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Crystal Towers 2 XL Progress update 4
Jul. 9th, 2015 09:13 pmI've finished my first pass through the updated game! The new version is completable from start to finish now and it's really been helped by the screen size change. So far I've talked about the graphical updates for Crystal Towers 2, but there were also some things about the gameplay that needed addressing. So let's talk about how the magic system now works!
As you can see from this profoundly ugly work-in-progress screenshot from early 2007, when I first planned the game you had one magic slot available. The idea was that you would go through the game gradually collecting spells, which would allow you to deal damage to enemies or act as keys to access new areas - a spell to destroy walls or pull magic switches remotely, or let you jump further and so on. You could flip between spells with the left and right shoulder buttons.
The trouble with this approach, as ever, was that I didn't plan very well. As soon as you collected more than about five spells, it was already too awkward to tap your way forwards and backwards through the list. So I replaced that quickly with a grid of spells in the pause menu that you could select from, which helped with the speed of selecting magic but there was still too much going into the menu for swapping around. Eventually, even though the game was quite far into development, I conceded that the game seriously needed to allow you to have two spells equipped at a time.
This alleviated the problem of having to switch around so much - the player could now have an attack spell and one with another use equipped at once without having to go in and swap between them. This instantly made a lot of things more comfortable - it made bosses in particular so much more enjoyable because they're the places where you most need to use offensive magic and you would otherwise be toggling back and forth forever. But I was really patching over a symptom with the wrong solution - in practice, the player would usually want to use that second spell slot for something like Double Jump which had to be recast all the time.
One of the friends I got to test the game suggested that the player could also be allowed to set up shortcuts to frequently used spells on the number keys, to allow them to switch to spells they frequently used without going into the menu. I added that as well, which made things slightly smoother for the moments when you wanted to use an ability then quickly switch back to the motion spells, but I'm not sure how many players used this feature or were even aware of it (you press the number keys in the pause menu while over spells to bind that key to select the spell quickly).
The real problem - and what I had overlooked in the beginning - was that the player was going to want to use many of the spells throughout the entire game rather than to get past specific obstacles. Being able to double jump or dash to the sides is a useful ability no matter where you are, they aren't something you just want to switch to occasionally to get to a high place. So in the XL version, you're going to find these new blue books in place of a few of the red ones:
And you'll also notice a new type of spell in the rearranged grid - along with the red attack magic, yellow player-affecting magic and green environment-affecting magic, there's a section of blue slots at the right that shows your abilities. You'll get instructions for how to use them when you hover the cursor over them - but they're now always on without having to select them.
Double-jumping now just costs 1MP per use - not enough to worry you when bouncing around a level, but it might be enough to sap magic for other uses if you overuse it. Boost is used by holding down the formerly underutilized Use key and pressing Left or Right, and you can now use teleporters with a tap of the Use key as well without having to pick out the spell. The fourth converted spell is Draw, which I think was largely ignored before because it was so awkward to go in and select when it would have been useful - but now you can hold down Use while standing still and vaccuum lingering synth items towards yourself for future crafting.
So, next on the agenda is sprucing up some of the bosses a bit, and getting some to work with the new screen size (there are no game-breaking errors, just that some of them need adjusted to work with more room now). After that I want to get rid of the rest of the Windows fonts that you can see around these screenshots, add some Steam-exclusive stuff like achievements, and hopefully have the game out relatively soon!
As you can see from this profoundly ugly work-in-progress screenshot from early 2007, when I first planned the game you had one magic slot available. The idea was that you would go through the game gradually collecting spells, which would allow you to deal damage to enemies or act as keys to access new areas - a spell to destroy walls or pull magic switches remotely, or let you jump further and so on. You could flip between spells with the left and right shoulder buttons.
The trouble with this approach, as ever, was that I didn't plan very well. As soon as you collected more than about five spells, it was already too awkward to tap your way forwards and backwards through the list. So I replaced that quickly with a grid of spells in the pause menu that you could select from, which helped with the speed of selecting magic but there was still too much going into the menu for swapping around. Eventually, even though the game was quite far into development, I conceded that the game seriously needed to allow you to have two spells equipped at a time.
This alleviated the problem of having to switch around so much - the player could now have an attack spell and one with another use equipped at once without having to go in and swap between them. This instantly made a lot of things more comfortable - it made bosses in particular so much more enjoyable because they're the places where you most need to use offensive magic and you would otherwise be toggling back and forth forever. But I was really patching over a symptom with the wrong solution - in practice, the player would usually want to use that second spell slot for something like Double Jump which had to be recast all the time.
One of the friends I got to test the game suggested that the player could also be allowed to set up shortcuts to frequently used spells on the number keys, to allow them to switch to spells they frequently used without going into the menu. I added that as well, which made things slightly smoother for the moments when you wanted to use an ability then quickly switch back to the motion spells, but I'm not sure how many players used this feature or were even aware of it (you press the number keys in the pause menu while over spells to bind that key to select the spell quickly).
The real problem - and what I had overlooked in the beginning - was that the player was going to want to use many of the spells throughout the entire game rather than to get past specific obstacles. Being able to double jump or dash to the sides is a useful ability no matter where you are, they aren't something you just want to switch to occasionally to get to a high place. So in the XL version, you're going to find these new blue books in place of a few of the red ones:
And you'll also notice a new type of spell in the rearranged grid - along with the red attack magic, yellow player-affecting magic and green environment-affecting magic, there's a section of blue slots at the right that shows your abilities. You'll get instructions for how to use them when you hover the cursor over them - but they're now always on without having to select them.
Double-jumping now just costs 1MP per use - not enough to worry you when bouncing around a level, but it might be enough to sap magic for other uses if you overuse it. Boost is used by holding down the formerly underutilized Use key and pressing Left or Right, and you can now use teleporters with a tap of the Use key as well without having to pick out the spell. The fourth converted spell is Draw, which I think was largely ignored before because it was so awkward to go in and select when it would have been useful - but now you can hold down Use while standing still and vaccuum lingering synth items towards yourself for future crafting.
So, next on the agenda is sprucing up some of the bosses a bit, and getting some to work with the new screen size (there are no game-breaking errors, just that some of them need adjusted to work with more room now). After that I want to get rid of the rest of the Windows fonts that you can see around these screenshots, add some Steam-exclusive stuff like achievements, and hopefully have the game out relatively soon!
