Crystal Towers 2 - It's close

[davidn]

I finally got up the courage to split off a new version of Crystal Towers 2, cut it down to form the free version, and replace some levels with screenshot slideshows to encourage people to upgrade to the paid version. At $5, I'm aiming for people to be able to buy it without thinking about it if they decide they're interested. And at just before the second boss, I'm aiming for people to be at their most enthusiastic about wanting to continue.

You wouldn't believe the amount of time I spent paranoically searching for spyware-free automatic screenshot software before I remembered I could just write one myself.

Unless there are any last-minute problems - and I really am only accepting problems on the magnitude of "The game shot sparks out of my screen and set my cat on fire" at this point - the free and "registered" versions of Crystal Towers 2 will be released next week.

Yes, that felt quite good to type.

Comments

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

: D

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

This is exciting! This has been in development for such a long time...
While I'm sure we testers haven't managed to catch absolutely everything, it's gone through so many fixes and changes, and now it's ready for release.

Maybe I should buy the next few issues of Retro Gamer and see if it's mentioned!

[lupineangel.livejournal.com]

I'm now trying to think of increasingly improbable awful things it could do. :P

"I bought this game, and five minutes later I was diagnosed with cancer!"
"I bought this game, and then the lottery commission rang me up and told me *I* owed *them* money!"
"I bought this game, and now it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts "

:P

D.F.

[tamakun.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to it!

And couldn't you have just used Windows' built-in screen capture? ;p

[davidn]

I was, up until then, but when you have a need for a lot of screenshots, it takes a long time to get good shots. With a program running in the background to take one every second as I played through, I could then look through the results and take the best ones.

Then I realized I'd done one more slideshow than I actually needed for the game, so I suppose I have some more material for the site!

[davidn]

Said one day before the Bubble problemathon :) It's been invaluable to have you testing like that, though - goodness knows I couldn't be bothered after all this time.

My plan to get one final EXE to play all the way through isn't going to happen, but I think I've established at this point that MMF isn't suddenly going to break everything the last time I compile it out. It won't stop me playing it until three in the morning after Friday before I release it, though.

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

My solution to that would be to record a movie and take screenshots of that, but I suppose then there are space, quality or or program constraints!

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

It was only really a problemathon (I like this word) because I hadn't motivated myself to test it out incrementally, and finally decided it just needed to all be done at once.

But even so, there weren't too many problems with it. I'll say again that you were more thorough than I had expected - and not because I expect the opposite, but because when you're putting in a new spell suddenly and trying to apply it to everything, there are bound to be things that slip through the cracks. It was impressive how little did slip through, is what I'm trying to express.

I'm also glad that you're taking the time to test it so carefully. It would be very easy to get caught up in the excitement of its completion and jump the gun on its release, but you're making sure it's really ready.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi David, its Chris Street here.

Found a bug! On the boss Cubombscus, when Bernard is being carried by the "grabber" its possible for him to slide up-screen against the backdrop on the right hand side!

Another thing to consider... are you part of the XNA testing team? ;)

[davidn]

Ah, thanks... I'll see what I can do about that before my final testing rush tonight.

And I'm not - I don't have a 360, but I've been following the forum :) It looks like exciting times...