ωbright

03-25-2007, 10:59 PM

That's actually a good idea with playtesting it yourself before sending it to other playtesters. Otherwise it'll be a mess with everyone trying to tell you all the bugs and stuff and you're trying to fix it and send out multiple versions of the game.

Yup. It STILL might wind up being a mess...lol!!...but the chances are lessened this way by a LOT.

Anyway, I just thought of something. I haven't really played your game since I previewed it, so maybe you already did this, but since your game's population is so empty, do you have all those empty houses locked up? It seems wierd to walk into 50 different houses and finding nobody in any of them, not to mention it's a waste of time, yet one finds himself going into them all just in case there's actually something worth going in for.

All of those houses are long gone, along with the people who were in them. The only buildings now are shops, inns, and sanctuaries...until the last town. If there's any space at all left when I'm done, I'll put some decorative elements back into the towns...those always help to fill them out.

Red Dragon

03-26-2007, 01:24 AM

I hate you Obright I hate you sooo much.

WHY CAN'T I EVER MAKE GREAT GAMES!!! :tear

It sounds cool man, I'll have to try it out one of these days if i ever find my AR Max disk.

Ωbright

03-26-2007, 12:13 PM

LOL!! You can do it if you set your mind to it...I have faith in you. ;)

...And thank you...I hope my game really IS great.

There are some new things to reprt...

- The scrolls are OUTTA here. I tried buffing them up. I just hate them. They had to die. They don't even have (what I would call) the proper battle animations associated with their use anyway, and I can't change them. So there. INSTEAD of those items, I now have added the following items to Shadow of the Towers:

*Sacrificial Doll - Auto-revive 1 person upon death
*Heroic Effigy - Full auto-revive all allies upon death
*Silver Hookah - Heals all allies for 200 HP
*Golden Hookah - Heals all allies for 500 HP
*First Aid Kit - Auto-heals 1 person for 200 HP when critical 3 times
*Survival Kit - Auto-heals 1 person for 500 HP when critical 3 times
*Magic Kit - Auto-heals 1 person for 100 MP when MP is critical 3 times
*Deluxe Magic Kit - Auto-heals 1 person for 300 MP when MP is critical 3 times
*Warhead - Uber-powerful 1-use attack item
*Lamp of Purity - Unlimited use stat-clearing item

A lot of those items are ones I've been thinking about for ages, but didn't have room to add until now. In any case, they all really needed to be there anyway...MUCH more than those scrolls did.

All 3 of my playtest games are saved right before the Amber Tower, and everything's pretty much great so far. There have been a TON of little changes here and there, but the main one that I like is the new enemy drops. I managed to bag something rare in all 3 games, and it was something different each time.

Aratos' skills now have a MUCH better MP-use curve, and...

...fanfare.......

The elemental system is BACK!! Yup. In a small way, anyway. Each of the towers is of a specific element, and so are all of the enemies within each tower. The only reason why that is even an issue is because each of Aratus' elemental skills are now designed to be more powerful against another element. This was a good way to introduce the elemental system in a small way (as I wanted) without breaking the flow of the game, and adds interest to the mage character as well. Here's a rundown of the elemental system:

Water beats Fire
Fire beats Air
Air beats Earth
Earth beats Water

I haven't play-tested it yet, but it's set up...and I'm about to. One of the 3 play saves in front of the Amber Tower that I keep talking about has Aratos in it. ;) We'll see how much extra damage his water spells will do in there.

The way I had it before, characters had inherent elemental weaknesses and strengths, but especially at low levels, the effect was either unperceptable, or totally overpowered. Putting the elemental attributes on spells and a few weapons (instead of on characters) is hopefully a much better way of intoducing the elemental system.

Well all of the new chests in the Amber Tower are filled...some with brand new items, and that feels pretty cool. I'm about to playtest the Amber Tower!

Playing through the game with 3 different parties is a pain in the ass at times, but so far it's been REALLY cool to see how different each game can be! Also it's helped me test a lot more at once, so I've been really productive. I think I can safely say that I'll be done with the final version (and therefore looking for play testers) in about 1 week, or less!

Wavelength

03-29-2007, 02:12 AM

Just a word of advice from a friend...

Don't be hard on yourself about not being able to tear yourself away from this... personally I'm in awe of your patience and thoroughness about the post-launch editing. You're clearly enjoying it on some level, and you're also making your game even better for others to play, so it's a win-win.

Tear yourself away to work on ToL and visit the other boards... but ONLY when you feel like doing so.

Ωbright

03-29-2007, 03:21 AM

Well my playtests are going fairly well, I'm at the start of the King's Shrine in two games, and just finished with the Terra Tower in the 3rd. Speaking of the Terra Tower...there's a puzzle room on the 9th (top) floor that's been giving me fits. There are 4 floor switches that turn off statues which block access to 4 events which are needed to get onto the roof of the tower. I had 4 invisible events placed onto the switches that actually turned the statue events off, because I had so much trouble initially getting the switches to work. When I was playing through I thought 'Why the hell are these invisible events there? I can get rid of those and free up some space for 4 other events somewhere else!'...which I did...and then I remembered WHY those events were there in the first place. >: They stopped working again. GRRR!!! After about SEVEN HOURS of doing absolutely everything I could think of (including clearing out the entire floor and starting again), with no luck, I finally was about to give up. There was just NO REASON that I could discern why that should have been happening, and I got really frustrated.

Now it's fixed, however...and I didn't have to put back the invisible events. This might help someone else, so I'll try to explain what I discovered:

When you place switches in a dungeon, it DOES NOT MATTER what order you make them in...that's not how the 'switch number' is determined. The editor looks at all of the switches on the floor, and assigns '#1' to the top-left-most switch, and the highest number to the bottom-right-most one. All of the ones in between are read like the page of a book. Once I figured THAT out, it was a rather simple matter to assign the proper switches to the proper statue events. Ok. Great. I play tested it...and IT STILL DIDN'T WORK. I was about ready to break the RM3 disk in half, set it on fire, and then form it into a disk again...just so that I could break it in half again.

THEN I figured out that the switches that are pressed AFTER the first one don't count unless you use an item, go into a battle, or go down the stairs and come back. I tried to add 'refresh display' codes, but they didn't work at all. :(

The result? The puzzle floor works fine, AS LONG AS YOU GET IN A BATTLE OR USE AN ITEM BETWEEN EACH SWITCH-PRESSING. Is this annoying? Yes. Oh well...if people have problems getting the statues to disappear after stepping on the proper switch, all you have to do is push the 'SQUARE' button and immediately back out...the statues will disappear. I really don't know why this should be happening...wtf? An even bigger question is WHY a 'refresh display' code is not fixing it. Since that's the case, I don't know HOW to fix it. I've tried everything. Players that are playing through without using an Intimidator (no battles) will probably see no problems, because they'll probably be getting into battles between the switches anyway...but players who DO use an Intimidator will have to use the 'square button' trick unless I figure out how to fix that.

Grrr....

It's really hard to playtest the game at times, because of the choices between characters at the beginning. For instance, you might not need to use as many HP-restoring items if you have a healer in your party, and instead will be needing to find more MP restoring items. If you have all fighters, you'll need almost all healing items, and almost no magic ones. in other words, you might get a backlog of extra items in some playthroughs more than others. That can be a bit annoying, but not as annoying as having nobody that can cure you of poison...and can't find an 'ether' to save your life. I'll really need someone to playtest the scenario where all three non-healing/non-curing people are chosen at the beginning. Since that playthrough will undoubtedly be difficult, I'll probably do that one myself. ALL of this is fine...I won't change the game unless things are IMPOSSIBLE in some playthroughs, but having some beginning parties be harder than others is more than fine...it's pretty cool. players can set the difficulty that way. I just have to make sure that players will be able to find/buy enough Ethers (cure status), Smelling Salts (revive), and healing items to finish the game with as little trouble as possible without loading down players of other scenarios.

The money is another thing that's hard to track between scenarios. If you have someone in the party with 'Cure', then you won't need the unlimited cure item in one of the towers...so you can sell it for 6000 gold. If you're playing a scenario with Troy, Loren, Aratus and Duggan (no healing or curing), you'd be INSANE to sell such a handy item. That's just one example, but here's another one: There's an item in the game called the 'Mercury Lamp', which if used will grant you a guaranteed exit from battle. Pretty cool, but if you have Joseph in your party, it's totally useless to you (he hes 'escape' innately). You can sell it for another 6000 gold, and that's 12,000 extra gold...just because you added Joseph to your party. Here's something else...Say you have Troy, Duggan, Brogan, and Loren in your party. You'll be spending a LOT of gold on armor, which is very expensive. If I make a playthrough perfect for one party, I'll be totally breaking it for other parties. I think it's just about perfect the way it is now, but like I said...I'll have to playtest a bit more to be sure. I was thinking for a long time that I wanted to have different characters join with different amounts of gold, but the financial differences were already there, so I'm glad I didn't now.

The new items ROCK...especially the 'First Aid Kit' and the 'Magic Kit'! I put one of each in the Terra Tower, and they can be used to great effect against the boss there. You simply give it to a character, and when they get down to 1/4 or less HP/MP, the item is used automatically without taking a turn. I put the Magic Kit on Troy, because since he isn't a mage, he doesn't have nearly the MP of Aratus. As a result, he could do his most powerful skill 9 times during the boss battle, instead of 3. Joseph has the lowest HP, so I put the First Aid Kit on him. It kept him from dieing 3 times! If I had put those items on Brogan (who has lots of HP) or Aratus (who has lots of MP), I wouldn't have gotten as much out of them. There's a strategy to it, and that's just what I was going for.

I'm done placing the items in the new chests in the Ancient Ruins, the Tower Complex, the Amber Tower, and the Terra Tower. Those new items helped an insane amount in doing that.

Well now I'm off to playtest the Mountain pass, Galestrom Canyon, the Sunken Shrine, and at least get TO the Tower of Winds in all 3 scenarios I currently have going.

Ωbright

04-07-2007, 12:53 AM

I've been working on one or two things on the side, ;) but I've also been working on SotT.

- There is now a sandy path on most maps of the game, which players can use to avoid enemy encounters if they wish. It looks nice, and has a use which many may enjoy.

- Current playtest at halfway through the Tower of Winds, and all chest items are placed in that dungeon.

I'm very close to being able to send this to anyone who might be able to play test for me...maybe 1 more week?

hitogoroshi

04-07-2007, 03:02 PM

If my fourth quarter is easier than third, I might get a chance to playtest this. I just realized that while I've played a few games I've never reviewed one XD

Ωbright

04-09-2007, 03:04 AM

Thanks Hito! If you can play test for me, then that's great. Just let me know when you're ready, and I'll send you the final version.

Yes...It's DONE!!! I just now finished with it, and I must say, I'm very pleased with it. It's probably still not perfect, and that's why I need some help, but apart from any last-minute tweaks that any play testers deem necessary, the final version is completely finished.

If anybody can play test (including the 2 that have already offered), then now's the time. If you decide that you'd like to test the game just say so here, and I'll send you a copy. You have no further obligation to do ANYTHING else with the file, but the further you play through, the more I'll appreciate it. Every little bit will help! Of course I'd like for some people to play all of the way through, but I'll take whatever I can get...and do it gladly.

My current play tests are at an end, and frankly I need a break from testing. Playing through once is one thing...but playing 3 scenarios at once means that I have to do everything in the game 3 times. Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of the game, and I'm fairly sure that I've done the absolute best I could do...but even my favorite games in the world begin to wear on me after a while, even if they have a high replay value. There are huge differences in each scenario of SotT that go beyond your ally choices at the beginning...things like rare enemy drops and huge repetoires of skills for most enemies mean that every playthrough will be different.

This is especially true with bosses. Many of the bosses have 16 spells/skills, and not only is it important which of them they use against you (they probably will not use them all in any one playthrough, nor will they use the same ones in all playthroughs), but the order in which they use them is also very important. If a boss uses a skill that nullifies a certain kind of attacks at the beginning of the battle, it will be a totally different battle than if they used it toward the end.

I put those things into the game on purpose to encourage replay, and they work...but even they can't stop me from needing a break for a while.

So.........will anybody else help me out by giving the final version of Shadow of the Towers a try?

Wavelength

04-10-2007, 10:17 AM

Pagerron

04-10-2007, 03:55 PM

Well, Obright, it seems as if you've mastered the Battle dilemma. The idea of the path to bypass battles is a good one. The fact that your battles are "a lot of fun," too, is unusual for RPG Maker 3, at least from the games I've played. That's a definite plus. And 16 spells per boss...Whoa!

Just out of curiosity, how much time would you estimate that you've put into your game, if you have any idea?

All the info. you've provided in your forum is so detailed that no one can say you didn't try extremely hard to make the best game possible. Nice!

I can't commit to being a playtester for SotT, but I look forward to checking it out when it's finalized for sure.

Ωbright

04-10-2007, 08:08 PM

Woooooooo! Woo! Congrats, Obi! It's been a long time coming and hopefully all the modifications you've made will turn a very good game into a great one. I'd love to play it, and I'd love to playtest it for you.

I should say that my time for the next four weeks will be limited, with the end-of-the semester crunch looming over my head. I might be able to pull away to play RPGM for a few hours on weekends, but that means I'm going to want to focus more on Playtesting issues than trying to navigate my inept ass around complex dungeons. :lol At any rate, I'll have a LOT more time in the four weeks following--after school lets out and before my internship starts.

Again, CONGRATS. I know how hard you've been working on this, and what it means to you, and SotT deserves quite a bit of attention and praise.

EDIT: P.S.--I'm up to nearly two hours of playtime in Local Gods. I can't see what you were talking about with the scripting--so far I haven't noticed a single flaw. The battle balance is a little off but at least you've made them a lot of fun. I'm gonna keep playing, it's a neat little game.

Thanks man! And yes, I've been working hard on SotT for a long time. it feels great to be done with it...again. I feel like all of the things that were added to the new version make the game better, not to mention more fun, and more professional-looking. After playing through these last 3 times I can tell you that having everyone's skills appear in the proper order during battles is a MAJOR improvement, because you can keep up with your skills much better. The offensive skills are at the top (mostly), disabling skills next, enhancing skills next, and restoring skills at the bottom. The Sage (healer) is set up the opposite way, but the point is that the skill lists are organised now, and that makes a big difference. There's a TON of things like that...it's so far improved from the first edition that it's almost not even the same game.

Whenever you get time to play the new version of SotT is fine, just let me know, and I'll send you a zip! [EDIT] You can use the walkthrough with the maps if you want, and that will help with the dungeons! Oh yeah...I forgot you downloaded The Local Gods! That's my first game project ever...been working on that one off and on since about 1993! I'm mostly proud of the graphics, I guess...I did them all myself. I WAS proud of the music, but after the OHR engine went midi, my songs never sounded right again. :( I'm still going to finish that damn thing one day... You say you encountered some battle balance issues in it. Did you go by the walkthrough? If so, then I'll have to work on that. When you get into the Hydra Shrine the enemies are supposed to be harder, but I may need to nerf them a little. Hmm...maybe I'll make a 'Local Gods' thread over here, since it's been stated that games made with other makers are acceptable.

Well, Obright, it seems as if you've mastered the Battle dilemma. The idea of the path to bypass battles is a good one. The fact that your battles are "a lot of fun," too, is unusual for RPG Maker 3, at least from the games I've played. That's a definite plus. And 16 spells per boss...Whoa!

Just out of curiosity, how much time would you estimate that you've put into your game, if you have any idea?

All the info. you've provided in your forum is so detailed that no one can say you didn't try extremely hard to make the best game possible. Nice!

I can't commit to being a playtester for SotT, but I look forward to checking it out when it's finalized for sure.

Thanks! I hope that people enjoy the paths. Yes, it will make the dungeons harder if you don't train at all on the world maps, but the point is that you train much more when you want to, not when you're forced to by the game. It's rather ironic, but the new version has new ways of avoiding enemies AND has more incentive to encounter enemies in the form of new enemy drops in every part of the game.

It's hard to say how long I've been working on SotT...many, many hundreds of hours. Sometimes I went for weeks where I worked on it every free moment, and other times I went for weeks where I didn't work on it at all, or very little. A large part of the game was made on paper first (skills and items mostly), and I'm including that time spent in my extremely amorphous estimate.

If you can't test the game out, then that's fine. The only real incentive I can offer is to be listed as a playtester in the game's credits...and you're in the 'thanks to' section already anyway. ;)

Thanks again to both of you!

Perversion

04-10-2007, 08:22 PM

Ωbright

04-10-2007, 09:19 PM

I think I know which game I'm gonna review for the mag, and it shouldn't take that long to do, so I'm gonna go tentatively out on a limb and ask two questions...

1)How many hours would I have to invest in SotT if I wanted to play the whole thing?
2)How soon would you need a "playtest review"?

Also, concerning the problem you had with the switches, I had a similar problem when I put too many auto events in one area (town, house, etc). For some reason, even when the event code told it to switch to the next mode, it stayed on the same mode and replayed the same mode event when you pressed the button to activate the (non auto)event. The only way I found to jar the game back into coherence was to exit the house I was in, and come back in, or go to the stats menu, at which time everything worked fine. So, no, Obright, you are not the only one who has been having this problem with RPGM3.

If you farm for rare enemy drops, exp, gold, and most importantly enemy skills for the Dark Scholar, then it can take 30 hours or more to beat...40 or more if you do all of the extra stuff in the game. If you just play straight through though, only training when you really need to, you can finish in about 20-25 hours.

Obviously I'd like to release the final version as soon as possible, but I'm not going to set a definite release date because I don't want to pressure anybody. I know how hard it is to spend that much time playing a game sometimes, and people will enjoy the experience of playing much more if they can take the game at their own pace.

About the switch/event problem, I SO wish I'd seen this thread by Pagerron earlier...he explains what I was experiencing much better than I could have, and it would have saved me about 7 hours! :lol

The Switch Switcheroo (http://www.pavilionboards.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7552)

Wavelength

04-13-2007, 04:14 AM

Thanks man! And yes, I've been working hard on SotT for a long time. it feels great to be done with it...again. I feel like all of the things that were added to the new version make the game better, not to mention more fun, and more professional-looking. After playing through these last 3 times I can tell you that having everyone's skills appear in the proper order during battles is a MAJOR improvement, because you can keep up with your skills much better. The offensive skills are at the top (mostly), disabling skills next, enhancing skills next, and restoring skills at the bottom. The Sage (healer) is set up the opposite way, but the point is that the skill lists are organised now, and that makes a big difference. There's a TON of things like that...it's so far improved from the first edition that it's almost not even the same game.

Whenever you get time to play the new version of SotT is fine, just let me know, and I'll send you a zip! [EDIT] You can use the walkthrough with the maps if you want, and that will help with the dungeons! Oh yeah...I forgot you downloaded The Local Gods! That's my first game project ever...been working on that one off and on since about 1993! I'm mostly proud of the graphics, I guess...I did them all myself. I WAS proud of the music, but after the OHR engine went midi, my songs never sounded right again. :( I'm still going to finish that damn thing one day... You say you encountered some battle balance issues in it. Did you go by the walkthrough? If so, then I'll have to work on that. When you get into the Hydra Shrine the enemies are supposed to be harder, but I may need to nerf them a little. Hmm...maybe I'll make a 'Local Gods' thread over here, since it's been stated that games made with other makers are acceptable.

Any time you feel like sending the file is fine. Make sure you use my Yahoo address (Blueshift14@yahoo.com) because my University address is almost full to capacity. It's bursting. It's like Ruben Studdard in a Medium T-shirt.

I won't have a LOT of time in the next three weeks but I'd like to get started and get past where I did in the playtest. I had this feeling that things were about to get really fun, but without any guide, the mazes were KILLING me!

About Local Gods, the imbalance I was referring to was the way characters become so powerful after just a few fights. As it turned out one of my characters was dead during an early boss fight, and it created a serious positive feedback loop where he now dies quite a bit, so he can't get stronger. I know it's just a matter of style; I'm just noting that I don't like it that particular way. It doesn't take away from how amazing it is that you built this game from such basic elements, though, and it's not taking away from the fun of it either. :)

Ωbright

04-13-2007, 04:44 AM

I guess it's a good thing I haven't sent this off yet, because I went back to play one of the 2 other scenarios I was playing through...and deemed about 20 more slight changes necessary. *ROLLS EYES* Oh well, that's why it pays to play through multiple times, especially when each playthrough has the potential to be so different. For instance, one of the new enemy skills was set to deal out WAY too much damage, but it just so happened that in my recent complete playthrough, that skill was never used...it was all stuff like that.

Once these other 2 play tests are complete, I've already decided to play through the final version ONE MORE TIME at least. If nobody else can test with me by the time I'm done with that playthrough, then I'll probably go ahead and upload anyway. I'd like to have other people's reactions/input, of course, but I have to set some kind of time limit...however vague...or I'll never release the damn thing.

I want to realase the final version of SotT, the bonus game file, and the new (complete) walkthrough all at the same time, so it will still be a little while before I'm ready to upload anyway because I still have to finish that walkthrough, and the bonus game.

[EDIT] Whoa...sorry Wavelength! Damn...I had that window open a LONG time! I posted that before I'd seen your post. I can send the file to you tonight, actually...I just need to transfer it to my MAX drive. I'm going to have to just STOP tweaking, and save all further tweakings for the final edit. Give me a minute...I'll have the file for you.

Wavelength

04-13-2007, 04:53 AM

No problem--you're being admirably patient with the maker (why can't they include a damn MANUAL SORT function? GAH!!!), so I guess I should at least be a little patient with the game. I'm really looking forward to it, though! As long as you've got the Playtest Build up within the next five weeks I should be able to devote a fair amount of time to it before my internship starts. Best of luck with the final changes, my friend!!

Wavelength

05-02-2007, 02:06 PM

Just wanted to note that I was just checking your SotT Final Version thread... and noticed all bosses have 16 skills... and my jaw literally dropped. I could play through an entire boss battle and not even see everything the boss can throw at me. WOW. That's amazing.

I'm a bit curious, will MP play a factor in which skills the bosses use (for all the exploration I did in the first edition, I didn't get to many bosses) or will they sling skills at you all day?

EDIT: Sorry, I was a bit unclear, using "skills" and "magic" interchangably. I was moreso wondering whether (magic) Bosses ever tend to run out of MP, or will they be able to cast throughout the entire battle. (I don't remember bosses sacrificing health when I played, so I assume the HP cost of your boss' skills is zero? Or did I just miss it? I've NEVER liked HP skills and never played around with them. But that's just my senseless bias.)

Ωbright

05-03-2007, 12:45 AM

Just wanted to note that I was just checking your SotT Final Version thread... and noticed all bosses have 16 skills... and my jaw literally dropped. I could play through an entire boss battle and not even see everything the boss can throw at me. WOW. That's amazing.

I'm a bit curious, will MP play a factor in which skills the bosses use (for all the exploration I did in the first edition, I didn't get to many bosses) or will they sling skills at you all day?

There are 2 types of enemies: magic enemies, and skill enemies. Bosses are the same way, so magic bosses will throw magic at you all day (mostly), and skill bosses will throw skills at you all day (mostly). The only other alternative is to set the enemy to 'balanced', which I don't personally like. I've had bosses just happen to guard for three turns in a row...um, no.

Now bosses are:
- Always skills with 70 INT, or
- Always magic, also with 70 INT

Even with this setting, and fairly long boss battles, you can still easily play through without seeing some of what the boss is capable of. I'm gald you liked that, BTW!:D

Crythania

06-05-2007, 07:01 PM

I have started playing the new "Unrated Director's Cut" of this behemoth of a game.

My first thought was to choose the party I played last time because I'm familiar with those guys; then when we get to the point where you can "start over" with a new party, choose the guys I passed up. So I did that. My party was Troy, Brogan, Loren, and Aratus.

We went out and did some adventuring for a while. Then Joseph gained a new spell. Hmm... If I'm not playing him, he'll have gained all of his spells by the time we get to "start over".

So I restarted and chose Troy, Karl, Joseph, and Gabriel. Cute way of getting the pacifist monk Karl to fight! I'd been wondering how that would be handled. Very cute!

This band of geriatrics is in great danger until they gain a couple levels. The first few battles with soldier hornets and rough traders were challenging. Troy and Karl are the big guns here. Joseph is next to useless. Gabe can heal people, but he can't do much else. I have Gabe out back, by the way. Not sure if that's the best idea, but that's how I chose to do it.

These guys also have a harder time of it because Troy is the only guy who can afford to upgrade his equipment from the get-go. The staff upgrades are more costly, which means going through some precarious battles to get some money. Troy was able to get a better sword and a shield before we left town, but the rest of these guys were stuck with their default equipment.

When these guys started gaining levels, things started falling into place. Of course, there's Troy, who I've seen in action before. My favorite guy is Karl, though. This guy has "Free" written all over him. He gets to cure poison for free! Wow! No need to mess around with Ethers. His attack skills are free, too! I love this guy! And to think, he didn't even want to fight!

Joe is the most useless guy here. He gained his first spell, but it's a healing spell. Gabe gets a very powerful attack spell. Coolness.

I've got two guys here who gain new abilities from exploration. Karl has to find new weapons, and Joe gains new spells from observing monsters. It'll be interesting to see how this turns out.

We've conquered the bandit hideout and have ventured into the ancient ruins. I like the new and improved field map, although I haven't been able to find the krakens and man o' wars. Where are those guys? The "no battle zone" paths are golden. :)

Ωbright

06-09-2007, 01:46 AM

Hey! Cool...you chose a new party. And yes...you will continue to like Karl...you played FFT, right? Well he gets the equivalent of the monk skill 'chakra', which gives 1 ally back a certain amount of HP and MP...for free. Yup, after every battle, he can just do that over and over until everybody's fully restored.

Also, since you chose Joseph, you can run away from any random battle. That comes in handy if you're looking for a specific enemy for a skill or other drop. So he's not TOTALLY useless. :P The Krakens are now along the shore on the way to the sea cave. I did that so that I could use the 'beach' battle background...the 'desert' one just looked silly. I mean it's one thing to have sea creatures jump onto dry land to attack you...but having them jump out of sand? Um...no. I suggest going back there to get the skill from the Krakens before you do anything else...it will really come in handy! When I played through those last 3 times before I uploaded the final version, by the end I'd gotten most, but not all, of Joseph's skills. In one case I was really trying to get them all...and I still missed one. In the other two I was just playing through normally, and I got some in one that I missed in the other and vice versa. Some of the skills are just harder to find than the others...only appearing on 1-2 floors of a tower, only dropped by 1 out of 4 enemy parties, or both. Joseph can be tricky to play, but fun if you like finding skills for him and collecting them. Plus there's the whole 'run away from any re' thing.

I'm glad you're playing the final version, and liking it! I've been grinding my face away on a grindstone to make tree of life lately....it's almost done now, but I'm burning out fast. I'm pretty sure I'll finish it soon, but for now I have to take a break before I turn into Howard Hughes. I'm not rich enough to crap on the carpet and get away with it. Seriously...if I wasn't working or sleeping, I was working on that damn game. And then one night I was moving my stuff off of the couch when I dropped it...and all of my notes went all across the floor.....47 pages worth of notes, and about 85% of those pages were full front & back. You think Shadow of the Towers is a behemoth...I almost had a 'The Wall' moment. Yeah...that's enough. Let something else suck up my life for a while.

I'm also having PS2 troubles. I mean more than usual. It literally took me an hour to get my max drive disk to read last time...and I really need to upload RoL & the new demo. Once I get this damn demo of mine finished, I'll clear off one of the cards completely, but until then there's no way for me to move stuff around like I need to.

Thanks again...

Crythania

06-09-2007, 02:29 PM

I couldn't find the krakens. I spent some time near the water on both sections of beach. They never showed up.

Things are looking better for Joseph. The going was rough in the ancient ruins. One of those skeletons hit us with Hell's Gate, outright killing Troy. Luckily, another dude had a smelling salts and was able to use it on the spot to get him back. He didn't miss out on any experience. Good thing because I like my guys to be at the same level. We went back to town and bought another smelling salts in case it happens again.

Then Joe got Hell's Gate and things started falling into place for him. The going got much easier with him able to participate in the fighting. We finished up in the ancient ruins, bought a Solar Ring and Lunar Ring at town, then breezed our way through the goblin cave.

Saw one of the new story events upon entering Caldera. Nice!

Karl is still my favorite guy. Although the opposition has been steadily catching up with him. He's no longer able to decimate them with a single Waterfall. Still, that skill is very handy, what with its chance of stoppage. Does this guy even need a better weapon? His skills don't cost anything to use. He hasn't used his Tonfa since the very beginning. I just use his most powerful skill. Unless the Tonfa weapons add to his skill power. I seem to remember that skills don't get the benefit of stats or weapons adding to their damage. If this is true, then Karl will probably end up being well balanced with the opposition throughout the game, regardless of how much strength and better weapons he accumulates.

Gabriel's Smite spell is very powerful, and it costs next to nothing to cast! With him and Karl on the team, Mp management is a breeze. I mostly have to use Mp-restorers for Troy and Joseph.

We've explored Caldera and visited Uldrea. These field maps sure are a treat to explore. I like to go off the path and look everywhere, see the sights. Went into the middle of the crater to check out the smoke spouts there.

In light of your PS2 problems, it may be a good idea to invest in a new one. I got a new slim one last summer, and I haven't had any problems with it. Worth every penny, especially since I'm gonna be using it a lot to make games and play others' games.

Ωbright

06-11-2007, 02:07 AM

Hmm...I need to set them to 'always' then...so that if you touch the right spot along the beach, you get into a battle. Hmm...I didn't notice when I was play-testing. I guess I got lucky. Also, the weapons for Karl increase ATT, but more importantly they cause status afflictions at higher levels. Since he's so innately fast (and lucky), he sometimes has a greater chance of inflicting a status ailment by simply attacking than he does by using a skill. Other than that, it's just a game to try and get the best tonfa for him so he can look all cool ang glowy. :D Also, even if somebody has great free skills, I still like for them to be able to just attack sometimes when I want the battles to go by more quickly. Karl is great, but quite frankly his ATT sucks until he gets a good tonfa. Karl has 4 different tonfas, and each can be found in one of the 4 towers. Each type then has 4 levels, so he can have a 'Ceremonial Tonfa +3', or a 'Slate Tonfa +1' or whatever.

Oh yeah...and remember the Lucky Ring? Well now there's 2 of them...a Lucky Power Ring, and a Lucky Magic Ring. It's about 50/50 whether you get one or the other from a battle, but the chance of getting either one is still 'very rare'. In may last 3 playthroughs I found one in one game, the other one in another game, and I found neither one in the third.

I'm glad you appreciate the maps...that means a lot to me.

Crythania

06-14-2007, 03:42 AM

After a quick stay at Uldrea, we went out to conquer the Tower Complex. Those "no battle zone" paths on the map make it so easy to get where I'm going. :D As previously noted, I like to explore off the paths and go everywhere on the map. See all the sights, fight some monsters, see if any of 'em cough up a new spell for Joseph. But when I'd rather just get where I'm going, the paths are a wonderful help. This is how gaming with random encounters should be.

Joseph didn't gain any new spells in the Tower Complex. We journeyed back to the islands and looked for those elusive krakens on the beach again. Found 'em. There's one place near the Bandit Hideout where they show up with regularity. Took a few encounters, but Joe got that spell he'd missed out on earlier. With that accomplished, we went back to Uldrea to prepare for an assault on the Amber Tower.

I have a confession to make. I'm not sure I've mentioned it here at the Pavilion before. I don't like random encounters. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that it's my least favorite style of battling. However... I've been getting into it here. "Go with the flow, don't sweat it." That's how I've been playing. And I have to say, I'm starting to see the appeal. This game was made with random encounters in mind, and the dungeons have a nice flow to them. I like all the new treasure chests that were added. Gaining a new level is always something to look forward to, as is finding a new spell for Joseph. We've gained quite a few items from encounters. So, I've learned something new. That by itself makes this a memorable gaming experience.

Ωbright

06-20-2007, 03:03 AM

Man...I'm really glad you're liking the new version, and if I made random battles so that even people who detest RE's can enjoy them, then that's awesome. You've pretty much done the same thing with scripted battles...the scripted battle system of your new game sounds truly inspired.

Sorry you had so much trouble getting Electrobiosis...when I said 'I need to change the encounter rate to always', I meant I need to do that when I PLAY it.......I'm not updating again....ever. LOL!! You know what I mean. I'm glad you were able to obtain it through the normal means eventually.

So did you beat the Amber Tower yet? :D I like a new thing there....I hope you will too.

Crythania

06-22-2007, 10:32 PM

Yeah, I hear ya, dude. There comes a time when you gotta say "enough is enough" and stop updating the game. Otherwise you could be tweaking it and updating it forever.

For those playing the game, here's how to find the krakens and get Electrobiosis. As you're approaching the bandit hideout, keep right on the beach. Get near the bandit hideout and hang out to the right of it. Krakens will show up regularly near the water.

I've had some non-game related delays. Things to do. I haven't been able to work on my own projects either. Last time I played, my dudes made it to the top floor of the tower, but I think we're gonna hang out and do some gold mining for that Citron Ring. Yeah, I know, I'm not supposed to do that. I'm a rebel power monger. :spin

Ωbright

06-23-2007, 11:33 PM

Naw, man! You're supposed to play it however you want to! There's no 'correct' way to play, you're meant to play which ever way you'll have the most fun playing....that's why I made it that way! :D I enjoy hearing the different ways that people choose to play through the game...it gives me a kick, escpecially when it's a way of playing through that I hadn't even thought about. You just have to be aware that your choices have consequences, and you kinda have to weigh the pros and cons when making the decision. When I'm playing through, I do what you do, sort of. I choose one of the big, expensive things, and try to get that before I leave the area. You still have to be pretty patient, even just choosing one item like that.

Please don't take time out of working on your own game to play the towers again...you've already played it more than anybody else. If you were just taking a break for a while then that's fine, but I'd feel bad if you weren't. I really appreciate the time you've already spent playing SotT...seriously.

Crythania

06-24-2007, 01:05 AM

Please don't take time out of working on your own game to play the towers again...you've already played it more than anybody else. If you were just taking a break for a while then that's fine, but I'd feel bad if you weren't. I really appreciate the time you've already spent playing SotT...seriously.

Well, don't feel bad about it, dude. I promised I would play "Daniel's Quest 3" and "Shadow Of The Towers", and I try to keep my promises. No biggie. I've been double-tasking. I'll play "Towers" for a while, then the next day I'll work some more on "Wizard Of Abudan". Then I play some more "Towers", and so forth. S'cool.

There's a geographical thing in WOA that I'm not sure I really want to do. It involves a bridge that gets demolished. I've been mulling over my options and trying to come up with alternative ideas for an obstacle that blocks off part of a map. It'll happen when it happens.

I got my 95000 gold for that Citron Ring. :D Also bought a Mercury Helm. Items we've gotten from encounters include a Wizard Ring, a Mercury Lamp, a Lamp Of Lifting, some Stone Rings and Apprentice Rings, and other assorted odds and ends. Got a couple Orange Keefs. Also got some nifty stuff from treasure chests. Coolness.

Divying up the goodies was kind of challenging. Troy got the Citron Ring. I would've liked for Karl to get the Mercury Helm, but he can't use it. Karl has a Stone Ring and Bear Tonfa +2. Joseph has the Wizard Ring. And Gabe has the Mercury Helm. We'll see how that works out.

We're gonna return to the Tower Complex and see if there are any spells for Joseph we might've missed before. He has so few spells in comparison to everyone else. All he has is Electrobiosis, Hell's Gate, Chiron's Revenge, First Aid, Rise!, and a spell he recently got from an encounter with an Infernal Mage.

My guys are currently at Level 19, about 10 hours in.

Ωbright

06-27-2007, 09:18 PM

Hey man, thanks for the PM about the bug you found! I hated to hear it, but after testing it, I think maybe it might not be so bad. I haven't actually been able to reproduce the bug myself, even after playing through 3 times. What DOES happen, is that I warp to the new map on the very edge of the shore, facing the island. There was a red box with a slash through it right in front of me, but no error message, and then the story event played out fine. When it was over, I just walked forward to the island, and the red box went away. There was just the slightest hint of hesitation when I did this, indicating to me that I was actually going through the water/land barrier.

I don't know why your experience was so much worse, but here's what I think is going on...

The warp on the ledge in Caldera which takes you to Sagewood Island is situated in a way to encourage approaching it from only 1 angle. That's not to say that you CAN'T approach it from another angle, but I made it as difficult as possible. If you step onto the teleport at the right angle, you're deposited in the right orientation on the next map. I need to play through once more to see what happens if you try to go anywhere but onto the land, but I think you might have not gone directly onto the land?.....Maybe? Anyway, I haven't been able to reproduce the bug yet.

If you have 6 skills (spells) for Joseph, then you have all that you can have right now. He learns 3 per map (for the most part), and in my playthroughs he keeps up with everybody else very well unless you miss some skills for him, or powerlevel everybody else, which you have done. ;) Seriously...the Amber Dragon is designed to be very challenging at level 11-13, more doable but still a bit of a challenge at 14-16, and pretty much easy after that unless you get unlucky with the order/choice of boss skills used. You should have no problems at all if you fight him at level 19.

Crythania

06-27-2007, 10:48 PM

Yeah, for the most part, the dragon was a breeze. I figured that was why Joe fell behind in number of skills.

I don't remember which angle I stepped onto the teleport from. I did look around a bit on the ledge (you can descend the slopes on two sides of it). I'm curious, always looking around before I take the next leap.

I'll try it again, save after the dragon, and go straight to the teleport.

Ωbright

06-28-2007, 12:11 AM

I have a REALLY bad habit of playing my games in play-test mode. I don't mean other people's games, but my games, certainly. I did make a point to play in regular play mode to be sure the dunes in Galestrom Canyon were passable, and the same goes for Ghrysolid Marsh and a few other maps, but not that island. :( If you found some slopes leading down, then that's ok...unless they lead ALL THE WAY back down to the town level. If that's the case, then that's a pretty big problem. I don't think you gan go all the way down, though...right? Just to a ledge down there? I wish I could reward you for finding that little place with a chest, but you'll have to just enjoy those steam vents, instead. :D

I got your new demo, but I want to go ahead and run through RoL as long as I have that one loaded, then move onto the demo. Now I'm remembering that it was THAT one that I was going to take screen shots of...maybe I'll go ahead and load that one, as well. Everything on that card is backed up...
Tell me once more, please, what slot is ToV in?

Crythania

06-28-2007, 02:16 AM

That is a bad habit, dude. I'm sorry to say, but you really gotta test test test, and then test some more. Especially in "for real" mode. And especially when you've got mountains that are supposed to be impassable.

I am reasonably sure that it's not--oh wait, I am sure that it's not possible to get up there from where Uldrea is. When I was exploring the map, I went back there and tried to get up the cliff. When I said I look everywhere on a map, I wasn't kidding. I go everywhere. :D

S'cool.

As I was saying, I didn't linger very long on the cliff because I was afraid some monsters might attack. I went down to the small lower cliff, looked around, took in the view, went behind the teleporter, looked around there for a bit, then I'm pretty sure I went back to the front of the teleporter and stepped on. What can I say? I'm an explorer. Previous to that, I'd spent some time atop the tower trying to look over the rocks at the scenery below.

While I was inside the tower, I went into every dead end. Every nook and cranny. Not sure why I do that when I can clearly see that there's nothing there. I'm just strange, I guess. :spin

Lausen

10-07-2007, 12:54 PM

I didn't know where you wanted me to post it so its going here:) I beat the game in about 38 hours at level 40ish. My main party was Troy, Brogan, Aratos, and Loren. Man was it hard not having a healer at first. I though Brogan being a Cleric he would learn a cure move fast, boy was I wrong.

Your maps are deffinetly your strong point. I personally didn't mind the random encounters. I really like the little things you did to make the game pop. Like the shakes on the towers and such. The thing you did right before the Darklands:thumbs I never would have thought of that.

I also liked what you did with the keys. You needed them to progress in most places, but you did a good job at changing the way you can find them. Random Encounters to find a key:drool That would have got me if it wasn't for your guide. The Blue magic thing was cool too and I didn't even have Joseph.

I only had a few problems with it. The towns weren't very decrotive, but I understand why you had to do that so I got over it quickly. And I started to feel lost. There really wasn't very many story events.

Overall I deffinetly enjoyed it and have gotten some motivation out of it. I'll give it an 8.5/10 being it's my first RPG maker game I've played. That could be bad for other people including myself because your game has set the mark for what others should be like. GOOD JOB!!! Won't let me give you rep? You deserve it though!

Oh... and I can't wait for "Tree of Life"

Perversion

10-08-2007, 03:54 AM

Dusk Raven

10-08-2007, 04:39 AM

I really should get around to playing this.

Ωbright

10-08-2007, 04:46 AM

WOW...THANK you, man! That's awesome...I'm really glad you enjoyed playing!! And yeah...the game is rather lacking in story events...even after I added a bunch. I ran out of room :(. I think Brogan learns his first healing skill right before the first tower boss...at least I planned it that way. I think he learns it at lvl. 14? It's a pretty long time to wait, so I made that skill a good one at least.

Oh, and which museum treasures did you find? I need to make a Shadow of the Towers spoiler thread, for all of the hidden stuff in the game. I suppose I could just add it to the walkthrough...but then I'd have to actually FINISH the walkthrough...which....ugh. You did a great job playing through the game with an incomplete walkthrough though...you didn't have to ask me anything!

I'm glad you liked the maps, and I'm glad that playing SotT helped to motivate you! That means a lot to me. And you know what? It actually worked both ways...reading your post motivated me to work on Tree of Life a little bit tonight! :D Yup, I'm now almost finished with the 8th (and final) quest path! Once that's done, I'll only have about 12 things left to do before it's done!

Thanks again, and I can't rep you either right now...but soon.

Oh and sorry Dusk Raven...I didn't see your post before. I'd love for you to give it a try!

Lausen

10-08-2007, 05:49 PM

Um... I don't really know the exact items I got in the house. I'm working HC-P so I don't have time to load it, but I had the one to change season, weather, and time. I think??? A few others too.

Let me be the first to offer to playtest Tree of Life when that time comes:D

You should play it Dusk. That might give you motivation too. (I just read your thread.)

Ωbright

11-19-2007, 12:35 AM

Instead of putting spoiler tags around this entire post, I'll just say that EVERYTHING after this first paragraph is potentially a spoiler. The first items on the first list are found in the normal course of progressing through the game, at least, so I started with those. If you haven't played through the game yet, and you'd like to see how well you did on your own finding the items that are a bit trickier to find, then don't read any further!

MUSEUM TREASURE LIST - The item 'uses' that follow only come into play after you get to your mansion in Neftis, and place the treasure on its proper pedestal.

- The King's Crown - This treasure is automatically gained after defeating the spirit of King Leonidas I in chapter 3. Use it to receive messages from King Leonidas.

- The Earth Crystal - You receive this automatically after defeating the Terra Dragon atop the Terra Tower in Chapter 3. Use it to change the season in the game.

- The Lamp of Infinity - You receive this automatically after defeating the Howling Dragon atop the Tower of Winds in Chapter 4. Use this to alter the climate, or heal the entire party.

- The Ace of Cups - You receive this automatically after defeating the Leviathan atop the Vortex Tower in Chapter 5. Use this to unlock the gateway to the final part of the game, and to alter the weather.

- The Mask of Winds - If you choose to go back to the castle throneroom with King Leonidas V after the defeat of the Terra Dragon, then he gives this to you. If you choose to go on instead, you can still get this item, but it's much harder to backtrack. Even if you wait until you got to Neftis, where you could normally just warp back to right outside the castle, you'd have to backtrack anyway, because the Mask of Winds is the treasure you need to be able to warp anywhere. Use to um...warp anywhere. :|

- The Cup of Valor - Randomly dropped by the Water Gollums on the top 4 floors of the Vortex Tower. Use it to gain access to the ancient training grounds...where you can fight 4 legendary bosses. You can fight them one at a time, or all of them in a survival round. If you beat the latter, you get some of the best armor in the game, as well as one of the best weapons. Later I will post a strategy for these battles, but in the mean time just make sure your party is at least level 30 before you even attempt it. You can do it earlier than that and win, but like I said, strategy. Later. These 4 battles are tough, but the potential rewards, in the form of gold and experience, are great. You can literally use these battles to go from level 30 to level 60 in about 10 battles. Not only that, but the best armor and weapons in the game can be gained as random drops from them. This item is definitely worth getting.

- The Wave Crystal - This is found in a chest in the SW corner of floor 7 of the Vortex Tower. Use it to set the music in your mansion to one of seven different songs.

- The Blue Gem - If you take BOTH Aratus AND Joseph into Moyos Library at the same time, then Joseph gains access to a much more complete list of all of the enemy skills he can learn and where he can learn them than he does if he goes in alone. After reading the full list, you gain the Blue Gem when it falls out of the book. Use this to teach Joseph his 16th, and most powerful, skill. This only works if Joseph has already learned the other 15. I'll add the list of skills here, hopefully soon.

- The Dragon Egg - All 5 dragon bosses have a chance of randomly dropping this, but the last dragon boss has a 100% chance. In addition, the Wyverns on the top floor of the Dark Tower can also randomly drop this treasure. The central pedestal in your museum is for this item, and if you have found all of the other 8 treasures, you can incubate this egg, and hatch the game's secret bonus character...a lizardman. After he hatches he'll disappear, but go to your HQ and he'll be there. This guy's stats are as good as you would hope they would be after all that.

TOWER STRATEGY - All of the towers have a locked chamber in the center of the first floor. Once you've climbed to the top of the tower the normal way, on the top floor somewhere will be a chest containing the key to this chamber. Also on the top floor will be another locked chamber, which corresponds to the one on the first floor. As you might have guessed, there's an elevator inside which takes you back to the first floor. You can use this to return to town for any last-minute preparations before the boss battle on the roof, but more importantly, when you return you can use it to go right back up to the top floor. Also in the top chamber (or near it) are a save point, and a HP/MP restoration circle. Use that to restore before the boss battle on the roof, or to train up a little before you even go up there.

Dusk Raven

11-24-2007, 12:32 PM

Well, I got on my lazy butt and played Shadow of the Towers.

It's been... interesting. I choose for my characters Brogan (sentimental value), Joseph (Dark Scholar? Count me in.), and Loren (don't remember why, but Guardian sounded interesting). One thing I can say about the game is the challenge level. The enemies are unrelenting, vicious, and I frequently have to use items on a regular basis just to stay alive. Then again, that may simply be because my party's underleveled. I'm at Caldera and everyone's level 9 except for Loren, who's level 8. Should they be higher?

Oh by the way, the game over screen? It just fades in for a split second and then fades out. I went and fixed that by putting a text message in there and not putting anything in there but Enters.

Ωbright

11-30-2007, 12:32 AM

Well, I got on my lazy butt and played Shadow of the Towers.

:)

It's been... interesting. I choose for my characters Brogan (sentimental value), Joseph (Dark Scholar? Count me in.), and Loren (don't remember why, but Guardian sounded interesting). One thing I can say about the game is the challenge level. The enemies are unrelenting, vicious, and I frequently have to use items on a regular basis just to stay alive. Then again, that may simply be because my party's underleveled. I'm at Caldera and everyone's level 9 except for Loren, who's level 8. Should they be higher?

Oh yeah...part of being a 'Guardian' is that he is attacked much more often than any other character, because he's actually stepping in and taking damage for other people. Aw. It's annoying to play as him sometimes, but he beefs up enough to take it with some shield upgrades and some leveling, and actually simplifies things quite often because quite often there's only one person to heal. Joseph is probably my favorite character in SotT as far as gameplay. Oh yeah, you may have read this already, but Because you selected Joseph the Dark Scholar, you can run from any battle that isn't scripted (boss battle) with 100% success. That comes in handy in a lot of ways, but especially for Joseph, when he's wanting to learn a specific skill from a specific enemy. If you keep getting a random enemy party that doesn't include that enemy you want, you can just run away until you encounter the right one. As for Brogan, he gets a really good heal spell, but until he reaches a certain level he's much more 'dwarf' than 'dwarf cleric'. He makes up for it with the quality of his white magic though.

Oh by the way, the game over screen? It just fades in for a split second and then fades out. I went and fixed that by putting a text message in there and not putting anything in there but Enters.

Hmm...I never really even paid it much thought. I rather liked the fact that the 'Game Over' screen faded on it's own, because you just forfeited control when you died. :p Maybe I should have added a 'wait' code of 3-4 seconds, but I like it like it is. You're free to change it however you want, though...just don't give that version to anybody else, it's just for you.

Anyway, thanks for playing, and I hope you enjoy it enough to finish it eventually! Oh, and I think level 10-11 is pretty good for Caldera, just make sure your party is at least level 14 before you go to the very top of the tower! You can do it sooner than that, but just trust me...it'll be better to wait.