Sunken Spire [Game Released]

[Makio-Kuta]

I'll begin with a Thank You Very Much!! I'm glad you enjoyed the game and honoured that you clocked 10 hours on it! Especially with so many other games flitting around. ((and it also makes me glad to hear that the game is as accessible as we had hoped for people who had not played other games in the series.))

Spoiler

I kept meaning to mention the thing about being able to use revive items and skills on alive party members and effectively wasting your turn. There were so many other things going on the last couple of days - it slipped my mind. And there's the big truth of it, and a big reason why a lot of the balancing is out; the game was tested in a little under 48 hours, which is not enough time to balance a game of this scale. lol Balancing is certainly one of the things we will be looking at when we begin to polish this up for a re-release. ((I don't know about the others, but I never got to test Ezekiel's bit out at all. lol)
However! I am happy to hear that it can still be interesting to play, despite this.


General Flippers is not talking from beyond the grave. You see, his voice is so powerful that it is forever resonating around the walls of snow, echoing over chambers of ice - were you hearing his words from a moment ago, or his words from yesteryear, when he challenged others for their rite of passage through the frozen tundra of his domain? He is a slippery one at best, and this only proves to complicate matters more.


I never really thought about the autosave/lake guardian thing. A rather unfortunate oversight on Rach and mine's part when we made the battle autostart on the map. (we've never implemented an autosave feature before. things like that don't really come to mind for us. :x We'll be sure to change how that bit occurs for the rerelease.


You know, I reimagined the skeleton puzzle style to account for someone who might be tone deaf (we were originally discussing only tone differences between their parts and the notes) by adding the different sounds, but I did not account for those who might be hearing impaired. A bad oversight on my part, and since the skeleton puzzle was largely my creation, I will brainstorm a way to work around that. ((One thing I had debated doing, is making them custom stands with their instruments sitting on them. Time did not allow this a priority, however with what you have brought up here, I find myself returning to this thought. It should solve the issue.))


For finding those you rescued in the town, originally we had planned for the Missing Persons List in your inventory to be a usable item that brought up a screen to keep track of


- who you saved


- who you had spoken to


- location in town


Alas, this got left by the wayside as well due to the dreaded beast known as time. I do agree; it is something that is necessary. Finally having a chance to play the game for leisure for the first time myself, I was having trouble finding the people I had saved in the first sector.

Another huge thank you! I enjoyed reading your thoughts! ((Also, very glad you enjoyed the character and cutscene art ;D )

 

[Indrah]

Woo, feedback! And it's positive! ;A;

THank you so much for taking the time, we're happy you enjoyed the game.

We also think we need to polish it more, since we didnt even have 24 hours to test theres a lot of stuff, speically in balancing, that got past us. THis will help us locate all the small (and not so small) things.

There's a whole bunch of thigns we had to cut for time, so I'm sort of looking forward to tackle those...when we've rested a bit OTL

We'll be releasing at least a patched version of the game covering the crashed and big bugs soon (hopefully within the week), as someone just reported a fixed crash after one of the superbosses (ouch...)

Anwyay, glad you enjoyed the game and thanks for your time! Hearing the 10 hour mark is both intimidating and unexpected XD

Edit: damn you Speedy Maki Gonzales you ninja'd me >(

 

[Makio-Kuta]

Edit: damn you Speedy Maki Gonzales you ninja'd me >(

You don't call me Speedy Maki Gonzales for nothing, you know.

 

[Silvestre]

Congratulations on the release, I've loved what I played by you guys so far. I am going to play the game and come back for some feedback, best of luck with the contest.

 

[Evan Finkel]

Congratulations on release. Downloading now.

Best lucks for contest!

 

[Alkorri]

My pleasure, guys, the game was very easy to fall into.

Spoiler

@Makio-Kuta - Your art as always is a joy to behold I think I made ridiculous girly noises when I first saw Ooze. (I'm a bit like Elsa irl, which is why I totally get her)

You just reminded me that, yeah, it would be helpful to have a guide on those missing people and where they can be found. (I was gonna scour the town looking for them anyway after finding the 20th person.) I just have to 'beat' the Spire first to see if I can find that last one.

As for the skeleton puzzle, in cases like this, my partner who is hearing impaired goes for visual/colour clues, so the custom stands idea sounds good!

General Flippers is not talking from beyond the grave. You see, his voice is so powerful that it is forever resonating around the walls of snow, echoing over chambers of ice - were you hearing his words from a moment ago, or his words from yesteryear, when he challenged others for their rite of passage through the frozen tundra of his domain? He is a slippery one at best, and this only proves to complicate matters more.

And for Sunken Spire 2, I want General Flippers for a party member :>

It's understandable that with a deadline that tight and a project this huge, balancing issues were bound to crop up like a troll's butt boil. Thank you all, again, for the game. Yes, rest first! I'm here if you ever need a nosy editor

 

[Dalph]

Ok, here we go:

Spoiler

The GOOD

- Solid character design and writing.
- The game is very funny and the dialogues are entertaining.
- Great mapping (...it really took blood and tears Indrah), nice edits from the RTP and good mix of Lunarea\\PandaMaru\Mack ecc...
- Engaging battles that require strategy to win.
- Awesome puzzles (I especially liked the skeletons and the teleport one). Something tells me that Rachael made those, ahahah.
- The characters are healed after every battle (as long as you equip the Hp Recovery ofc).
- A lot of variety and interesting systems (Runes, Researches, a Beastiary, Goo Forms, a lot of Equipment\Items\Stuff\Mods).
- Gorgeous custom art by Maki and attention to small details (like all those great behavior poses on the sprites).
- You can rename the characters!
- A Golem controlled by an AI (and that you can upgrade) which is a neat idea and...saved my a** countless times.
- General Flippers is a nice addition to the game.
- Ezekiel.
- The Teleporting Stone (truly a blessing).
- An indicator for Random Battles (I saw this in a Restaff, Rachael made the script and Maki the art of it? Am I right?).
- Owen and Keith cameos in the Art Gallery.
- The final section of the game (where you control Ezekiel and crush everything) was one of the most epic moments in rm history.
- Beatrice\Trixie and Preston are hilarious and they are also pretty good villains...it's obvious, they're Maki's precious children after all.
- The game is pretty long (took me almost 6 hours to do everything) and there are a lot of optional things to do.
- The music choice is appropriate to the situations\various places and the tracks are looped decently well (I wonder who looped them).
 
THE BAD(?)
Nothing serious, only balancing issues.
It's ok Fomar, balancing is the hardest thing ever in game making and you still did a wonderful job despite the lack of time.

- The Chimera was a joke (only 3 Ice Slashes to deal with this monster). I know that it's the first boss but...the monster is very weak.
- Break Defence + Ice Slash and you can kill the Blazing Bird in barely 2 turns.
- The Mega Toxic Eel was a cakewalk...dead in only 4 turns.
- Ezekiel was very easy too (in both the battles), he barely damaged my party.

These bosses needs to be buffed.
-
I think that the regular enemies are ok overall (I didn't encounter major issues, not even in the optional areas).

THE (OTHER) BUGS
#1 - When using a long name for the Ooze the letters can't match in this window for the rename thing.

 
@Maki:
ikr? But what about the Rock Dragon then? Something tells me that he was the leader of the bullies firewirms in that school.

 
@Maki:
Indeed! Elsa loves to go wherever she wants, she doesn't listen to anyone! sigh...she's so fabulous

 
#4 - I can't interact with this Holy Cross.

 #5 - If I press the right arrow of my keyboard (when I'm here) I can enter in the house.


For some weird and unexplainable reason, the crash didn't happen anymore now...(the Explode skill worked just fine). I'm starting to wonder if maybe it was just me.

 
Overall the game was very enjoyable and certainly your best (it surpasses In Search of Immortality in every single aspect).
The last area of the game (with Ezekiel) starts a bit hard but things gets easier and easier soon as the player empowers him, and it's so satysfying to own everyone with him (he becomes a God).I think I've done everything that the game can offer.
I have two different saves, one for Elsa and Alma and the other for Ezekiel, all the characters are at lv40, they learned everything and they're equipped with the best things (I think). I defeated all the monsters and the optional bosses (Gabriella too...she was the hardest battle ingame). I also saved all the 20 missing people.
 

SOME PERSONAL PREFERENCES

Best character ingame: Ezekiel
Best mapped area ingame: Leveida
Favourite character: Alma (she was my favourite in "In Search of Immortality" and she's still my favourite now)
Favourite area ingame: Ice Sector (it was very fun to slide around)
New Name used for Goo: Goorlami (reference from Inglourious Basterds)
Most used form of Goo: Reptile and Dragon
Hardest Battle: Gabriella
Favourite scene: When the characters pose for a portrait.
Favourite track: the Ice Sector's one
Favourite quote ingame: Elsa: Isn't that Ez-whathisname?

Awesome job and awesome game guys, together you're the Pumpkinfly Studios.

(the Blue Dragon Studios sounds too obvious and lame)

Best luck for the contest!

now...The Stalker hides.

 

[Indrah]

JOKES ON YOU I MADE ALL THE TELEPORT PUZZLES >D

Still, thanks for the feedback, It's it's weight multiplied x100 and then weighted in gold (it makes no sense, jsut roll with it yo) in helpfulness. Jppefully with this we'll be able to titch up a half decent patch this week untilw ec an put out the real beefed up re-release (DUN DUN DUNNN!)

 

[Alkorri]

Spoiler

I also saved all the 20 missing people.

ARGH ;D

 

[Bonkers]

@Maki:

ikr? But what about the Rock Dragon then? Something tells me that he was the leader of the bullies firewirms in that school.

The problem is that Golem is so huge.  He also blocks the slime in several forms overlapping with the sprites on the player side as well.

Even scaled down he'd still be larger than the character sprites.  

Spoiler

Blazing bird was a very short battle for me as well.  If it had a way to negate ice or seal ice attacks it would still be short since the slime was able to kill it one turn with me in mystic form.  It needs something.

Yeah Mega toxic eel was also very easy, maybe make it heal for each stack of poison is absorbs?

Instead of buffing, maybe give them a self defense mechanic.  Since the spire empowers the monsters each of those levels may contribute to the boss's power of that corresponding element.

I didn't find Kieth!  How did I miss the sexy blonde?!

Preston is too cute.  I hope he gets some spot light for his own game.  

 

[Dalph]

@Indrah:

New patch! re-release! wow!

@Alkorri:

Aw, let a villain win and enjoy his victory sometimes!

@palladinthug:

Spoiler

You're right, the Golem is pretty huge compared to the characters...this is the problem.

And the self defense mechanic is a very good idea I think, let's see what Fomar thinks about it.

Keith is in the Art Gallery, not that far from Owen...he's in the second room (near the purple haired girl).

I liked Preston too (I'll be honest), he's a nice character...ahah

 

[Matseb2611]

Hi. I've decided to give the game a try and so far about an hour in. So far the game feels quite polished and the presentation is nice. I haven't come across any bugs and such, so it's all good on this front.

I really like how approaching interactable areas has the arrow coming up. It makes exploration more enjoyable and saves the player from having to press action on everything.

Although I am unfamiliar with the characters since I've never played the games they are from, I felt the characters were developed pretty well. Bits of dialogue here and there really helped to flesh them out, and I really like the art style of the busts. It's really great. The music choices have been awesome as well. The slime introduction scene was a little strange to me and felt a tad out of place since the game atmosphere was very serious up until that point. Maybe the universe it's set in is not meant to be serious, but that's the impression I had up until that point in the game.

I have a bit of mixed feelings on the battle system. For the most part it was fun. The idea of runes is good, though I wish more skills would be learnt as I go on. Maybe this happens later, but I've done the whole first dungeon and still had the same skills as I started with. A lot of the time the battles felt a bit trial and error and elemental weaknesses are not that obvious. It would be nice if 'weakness' and 'resistance' would pop up when dealing damage. Some of those didn't feel very intuitive. For example, the floating skull I would've expected to be weak to fire, but Alma's fire spell did about the same damage as everything else. I have a bit of an issue with the battle tutorials in fact. They were way too invasive and made the battle mechanics sound a lot more confusing than they actually are. Also I've been introduced to the idea that Slime can change forms, and yet I can't use any of them. Why introduce all this now if I can't use it yet? And where did the huge Golem come from? He kind of appeared in the party out of the blue. I didn't see him in any cutscene or anything. Also, I couldn't find a way to escape from battles. Was this feature disabled?

So far the game is nice and feels professional. I'll be playing on further to see what happens next, though how come it's 4-6 hours long if the judges will only be playing it for 1 hour?

 

[Makio-Kuta]

Ohh I'm so happy people like Preston~ I hope he can be an element in future games too. I'm rooting for you Preston!!

@Matseb: the golem was built by Alma with her research If you look through her abilities menu you can see upgrades and such you can make for him as well. You can escape by pressing... W I believe it is. It was an oversight on the controls. :S sorry bout that

Oh and why did we make such a long game? Because we have no self control.

 

[Jamgun]

Looks interesting, the art is the eye-candy I currently feel like needing.
Will be trying out soon.

 

[Alkorri]

Hope you don't mind, I kept playing and picked up some issues.

Spoiler

After using the Super Fertilizer, it is possible to get infinite Pink Ribbons from the kitty if you interact with it.

 

Just clarifying that I can keep casting Defibrillator until it says I can heal up to 100%HP of the ally, but only get back 1HP.

 

After a half hour of fighting the Lake Guardian and lots of pain, I managed to beat her!

 

Me: I WON! I WON! TAKE THAT, GUARDIAN-- Game crashes during cutscene with Script '*R - Window_Message' line 248: No MethodError occured. undefined method '+' for nil:NilClass

 

Me: .....

 

*goes and cries in the corner*

 

[Matseb2611]

I seem to be kind of stuck and can't find my way to the spire. It was after speaking to the vampire guy and then staying at the inn. It said a letter for Elsa came in the morning but no pointers other than that as to where to find this letter. Right now I just go into the forest but can't enter a cave at the end because of a magic barrier that pushes me out. Am I supposed to do something else beforehand?

 

[Yato]

The letter is just a part of the inn side event. The Spire is located through a north exit in the forest you used to get to that cave.

 

[Makio-Kuta]

I'm so sorry Alkorri, that glitch was my fault ;( I'll hook you up with screenshots of what you missed out on when I get home from work. We'll be releasing a patch, but sounds like that boss gave you quite the issue, so I'll help you out beyond saying 'here's a patch! Now beat her again!'

And Matseb, since Rach didn't mention it, make sure you read that letter that Elsa got by using it from your menu it gives Elsa something nice.

I hope you have fun jamgun! And I'm happy you like the art ;D

 

[Alkorri]

I'm so sorry Alkorri, that glitch was my fault ;( I'll hook you up with screenshots of what you missed out on when I get home from work. We'll be releasing a patch, but sounds like that boss gave you quite the issue, so I'll help you out beyond saying 'here's a patch! Now beat her again!'

Thank you, I'll wait for the patch Yeah, I couldn't beat her before (party was mostly level 32) so spent an hour grinding on the previous map to level. Looking forward to it!

 

[Fomar0153]

Glad you all seem to be enjoying the game so far

Spoiler

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.


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 *****ing and go grind in the Undead levels a few to get those Blood and Bone Runes


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 tried to make it so Alma would unlock research more often at earlier levels but I was never bothered by her focusing more on development later on.
Personally I like Mage and Plant and then the Mystic Plant form.


The 3 super forms are the combined versions of two previous forms which is why they come partially levelled up.


So dragon form is bird + reptile. Levelling those two forms up levels up the dragon form.


Sadly he is just a golem, next time he might get more of a role, he was just me wanting to try and retain some of Alma's skills from In Search of Immortality.


No one uses Elsa as a Tank I'll just have to accept it and lower the bone rune costs, I was sort of aiming for people who used Elsa as a Tank to get them all by ~2 thirds through the tower.


Feed all is a good idea, I'll try and implement it.

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?

Ezekiel's section is meant to be more difficult but mostly because to have to manage groups by yourself but the spike is higher than intended.
Lady of the Lake is meant to be one of the superbosses along with the dragon group. She is meant to be the ultimate challenge, if you've got all the best equipment and skills and you've hit level 40, I found her to be difficult but not impossible.


DP is a slight spoiler for those that haven't completed In Search of Immortality or Sunken Spire...

Demon Power, Ezekiel is a demon.

Battles


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.


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?

I need to play around with statuses to make sure they always show up and how many stacks were applied. Every state should have a 100% chance to be inflicted but I will check it out.
Defib was broken and sadly none us noticed.

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


I probably went a bit overboard a bit there. 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?

I always thought it was Beastiary, I even argued with Indrah. I guess I'll have to accept I was wrong.
10 hours is far more than we expected but I guess we always knew where we were going. Thanks for sticking with it.

The GOOD


- Engaging battles that require strategy to win.


- Awesome puzzles (I especially liked the skeletons and the teleport one). Something tells me that Rachael made those, ahahah.


- A lot of variety and interesting systems (Runes, Researches, a Beastiary, Goo Forms, a lot of Equipment\Items\Stuff\Mods).


- A Golem controlled by an AI (and that you can upgrade) which is a neat idea and...saved my a** countless times.


- General Flippers is a nice addition to the game.


- The game is pretty long (took me almost 6 hours to do everything) and there are a lot of optional things to do.

I didn't do any of the puzzles, I ended up having to pass them to the others. I did request the teleporters changed colour though after you use them.


It was a real slog to get all those systems done in time, I had to trim a few small things e.g. Ezekiel was going to get the Bestiary as well being as he gets the party's items. But I didn't get it bug free in time so I hid it.


I'm glad the Golem was useful, it's partly me testing the waters with A.I. controlled characters.


General Flippers was great fun, Indrah made a list of ideas for the enemies (of which I used maybe 1 in 2/3) and here's the brief I got:


"273: Winter Knight


CUTE PENGUIIIINS XD


Appear as group leader with other lesser enemies. Will buff and act as captain. Strong when alone too (high damage and defence, can do basic magic). Weak to statuses?


Silly idea: if you defeat his minions and get him down to 25% he will surrender and give you an item /you still get exp)"


I did think about making him temp character who had a shop as his ability but eventually I settled for something more Odin-esque (VIII Odin). I like the way he turned out.


6 hours, glad you stuck with it and thanks for all the detailed feedback.

THE BAD(?)


Nothing serious, only balancing issues.


It's ok Fomar, balancing is the hardest thing ever in game making and you still did a wonderful job despite the lack of time.


- The Chimera was a joke (only 3 Ice Slashes to deal with this monster). I know that it's the first boss but...the monster is very weak.


- Break Defence + Ice Slash and you can kill the Blazing Bird in barely 2 turns.


- The Mega Toxic Eel was a cakewalk...dead in only 4 turns.


- Ezekiel was very easy too (in both the battles), he barely damaged my party.


These bosses needs to be buffed.

Chimera was really only a miniboss and we were still introducing mechanics so I think he's about right.
The next 3 bosses suffer from the average player being 5-10 levels higher than planned, they'll be buffed though Ezekiel will be more tricky. I worked desperately to have him have the exact same stats as a boss that he has as a playable character.

Overall the game was very enjoyable and certainly your best (it surpasses In Search of Immortality in every single aspect).


The last area of the game (with Ezekiel) starts a bit hard but things gets easier and easier soon as the player empowers him, and it's so satysfying to own everyone with him (he becomes a God).


I think I've done everything that the game can offer.


I have two different saves, one for Elsa and Alma and the other for Ezekiel, all the characters are at lv40, they learned everything and they're equipped with the best things (I think). I defeated all the monsters and the optional bosses (Gabriella too...she was the hardest battle ingame). I also saved all the 20 missing people.

It wasn't meant to be such a spike though it's instantly more difficult because you can't be revived by yourself. I think it is our best game yet as well. Though it's probably a combination of improved skill, awesome team mates and a month of development as opposed to the usual 2 weeks.

Best luck for the contest!


now...The Stalker hides.

Thanks!
...and if the battle lasted long enough then he'd stealth attack you (I hope). Though if he sees all his friends have lost then he probably stays hidden.

@Alkorri:


Aw, let a villain win and enjoy his victory sometimes!

I'd happily let the villains win sometimes, it's Indrah who won't let me kill anyone.

@palladinthug:


You're right, the Golem is pretty huge compared to the characters...this is the problem.


And the self defense mechanic is a very good idea I think, let's see what Fomar thinks about it.


Just clarifying that I can keep casting Defibrillator until it says I can heal up to 100%HP of the ally, but only get back 1HP.


After a half hour of fighting the Lake Guardian and lots of pain, I managed to beat her!


Me: I WON! I WON! TAKE THAT, GUARDIAN-- Game crashes during cutscene with Script '*R - Window_Message' line 248: No MethodError occured. undefined method '+' for nil:NilClass

I did have the Golem at half size for a while and someone else changed it because he wasn't badass enough. Tidying up battler positions was something we just didn't have the time to worry about. But now we do, we'll sort out those formations for the next release.
I've fixed the defibrillator skill for the next release, when I made it I completely forgot about the ordering of the effects and in testing we must have relied on items for reviving and failed to notice it.


Congratulations on beating the Lake Guardian, though no one has yet informed me they found my doctor who reference in that battle yet.