Sunken Spire [Game Released]

Edit: This verison had some bugs and has been patched. Find the patched download in the first post!

 ​

 ​

THE GAME IS OUT! WOOO!​

Download Notes: This is the contest release version. As expected, we had a very, VERY tight deadline and a lot of things we wanted to make and improve had to be cut.

I'm pretty sure there will be minor and embarassing errors in this build, but it should be complete and bug-free. The difficulty is is quite low since we had no real time to balance them. The game is complete and and 4-6 hours.

We'll be releasing more details, help, screenshots, etc when we're not quite so burned up.

We have an improved version in the works, with additional features such as: onine achievemnts, new sidequests, improvements all around with the gameplay and presentation, more areas, more cutscenes, improved puzzles, etc.

Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated. Please help us improve the game by telling us what you felt was weak, and what you thought was good and want more off. Any suggestions and reports help us more than you think.

 

Four to six hours? Whoa that is a lot of content to pack in in just a month. Kudos to the team.

I can give it a playtest, but regret that I haven't played In Search of Immortality yet (don't hurt me).

 

You don't really need to have played the previous games, sure it'll give you a better understand of a few cameos but we try to never do a direct sequel and make our games as accessible as we can.

Hope you enjoy it!

 

Hi guys, I cannot proceed with the game. During my first battle with the security golem, my game crashes with the message: Script' Game_Enemy' line 9: ArgumentError occured. comparison of NilClass with 1 failed. I've reloaded a few times using different skills (I cast Automated Healing twice the first time) but still crashes.

It is significant to note that I am using a Windows XP laptop.

Edit: Hope someone sees this before the deadline ;D Unless it's just due to my poor computer again, in which case, ah well.

 

No, it is not just your computer. I was attempting to consistently reproduce it to determine the cause. It seems to occur if you view the Bestiary before any encounters. Unfortunately, I don't believe there is enough time to reupload before the deadline, but we will have a fix up soon.

 

Sigh. Excuse me while I go cry quietly in the corner.

(Hopefully you can not crash by not going into the bestiary before the first encounter).

Added the crash to the first post, hopefully that'll help until we can re-upload.

 

Ahh, okay. Yeah I was curious about the nifty new menu so I explored everything before continuing with the game. Sorry, Indrah

Edit: In fact, let me try that again.

Edit: Restarted a new game. Okay confirmed. Not opening Bestiary at all (I could safely set Research) allowed me to proceed past the security golem. Yay!

@Makio-Kuta - I can tell a lot of work went into this! It's gorgeous so far. Continuing playthrough.

 

Ohhh *cries* I never thought to try that.

Ah I hope anyone who tries the game out enjoys it! A lot of effort from all four of us was poured into it and I like to think it shows!

 

I've uploaded a mirror / the bug fix at our domain here. There's no point redownloading as the bug is easy to avoid, but we will update the other link as soon as possible.


This is no longer the newest release. Please see the first post for the latest build.

 

*downloads and breathes heavily*

 

My curiosity is piqued. I want to try it out. But so tired. I'll check it out later and comment with everyone else c:

 

The sheer fact that this is an Indrah game makes it very worth playing. This is SO going in the first few games from IGMC that I am going to play through.


And may I say, nobody does rtp like Indrah. Whenever you do a game, I am always amazed at how you can take rtp graphics and completely blow people away with your mapping.

 

Here's a fast bug report guys...beware there's also a crash.
Feedback will come later because I haven't finished yet (I'm in the lava sector now):
 

Spoiler

#1 - When renaming Ooze there's a font error, the letters look squished together
Yes I renamed the slime "Goorlami", if you saw the movie Inglourious Basterds, you'll get the reference, ahahah.

 
#2 - A small variable\name error, the name of the Ooze isn't displayed.

 
#3 - Mapping error (I can walk up from here and go to the black side of the screen)

 
#4 - Mapping error? I'm not even sure, but I don't think that Elsa is supposed to be able to go there.

 
#5 - Mapping error (looks like Elsa can walk on the tree and not under it)

 
#6 - The text is squished (I believe you can use Mithran's Text Cache to fix it)

 
#7 - The's a missing method error, the game crashes against the Emberbirds and the Flame Horse.
Possibly after the Emberbirds cast one of their skills (but I'm not 100% sure of it)

 
#8 - Another mapping error.

 
#9 - This isn't really a bug but the Firewirm is too close to my party, and this looks a bit weird in battle.

 
I'm enjoying this game however, it's really awesome and possibly your best.

 

Well, I like the game so far.


Seems that this game too has their own combat systems per character basis which is an interesting design choice. Though it feels somewhat redundant for some strange reason.


I have hard time to think that green haired guy as a woman but that's just me. She is very "manly" in so many ways. Also reminds me how playable Death Knights work in WoW with their resource management system.

 

@Dalph: Firewirms are not taught the meaning of personal space in school. As such, they have a horrible habit of standing so close when they want to talk, that it looks rather threatening. Many Firewirms live their whole lives in debt to their hospital bills for getting beat up by adventurers who mistake cultural differences as violent approaches.

Also, I strongly believe none of us can tell Elsa where she should and shouldn't go lol

Thanks for catching all those silly little bugs. The game crash one is strange o.o I fought on that map a lot and never encountered it. We sadly did not have enough time dedicated to testing this beast, but I hope it is still enjoyable despite it's flaws.

@Clord: I'm glad you're enjoying the game so far. There wasn't any specific effort on my part to make Elsa look 'manly,' rather just outside of the cliche little box of what it means to be 'womanly.' it was a lot of fun trying to balance her squared jaw and powerful nose with her (I find) rather feminine eyes and other little features.

And she may come across a bit boyish, but if you look closely at her actions, I think you'll eventually see she's a bit softer than she let's on.

Haha ah, but... Elsa is adorable and fun to draw.

 

No problem.


Since I didn't get answer earlier about if Alma has an actual face, I was surprised to find that she has. Somehow it makes her even creepier.

 

It does!  There is a lot of depth and enjoyment here.  I'm not entirely finished, but I thought I'd put forward that despite some minor flaws I think the game was well executed and a lot of fun.  Everyone involved did a fantastic job.

So far my favorite parts are the slime character and the INN stays where Alma and Elsa talk about their husband, and 'lover?'  I have not played grumpy knight yet so that bed time story filling in the vital details was helpful.

Having the enemy drops give proficiency with the slime's abilities and forms, and sometimes producing equipment for him was a fantastic idea.  Now I have a great deal to be gotten from battle.  Elsa is the slowest character to build, but her summons help speed the process along.

I did have a question though, I am getting a lot of currency.  Is there somewhere in town I should be spending all this money?  I didn't see an Item shop or Equipment shop on the way in with all the cut-scenes.

EDIT: I just found Owen in the art gallery. ><

 

I'm glad to hear that! Flawed but beautiful ~


That inn stay was there specifically for people who had not played the older games and didn't have the backstory on the two. So I'm glad to hear it paid off! (It triggers right before the set of floors that contain the boss that having an understanding of who these people are matters most )


There is a shop in town, but in hindsight, it's lacking any sort of exterior labeling. We never wrote on that sign... WHOOPS! It's the building just to the right of the entrance where the guards are. The one with two doors. Talk to... If memory serves me right, a bald looking dude in the upper left behind a counter. He may not be bald, he most certainly is in the upper left behind a counter. (Dear little NPC, if you do have hair, I apologize)


Also, I'm really glad people enjoy Ooze :> We all loved him in development. He's such a cutie! ((I've only actually got to play around with his growth system today as well! I agree it's great~ haha)) But yeah, Elsa is a bit slow to learn some of her other moves and such until you start getting moves that cost more than one rune.


Looking forward to hearing what you think of the rest of the game!

 

Still playing, but I noticed that...

Spoiler

In the tutorial for the Ooze's abilities, his name appears as a mistyped \N[3].

Super minor, but still something I thought I'd mention. :3

 

Hi there, guys! Just thought I'd give my feedback and report some issues.

First of all, fantastic game! The mapping, the gameplay, variety of levels and puzzles, the design of the battles - all top notch. You guys did excellent work. I love the characters and their interactions, so much that I feel like checking out the Grumpy Knight and In Search of Immortality, two games I sadly haven't got around to playing yet.

You might be happy to know I didn't come across any major game-breaking bugs. Here are my comments.

Spoiler

I'm a bit of a completionist, so I ended up playing Sunken Spire for 10 hours-ish. And I'm still not finished yet. I'm at that stage where my party defeated Preston, Beatrice and Ezekiel probably in a minute or two. I finished two painful battles with Ezekiel when I decided to put this report to bed.

Issues

I had all these nifty screenshots of some issues, but Dalph was already ahead of me and pointed them out   So here's the ones I found.

 

On level F27, a ghost in the jar would keep repeating his dialogue. You cannot exit or continue with the game. Easily avoided by not interacting with the jar at all.

 

Why does the Dispel Charm claim to remove "2 stacks of ATK/DEF/MAT/MDF down and weakness", but only removes the weakness and 1 stack? I noticed this during the battle with the Book of Hindrance, Healing, Warlock and Enchanter.

 

I killed General Flippers and he could still talk. (Dying last words?)

 

In the Field of Flowers, there are two tiles you cannot walk on in the flower patch. Was this intentional?

 

If I accidentally use one of the revive items on a live party member (oops), you don't get an error buzz and your turn is over.

 

If the Lake Guardian kills the party and the player loads Autosave, the game will load automatically triggering the cutscene to fight the Guardian. (Only a problem if you're not the habitual saver.)

 

General Jumble of Thoughts

Good pacing of gameplay! I like how you started out with Alma going all magical CSI and then switched to Elsa where she got to kick butt. The Spire was also a delight to explore with an equal mix of battles, puzzles and funny sequences so that it never got tedious.

Alma and Elsa - It's sooo refreshing to come across female characters who are tough, quirky and not disgustingly cute. They play off well together, and I love how every party member had unique character builds.

The research and development part was inspired and made leveling fun. By the time I got to the Spire's lava levels however I would have finished researching everything except for Plant. Then there's this sense of a gap until we reach higher level R&D like Dragon Slime and Golem Upgrade 2. Not too big a gap, just enough to have you wondering, Is that it?

Ooze - OMG that is almost too cute to live. I admit it, I fell in love with this guy (named him Oozie) ;D He is also a beast. By the time he reaches Level 30 or so, it's possible for him to one-hit kill entire groups of enemies in his Dragon form. It's exciting to see all his different forms, and I get the most fun trying out each of them to see which I like. In the early levels, I favoured Mystic or Reptile, later Humanoid, and now of course Dragon for incredible damage dealing.

I'm curious, why is it I can fully unlock Dragon and Humanoid without needing to level them up? I like the instant gratification, but I would have liked to level those too.

Golem - I love the idea of building a robot and upgrading him along the way. I have to admit, it took me a while to realise how to prioritise his actions. There was so much going on, what with Oozie eating everything and the runes and Alma researching, that it took me 20 levels to notice that Golem had other things he could do. (It felt like he was stuck with Attack forever!)

I like that the golem is controlled by the AI, but I wish I had more control as to what he could do during battle. Ah well, I guess this is because he is a machine and can only be "programmed" to act a certain way. My other question is, why no love for GILES? Alma, Elsa and Oozie get all the cutscenes, but not once do you see the golem clank or klunk in them. I guess you didn't want him to take away the spotlight from Oozie, but still, I wish he had some sort of personality too.

Elsa - Elsa is a Death Knight? You guys so rock. I love how this game constantly subverts your expectations, including actually making vampires rule a town, with people happy with it. I also love the inn interactions that allow Elsa to get new summoning spells. Excellent way to fill in newcomers on background.

Runes Tech - I really liked the idea of it, and found it fun for a while, until I realized it was too easy to earn Ice Runes and Death Runes from enemy encounters. Getting Blood Runes and Bone Runes took forever for me. I've been eyeing that Bone Mail Armour for ages, and all I could do was afford Bone Mail Boots until I came across the Death Knight set in the Spire. At this stage, I still can't afford the Blood Fountain nor the Cleanser because there are too few Blood Runes... and it just occurred to me while writing this that I should probably stop bitching and go grind in the Undead levels a few to get those Blood and Bone Runes

Thank you for allowing shortcuts to the last Spire level you were on after teleporting back from town!

I love the humour in this game - the guards have staring contests, the bad guy letters... and do I even want to know why there are two skeletons in Mariah's throne room? 

 

Good lord, the town is HUGE. I must have spent half an hour alone exploring every house with room after room, talking to the NPCs. I am impressed that each of these NPCs had tons of personality. The ones that stood out for me was the man humouring his girlfriend in the dressing room, and that elderly couple in the restaurant. That, there, is good writing. I just wish I had a map of the entire place! I want to visit places like the museum or music college again, and I have no idea where they are ;D

 

Another thing I also liked is that you can see the missing people you brought back. It really feels like you are making a difference. I just wish I could find that 20th missing person! (A part of my completionist soul cried) I even went through the entire Spire again looking for him/her before the battle with Beatrice, Preston and Ezekiel (BPE).

 

Me: How can a robot be healed by the fountains? Evil Me: Shhh, shut up and take the free heals.

 

Me after a Spire battle: More gold again? This is useless. Later during Ezekiel solo battles: I need more gold!!!

 

After a while, it gets a bit tedious having to manually feed Oozie after every battle. I sometimes wish there was a Feed All option. I'm just being lazy ;D

 

I really enjoyed that skeleton-music puzzle in the Spire, but I can't help but wonder, what if you're hearing impaired? My hearing isn't that great either so I had to turn the volume all the way up for this one.

 

If Elsa has a familiar, why don't we see it, or use it in battle??

 

Why is the Ezekiel solo sequence so difficult compared to the rest of the Spire levels? I like a challenge, but the difficulty here skyrocketed. It's almost like it was designed by two different people. Am I missing something? Was I was supposed to have leveled up more before taking on Beatrice, Preston and Ezekiel (BPE) who went down in, like, two minutes? I feel like I was supposed to do something else. Defeat the Lake Guardian first, perhaps?

 

Lake - After coming across some surprisingly difficult monsters and defeating the Dragon, I found the Lake Guardian whom I couldn't beat no matter what I did. I might reload to a save before Alma's party took on BPE and try again with the Guardian.


What does DP stand for and did I miss the explanation for it somewhere in Ezekiel's tutorial?

I love the custom battlebacks, and I forgot to mention that the art for the cutscenes and characters is awesome

Battles

I have to admit, once I have Oozie and the golem in my party, battles felt too easy. As the upgrades flew in like rabid monkeys, rarely did anyone's health dip below 70% (except for Oozie). I didn't need to touch any of the Aoife items or the cures, and only had Alma or Elsa cast the occasional healing spell. I also rarely bothered with buffs as I focused on dishing out the damage to take them out as quickly as possible.

I like a bit of challenge, so when I started exploring the tower, things got a bit exciting. I remember the Spark Squid hitting particularly hard, and I wonder what does a Stalker do? All I ever see is him disappear. Other than that, I've been happily decimating my enemies without ever needing to cast buffs or debuffs. (I don't mean to sound like these abilities are useless. I like that you're giving players options - after all, everyone tackles their battles differently) 

One reason I don't bother with debuffs is because it's hard to see what effect they have on the enemies, or even if they're affected at all. No matter how many times I cast a Freezing Powder or use an ability that casts Stun on all enemies, I can't see if it worked at all. I'm not seeing any Stun Resist message, and I can't tell if the enemy is stunned or not because he still seems to act on his next turn. If I cast Break Power or Break Defence for example, I can't see how many stacks are left on the enemy. It's a little frustrating, which is why unless they're bosses I just go straight to damage dealing.

Now the boss battles are amazing. Although no one ever died, it was the only time I felt like I had to be on my toes - a testament to how well they're designed! I'd have Oozie cast Break Power/Defence, then go to town with Earthquake, Blaze Claws or Wing Assault, Alma's Magna Cannon and Royal Thunder, Elsa's Summon Meimi, Zygomatic Salsa or Ice Slash, with an occasional Temporal Waltz.

The first time anyone of my party died (Alma) was during the magic levels in a random encounter.

One spell I'm a bit confused about is Alma's Defibrillator. I admit, the only time I decided to use it was with the Lake Guardian. It claims that this skill "gets stronger between uses". I've used it some 10, 20 times and chances are it revives an ally with just 1HP. When it says "between uses", does it mean per battle?

Typos

 

I hope you don't mind that I point out some errors. Suggested changes are in bold

 

Item and Skill Descriptions

 

Travelering Cloak = Did you mean Travelling Cloak?

 

Magnetism - Discover some practical uses of magnetism and maybe some combat applications.

 

Elemental Gems: Exploiting enemy weaknesses is an excellent strategy. Elements are a valuable tool to do so.

 

You spelled it as Beastiary, but it's usually spelled Bestiary? Unless someone was taking creative licence!

 

Minor nitpick: When you save your game, you can see 'Floors Cleared' and then 'Rescued people'. It looks better if it says 'People Rescued'.

 

GILES: Gallant Immaculate Logical Eccentric Servant

 

When setting ability for your golem, his powers are listed as Thunder Canon, Fire Canon, Ice Canon. Did you mean Cannon?

 

Book of Hinderence = Book of Hindrance

 

Tutorials

Tutorial: Some moves like Ice Shotgun hit multiple enemies at the expense of power and allow you to clear groups of weak enemies quicker.

 

Tutorial: Some status effects and buffs in this game can be applied multiple times for cumulative effects.

 

Saint's Spire tutorial - Yellow gates are a one way exit.

 

As Ezekiel levels up he acquires bonus points that he can use to improve his battle performance in various ways.

 

DP Conversion Rate - Each point increases the percentage of damage dealth/received that is returned to you as DP by 1%. (Did you mean 'dealt'?)

 

Town

First male NPC you see when entering the vampire castle: Lord Leona is certainly a strange man.. What a bizarre vampire.

 

Girl married to Vampire - And don't worry, the present I gave you is unused...

 

NPC Girl  - My mother grounded me for dyeing my hair and clothes!

 

NPC Mother - My daughter keeps dyeing her hair in these daft colours...

 

General Trader - Ah, you're the ones sent by Lord Edgar to save the missing people, aren't you?

 

General Trader - We heard from Lord Edgar. We improved our stock again.

 

Cutscenes

Spire: Ezekiel with Beatrice and Preston - Much better. I'm nowhere as good a healer as you are, Preston. (comma here)

 

Alma: I will take you up on that offer soon then. (Sorry, can't remember where I found this line)

 

Town Trader: Alma - Isn't it obvious? He wouldn't be so excited if it didn't prove as direct evidence to connect Saint Selene with necromancy. (not sure I understand the underlined part)

 

Field of Flowers: Elsa - You wear it on your head.



 

Favourite Lines:

Elsa is a bad ass!

I AM FABULOUUUS!



 

Again let me say, great job. This is a polished game with some minor balancing issues and exciting character builds. This game somehow sucked ten hours away from me. How awesome is that?