Crystal Towers 2

[davidn]

$5 through Fastspring secure ordering Transfer your save over from the free edition and keep playing Open the full Music Castle and recover the eight instruments Enter all 33 levels and 14 bosses Which make up nearly 300 individual challenges More gameplay than time left in your natural lifespan* Synthesize items to gather a library of special abilities Complete your scorecard and look down on all the people who downloaded the version over on the right there Get an intangible spark of inner satisfaction! (* If you're a medium-sized insect)

Explore the lower floors and levels of the Music Castle Recover one of the eight Music Crystals Complete about 15% of the game Which is still a decent amount, really Pick up enemy drops and try out the synthesizer Track your progress on the castle's complimentary Internet and show off your scorecard and achievements online Comes with a free slight feeling of incompleteness until you get that version over on the left

I know, I can't quite believe it either, but the above links are genuine. They go to the actual, complete free and full ($5) releases of Crystal Towers 2. Which means the unthinkable has happened - I have finished it. I've already had two orders and I hadn't even mentioned it anywhere yet.

Here, have a dizzying array of screenshots.



Thanks once again to absolutely everyone who contributed graphics or their time for testing this thing exhaustively - Adam, Hempuli, Chris, Hayo, Jared, J (Freude), crassadon, kjorteo, ravenworks, quadralien, rakarr, wolfekko and of course Whitney for encouraging me to get it finished (perhaps mostly so that she'll see me emerge from the basement office every once in a while now). Perhaps, at some point, I'll return to a normal life.

But not just yet, because I have to work on the Flash advertising version.

In the meantime - http://www.crystaltowers2.com.

Comments

[tamakun.livejournal.com]

:D! Congratulations are in order!

I've already purchased it, and while I won't get the chance to play it for a little while, I'm already amused that I'm getting e-mails from "David Newton Support". I guess that could be read two different ways. :)

[davidn]

Thanks so much for your contribution to that support :) It's a huge relief to have it out there, with no game-breaking problems yet apparent for anyone, but seeing some returns for it already definitely helps as well! Enjoy yourself :)

[xaq.livejournal.com]

*grabs the demo, sets aside $5 just in case this turns out to be as awesome as he thinks*

[davidn]

It's xaq from Pink's forum! Hello there :)

And thanks for playing - I hope it does, for a number of reasons :)

[xaq.livejournal.com]

AH! THAT'S where I remember you from! Thanks, that's been bugging me for a while now. XP

[kjorteo]

Just for the record, you two talking to each other, Xaq playing DavidN's game, etc. is completely breaking my mind. I assumed you guys were my friends from completely different non-overlapping circles, except it turns out you were both from Pink's--and I was too, even though that wasn't how I met either of you, and... argh!

They say it's a small world, but... seriously, something is very surreal about all this.

[davidn]

It's always strange, given the size and compartmentalization of the Internet, when you see people who in your mind are from two separate worlds interacting with each other. And it is odd seeing a name that I vaguely interacted with many years ago making a return :) He was still around when I was there, but... to the best of my knowledge, you weren't - though I'd love it if the place still existed so I could see if I really had talked to you before we actually met.

Then again, I'm also very glad that it doesn't exist any more so that I can't see what I might have said.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

I would find it about as strange if similar occurrences didn't happen with regular frequency in my life. :b

Also, that $5 I was holding onto just in case? Here ya go. :]

[davidn]

Thank you so much :) And five hundred points to kjorteo for another referral. Enjoy it!

[xaq.livejournal.com]

Already am. :] In fact, the last thing I did before making the purchase was completing clearing Iron Works.

[davidn]

It's been interesting, so far, to see where people are in the game when they decide to buy it - my intention was to stop it just before the second boss so that people who wanted to continue and see the rest would be at their most persuadable point, but so far, I don't think that anybody's got as far as that sticking point before switching to the full version!

[xaq.livejournal.com]

Heh, it wasn't even until after I made the purchase that I was aware there WERE bosses in this game.

Then I ran into the Cleaner, and....holy cow. XD Took me 7 attempts to beat him, 4 of which were spent figuring out how to even hurt it.


EDIT: Just as an aside, I am LOVING the music to this game. Magma Falls A is currently my favorite.

[davidn]

It's a difficult thing to imagine for me, going into the game without intimate knowledge of how it all works after all this time. I can only hope that the difficulty has miraculously settled into a perfect place ;)

And thanks, I'm glad you like the music :) That one does seem to be popular in particular, and it was actually the earliest one written, being originally put together for an unfinished Megazeux game some time in 2001.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

Some of the objectives are proving a bit tricky (particularly the health/gem-leak ones), but over all it's been pretty good.

I will point one minor quirk with the music...namely, the tune that plays each time you complete a level.

Don't get me wrong, it sounds great, but it seems out of genre...every time I hear it I think I just finished off a Robot Master and should be picking up a new sub-weapon.

[davidn]

An interesting view, as I thought that that was the most Sonic-inspired of the lot of them! At the time when I put that in, I don't think I'd ever even played a Mega Man game - he was pretty much unheard of in Europe until well into the PS era.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

Well, that's just how I look at it.

Also, after looking at the Scorecards page: WOOO! I'M IN FIFTH PLACE!


If I might make one minor suggestion, though? Any chance for a map of Music Castle? It's getting a bit tedious having to remember the location of every single stage. :/

[xaq.livejournal.com]

AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!

Power went out on me mid-game earlier, and it seems to have corrupted my save file. Says it was created on a different version of the game, so now it won't load it.

There are no words to express my rage right now. None that I use with friendly company anyway.

[davidn]

Inspiring old-fashioned console rage already - but that's not a good thing! Email me your save file (it'll be in your Application Data, called [player name].ct2) and I'll see what I can do to reconstruct it.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

Such is the dangers of emulating the era of video gaming that gave TV Tropes the "Nintendo Hard" page, I guess. :/

Anyway, email sent.


EDIT: SUCCESS!! :D

[davidn]

Here's a bonus for you :)

No labels, though. Perhaps you can fill it in as you go along.

[davidn]

You would have known me under... a different name, at that point - and pretty much a whole different persona as well, seeing as I was still an idiot 18-year-old then. But it certainly started me down the path into becoming what I am today ;)

I recognized you on kjorteo's friends list because I remembered the way you draw characters' faces being very distinctive.

[pookatimes.livejournal.com]

I have dutifully bought the full version. I look forward to losing my life to this game, if your previous games are anything to go by.

[davidn]

Then thank you very much for your custom :) I hope that you enjoy it! It's about time someone else poured some hours of their life into this ;)

[dr-dos.livejournal.com]

That was close.

[davidn]

I always feel terrible telling people this, but you're meant to wait until you have an ability to help you before tackling that one ;) Doing it without it is impressive indeed, though - I had thought it was impossible, until somebody showed me a video of their own attempt!

Really, I'm so glad that it doesn't just crash when the player and ghost get there at the same time :)

[kjorteo]

You and your coming-back-for-it-later gems! Next you'll tell me I should have just waited until I get AntiBee from the last level or something.

Oh well, I guess my card has an impressive 19 deaths in WCA now. :(

[davidn]

That was why I thought Symphony of the Night was so difficult at first - that I didn't know what abilities I might have later in the game, or whether I was meant to be in a particular location just yet. Although that did a pretty good job of making it obvious when things really were impossible to get to.

Though the reason I was reluctant to make these things actually impossible - or even declare the intended ability required to pass them - was exactly because I was seeing people solve them in ingenious ways that I hadn't even considered. And I wanted to leave the possibility open to reward that.

[terrana.livejournal.com]

Congratulations. You're internet-famous now. (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/06/15/celestica-crystal-towers-2)

[davidn]

It seems so, in however small a way - I did notice a spike of views this morning :) I suppose I could have asked for a slightly less condescending summary - "endearing" and "eager to please"! - but it's definitely giving me some traffic.