Ascension - Stage 6

As promised, this is a more straightforward stage, and I feel it offers welcome diversity when compared to the last stage. It's pretty short, but that's not to say that it's easy. In fact, I've found it to be a bit challenging. I've made some adjustments to pull back the difficulty, and of course there are variations on each of the difficulty levels, but I should like to have some feedback on how tough you think this stage is. On the other hand, we're more than halfway through the game, so you shouldn't expect it to be a walk in the park.

The next stage will be another fairly elaborate one, so I should get to work on it as soon as possible. By this point it should be obvious (assuming you've actually been following along) that replaying the game from the start with each new release is a bit tedious. Although I do sometimes make adjustments to earlier stages that you might consider worth experiencing, it's probably at least as true that you'd want to dive right in to the latest stage, having already experienced more or less everything up to that point.

Well, I'm happy to report that I've finally received feedback from some testers that have beaten Stage 2 (remember Stage 2? Yeah, neither do I, it was so long ago :p). So, as promised, I will reveal to you a [rather useful] secret I've programmed into the game. At the beginning, during the name select sequence, if you enter the name "zharth" (no caps), it will take you to a special stage select zone, where you can warp directly to the beginning of any of the stages that have been completed!

I call it "Nexus", for obvious reasons. It's pure coincidence that it has the same decor as the latest stage I'm releasing - it's actually been that way since several stages ago. I might change it in the future to make it a bit more unique, but that's beside the point. Use it to warp to any stage of your choosing, for testing purposes. And don't forget to try the game on different difficulty levels if you're feeling adventurous!

14/07/09 Ascension - Stage 6 (4.02 MB) [edit: new release available, check sidebar for info]