Crystal Towers 2 - Obsession

[davidn]

I think it's safe to say that I can forget any hopes of actually having this game ever out of my life. I've set up Google alerts and analytics and I still can't stop searching for myself. And that's when I'm not looking at the scorecards and seeing how fast people are making progress. Here, for the purposes of cataloguing and boasting, is a list of significant articles I've seen so far:

http://indiegames.com/2011/06/crystal_towers_2_released.html - Indiegames (pleasantly surprised)

http://www.extraguy.com/2011/06/crystal-towers-2-is-out-today/ - Sort of a repost of the Indiegames one

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/06/19/this-weeks-best-free-pc-games-5/ - PC Gamer's list of free games (mentions enjoying the storyline and dialogue. Not bad being on this list despite not being free, is it?)

http://www.giantbomb.com/crystal-towers-2/61-35736/ - Wiki entry on GiantBomb

http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/ahoodedfigure/impulse-buys-and-a-crystal-towers-2-profile/30-83312/ - Blog on GiantBomb (the word "love" is used)

http://mediocritycodex.blogspot.com/2011/06/indie-cred-david-k-newtons-crystal.html (Flowery but enthusiastic - and you can comment to get a chance to win a free copy)

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/06/15/celestica-crystal-towers-2/ - Rock Paper Shotgun (Appreciative yet patronizing)

Out of everything I've seen written about it, however, this is pretty much my dream. To have someone who discovered the game on their own be sufficiently enthralled by it to fill in the map that I gave out to a couple of people, to write a guide to finding each level, the objectives and the use of the spells (notably finding some of the less obvious uses of them, as shown in his comments) and soon, how to get each item in the game. Given the accidental size of the challenge it's helpful to anybody to take notes, but it's a wonderful feeling that anybody cares about the game enough to produce or use such a guide.

I'm also relieved that people seem to be able to work out what to do on the final boss. I'd worried that I'd be faced with a heap of people entering the level called 'Silent Void', seeing nothing there and just standing around stuck.

Comments

[lupineangel.livejournal.com]

I got into the Silent Void, then noted I wasn't standing on anything, the stars appeared to be made of blood, and my only aid was moving back and forth uncertainly due to the moving background, and felt like I'd accidentally wandered into CT2's equivalent of Welcome To The Machine. (I believe I actually muttered the words "...but I don't want to be in the Silent Void anymore..." at some point. :P) Then I started firing at things randomly, noting that there was no floor, and no walls, but that something blocked my shots a certain distance up above a certain section. I figured it might be like those Earthworm Jim bonus levels where everything was dark and you had to 'feel' your way around, so I tried that; didn't help any.

Then I remembered that I had a spell that helped me see invisible things, and facepalmed mightily. :P

Also, I hope my contribution to the guide effort is useful - feel free to correct anything I've screwed up, or some of the enemy names that I had to guess at.

D.F.

[davidn]

the stars appeared to be made of blood

That was... unintentional! In fact, the stars were meant to start off white and then fade to different colours as you defeated each boss. This didn't make it into the final game because I discovered late on that I'd just forgotten to do it, and couldn't be bothered at that point. (These would make great liner notes.)

felt like I'd accidentally wandered into CT2's equivalent of Welcome To The Machine

This, however, was entirely intentional and a small, futile measure of revenge to the world in general for the existence of that level and the fact that it was ever inflicted upon me. Indeed, FAROUT itself was given the starring role of introducing the level. If people under the age of ten get there, I want it to appear on "Things that scared you in classic games" lists on GameFAQs a decade from now ;)

I'm leaving people to their own devices for now, trying not to step in and give things away :) I'm interested in what people call enemies, in their own heads, though. Everything has an internal name, but for poor design decision reasons, not many will be what you'd expect. (For example, "Fossil fuel" = "Wing".)

[xaq.livejournal.com]

Glad I'm not the only one who applied palm to face at that particular revelation.

"WHY CAN I NOT SEE ANYTHING!?!?"

...

...

*types 5* (Quick aside ein: Did you know you can assign 1-0 to hotkey various spells? 1-5 will switch Spell 1, 6-0 Spell 2.)

*type E* (Quick aside zwei: I redid my controls in my standard Emulator Keypad layout for this game.)

*WHAP* "Much better." (Quick aside drei: ...Actually, there is no QA3. Sorry!)

[xaq.livejournal.com]

I think I may have just topped myself, and possibly the whole world, in CT2 fails.

Stage: Twisted Tropics C
Quest: Return to the start of the stage!

About 80% of the way through, I had Double-Jump and Haste on, took a huge dive off a cliff towards the top of the stage...and JUST missed the ledge at the bottom which, if I'd landed on, would have put me within spitting distance of the Rainbow Gem.

My failure was so spectacular, the game froze on me! XD