iPhone Lich Tower of Doom RPG - (by Expleo Risvold)

This really makes me regret my purchase. No one has the time to play this on one sitting if succesful. Ive cleared 3 dungeons and having a break now. Not fun if I never know if my progress is wiped when I come back.

 

As long as you don't force quit or restart your ipad, you should be able to continue where you left off. At least I have in my experience.

 

Huh, so no save system. Yeah, I'll pass. Leaving it open in memory is fine and all but it seems like a amature expectation for any game longer than half-an-hour; we are talking about pretty basic functionality being left out on the grounds of it 'not being fun to code'. Unless, this is really meant to be completed in one sitting? and if so should be balanced around and made clear.

 

And big ####ing surprise. Started the game again and save lost. Avoid this game.

 

Duke, I agree. The game should have a save. And it probably will have. It would have been implemented already if not for the fact that every seccond I spend working on the game, and every dollar I comission art for, is time and money I will never see any return for. So I prioritise doing tweaks, and adding content I want to on a personal level.

I understand doing a 3 lvl run being lost if you don't have time to complete before doing other things is not fun. If you regret your purchase, please send me your paypal info on PM and I will do a personal refund, including Apples cut, or hang in there and wait for an update that fixes your situation if you to some level think the overall game cocept is somwhat worth playing.

Thanks for giving it a shot.

 

The game really doesn't work without being able to save it. I really thought this would be one of the main priorities. How else can you progress? Realistically most people do not only solely play one game until completion. This is a shame as I like the look of the game and I understand all the hard work that has gone into it. Without being able to save progress though I may have to delete the game from my ipad.

 

A peculiar statement considering the fact that you are SELLING this game.

 

How is that peculiar? He is pretty much stating that even with selling the game, he has not gotten out of it financially what he put into it. So all that is left for him to continue is the personal joy he might get from seeing people play and enjoy it, or the satisfaction of having made it.

 

crosseyedmary: I'm glad you like the look of the game. Adding such statements adds to the movitation of continuing developing. I'm giving you the same offer though, if the non-save is a deal breaker, hang in and I can see what I can do about it, or send me paypal details for a refund. I won't take money from people who don't think the game is worth a couple of dollars.

Topherunhinged: Yes, the game is 'selling' on appstore. As I did not take the approach to buy a ready set of sprites and use some free music, the cost to crete original assets have been massive (and probably the biggest reason why people like me don't do that). Actualy, it is ludicrous far from even breaking even. the gap is so big that I have zero illusion that it will ever reach that point.

So as said: yes, gamesave should have been in, but as of yet, it is not. It will take some time to add (mostly on the testing side to ensure the elements are in place), and no matter how you look at it, this time will be unpayed work for me. Encouraged by statements liked corsseyedmary (see above), and discouraged by those who just state they think the game sucks for whatever reason.

 

From your previous post I got an impression you wont make save option at all but if its coming Ill gladly wait and after its in will prolly give it four stars if not five as I think its otherwise great.

 

Duke, I'm glad you like the other aspects of the game.

I have said all along that I will listen to player inputs, and it is a great difference in saying 'I like the game, but this aspects realy annoys me' and 'This just sucks, I regret buying, don't buy this game'

The first sentance motivates me to improve the game to those who enjoys it, the seccond is just a 'oh well, not his cup of tea, part of life'.

As I said (with the fear of sounding very defensive), this game has cost me lots of money to create, money I will never get back. I'm just trying to explain why it is not priority 1, as a gamesave creates a whole lot of other headaches, and I try focus on what _I_ think fun to implement and want to add.

That said, I am currently testing out a step 1 on implementing a save, it is not a full solution (and opens up for cheating): a player only save: stats, items,dungeon and dungeonlevel. If you continue from a save, you will start at the entrace of last visited floor, and you can do this only once per floor. It is not perfect, but it is doable within reasonable time and _might_ make it to next content patch as I'm waiting for some more sprite frames.

A full state/map save adds something like 2000 atributtes needing to be saved and requires a lot more coding/testing/performance tweaks and additional risk-areas.

 

Thanks for the offer of a refund, as I said I like the game but won't play without a save. If work on this is in the offing I am happy to wait for it and wish Expleo all the best.

 

OK, a 'better than nothing' solution is implemented, and ready to go into next deploy. It works as described:

When you enter a new level (or dungeon), your progress is saved (character, items, stats, score etc). When you resume such game, the savefile is deleted, so you need to get to next level/dungeon before a new save takes place. Dying also deletes the savegame.

So in short, when you start from a save, you need to get to next level before you turn your device off.

Need some more testing to try ensure there are no ill-effects from this before appstore submitting.

Besides that, implemented and ready to ship:

-Thug takeover. 3(4 with the boss) new enemies are looting the dungeonfloors. They kill whoever is at that level, and won't stop until their leader is defeated.

-Obelisks to be found: Pretty much one on each floor. Not a big gamechanger, but a quick refill of energy/health or a little mana boost is always good.

-Captives: Player are not the first mage to try defeat the lich. Defeated, but not killed, wannabe heroes are held captive in chains. Free them and you get a small reward of gold (sloppy guards didn't search them enough !) and some extra score oportunities.

-Stab (Backstab): Player under invis potion, or with sneak skill, can enter the shadows and deal a nasty hit to the opponent before the battle starts. (auto for invis potion, dice roll for sneak skill) This breaks the invisibiliy though.

-Forced sequence of dungeons. Randomized for each game, but prevents player to select the easiest dungeons all the tume. This somwhat makes the overhead map obsolete, but for possible future expansions (and it is a nice map the map stays.

- + some other tweaks and modifications.

In the pipeline:

-Searching eye, sent by the lich to locate pesky players. Once you are found, they will try open a gate to summon forth a mercenary of varied type.

-New spell 'summon flame sword'. Deals damage with nice visual fx, active combat spell.
-New spell 'burning hands/fire spray'- passive spell that checks in a regular attack-string.

new critter: impa shaman (magic user) so this dungeon has a spellcaster too.

 

Nice update, and that save system is more than enough to make me happy!

 

Can't wait for the update. Thanks for keeping up the love for this game.

 

found a couple of annoying bugs with the saving feature (also the reason it is not full scale-save yet, so many things can go wrong and need much testing), but I hope it is mostly sorted out.

so, binary uploaded to apple right now.

 

Wow, gotta love internet and apple. Im on a mountain hike now, and apple push messaged that app version is good to go. So, it is released and should be out soon. I found a few issues already corrected for next release, but nothing found I would reject the upload for. I didt have too much testing time, so please notfy me if you find something erong so I can correct. Remember : game saves when it says it saves, and deletes savegame when it says savegame deleted. Have fun and good luck

Ps: fastes apptival I ever saw. Thanks apple.

 

Hi, by pack, do you mean Equipment, stuff or both ? the Equipment stats are just added to Your overall stats, and you get to see them if you find other item of same type (and swap) under the profile screen, you do have small images of Your items caried, I have considered having them tap-able and bring up the item as a regular 'take or sell' thing. But, on ipad-mini the images might be a bit too small and can require a more massive change to the the profile window. I don't see any particular reason why you would want to look at the individual items before you are faced With a choise to keep or discard a New item of same type.

For stuff, (and this is by design), you don't get more info after you have picked it up. This is a desicion to counter a regular roguelikes 'unknown' items, where you must use them once or use a scroll of identify. The reasoning is that it adds to the Learning experience, and (at least I think so), the colors for potions etc are pretty consistent, so it should not take too much playtime to learn what is what.. reward the player who plays more. this _might_ have been a bad way to handle it, and I'm open to suggestions if players (sounds like you are amongst them) calls for a suggested change.

After all, the directional pad was something I didn't implement at first because I didnt want the obscuring arrows, but after I added as some players reported swiping issues, I myself use the d-pad all the time.