Changes

This post won't make much sense unless you're a tester. Here's what we've decided on for now and are currently implementing:

New Game Mode
There is a small ruin site near the waterfall you drop down into. Exploring this will completely change the game path & ending. Several characters will become possessed by ancient spirits and it's up to you to free them. This involves a few lengthy dungeons with many puzzles similar to what are in the original game. I'm guessing we'll have another 5 hours or so gameplay included in this mode.

Extra Dungeon
We threw in an additional character, who is the main possessed character in the new quest mode. She'll be lost in her dream as well.

Playable Characters
You can now select several of the other characters to play as following you around instead of our set trio. They have different tips for the puzzles and some special cutscenes of their own.

Better Music
Nothing too fancy, just licensing some songs to use instead of the Rpg Maker XP RTP now that we're going for $20.

Fancier Maps
I'm retouching a lot of the old maps including more custom elements. Many of the new tiles will be released over on the gameclover blog as well sooner or later if you're a RM user.

Emotion Icons
Float over a character's head when things happen. I'm sure you've seen them before :)

Decision point

I'm a big fan of learning from the mistakes of others, and this game's development is no different. We've been tracking how well games at the $9 price point have been doing. It was a much bigger disappointment than we originally thought! Out of the 28 developers we've contacted or looked at stats from, very very few (3, possibly 5) have reported a positive change.

As this is a puzzle RPG, it's already in a nichey market to begin with, and no battles will definitely disappoint many of the RPG fans. I think we're going to up it's quality a bit for a full-priced Moo release, any opinions on how? Here's a few of the thoughts we had:

More Playtime - Game feels right as it is, but I won't like charging full price without additional content. Would a second "quest", a completely different story to play through, be something folks might like? Somewhere near the beginning of the game you'd be able to start it off by talking to different characters/exploring elsewhere... or maybe as an unlockable after you've won the first time.

Polish - This is a must if the gametime isn't increased. I'll probably try to get someone to do facesets for the characters, and improve most of the areas with a lot of custom artwork & animated sprites.

Difficulty levels - I'm sure we could whip up more difficult versions of the puzzles we already made, and transfer people to a different map for them if they're on "hard mode".

Ready to dream?

Hmm... Haven't updated here lately. I've been very busy with other things. You'll hear of them soon enough :)

We're currently beta testing our game and it should be available within the week. There's only a few major things left to do. Most of it is simply replacing artwork and finding a new title screen graphic.

On the final stretch

We're going to be a tad over our time budget, but haven't been working on it much over the last couple days. Interesting bugs happen when you use the same temporary switches on every map!

I think we've managed to make the most impressive RTP adventure yet though (but we used some of the resources we've released on RMVX blog). Many of the puzzles are a lot of fun too! The last thing we need to do is spruce up the story... we're not very good writers sadly, but nothing editing can't fix.

I don't know how it'll do without a battle system in place, but that might even get us a bigger fanbase. It's always nice to try different things... the RPG genre and Puzzle genre are both kind of stale.

Anyone interested in beta testing our puzzle game once that's fixed? If you are: Give SporkofDoom a poke on rpgmakervx dot net, or sandy on rpgrevolution.

It's a puzzle!

We just finished up the prototypes for almost every puzzle in the game! There's around 50 total types. Some RPG genre staples, but we've got more I'm pretty sure you might not have seen before. Everyone stands around in puzzle rooms to give you hints.

Most of them are themed to that person's dream. One person is in a medieval kingdom, another rules their little world with a golden fist. There's also the crystal space level with hovering clocks, and a spooky nightmarish area. 8 dreamers total. :)

Here's some fun puzzling areas:

• Random riddling statues
  
• Knight trials (restraint, compassion, etc.)
  
• River rapids maze
  
• "Spell out the word" (think Indiana Jones)
  
• Candle bearer - Carry a lit candle with a time limit, but trying shortcuts or moving fast might make the candle blow out
  
• Treasure hunting! (6 paces south, etc.)
  
• The usual mine cart puzzle, with an eerie twist
  
• A game of tag with cute little monsters
  
• Bomb collection! But.. they're already lit...

If only we could say the same thing about the dungeons themselves being done. Ugh, we hate mapping areas! :)

Waking lost souls

You (a girl!) & your friends accidently wake up an evil spirit, who imprisons everyone at home in their own dreams or nightmares, taking the town itself with them. Travel inside their minds, solve puzzles, and convince people to wake up before the dream darkness spreads. It's a role-playing game without a battle system, concentrating solely on story, adventuring, and puzzles. :)

Some of you might be familiar with the "RTP Challenge"... this is taking it to the next level. A couple people creating a somewhat commercial-quality game in under a week. It was a response to a major move in the casual games industry a couple days ago, where amazon/reflexive chopped the price of most downloadable games from $20 to $7. 100 developers have already removed their games from their catalogue. We're trying to see if they were on to something by creating a game meant for that selling point.