Ascension - Stage 11

Lest you think I've been slacking off, due to this release being a couple days late, I've actually been hard at work day and night. There's a lot to do to get the end of the game all together, and it seems less logical to release these last bits separately, so that one week you have the final stage, and then the next week you get to see the credits, or what have you.

Non-endgame updates in this release:

I made some minor adjustments to the previous stage (Erebus), because the gargoyles on Hard Mode weren't giving the player very much freedom of movement.

I feared that Labyrinth might be too much of a challenge, but according to one of my testers, it may actually be too easy. The version that I've released didn't fully realize my (somewhat more complex) plans, so I may have to actually go back and rebuild the maze to make it even more unforgiving. I don't begrudge the opportunity to do this, just the work that's going to have to go into it. :p Look for that in an upcoming release.

I also changed some filenames around for some of the graphics, for economy of content (you can fit eight full character sprites or faces in a single file). I tried to fix all the parts in the game that use them, but if you come to a point where the game crashes (with an error that says such and such a file can't be found), let me know; it's an easy fix.

A little rant on cutscene choreography:

I have a lot of respect for the people who put together those half-hour long cutscenes at the end of classic RPGs. Like, I had this problem more while working on Dragonfaith. Ascension has a lot of long text-heavy passages, since it's inspired by a written story idea, but it doesn't have a lot of complex, choreographed cutscenes with different characters moving all around the screen. I wanted something a little special at the end, to reward the player for playing through the game, but this is a short (I can't call it simple) cutscene that will probably last all of a couple minutes when it's said and done, but I'm moving thirteen characters around at once, and getting the timing and positioning down is a challenge. Add to that the fact that you (as the developer) have to sit there and watch through the whole thing multiple times as you make little tweaks to the stuff towards the end, just to get it right... Yeah, I think I complained about this when I was working on Dragonfaith. It's daunting.

Notes on the ending:

The final stage is a breath of relief after 10 stages of hellish terrain. That having been said, there is still a challenge you must surmount, although it's more of a sit-back-in-your-chair-and-explore sort of challenge than the edge-of-your-seat-thrill-ride kind of challenge that is more typical of the stages in Hell. Once you beat it, the ending is not extensive, and may or may not be along the lines of what you're expecting, but I hope that it is in keeping with the theme of the game/story, and there are a couple of extra fun bits at the end.

To keep everything straight - and this is something I imagine the player can discover on their own, but for the sake of letting my testers know what's in the game to test - let me explain the different variations of the ending. If you play the game on Easy Mode, you won't be able to access the final stage - you just get the basic credits without the bestiary I put lots of work into. Normal Mode gets you access to all playable content (minus the secret ending I have planned but haven't created yet), and the "true" ending, complete with the bestiary. The Hard Mode ending plays out exactly the same as Normal Mode, except there's an extra scene at the end (which I totally think is worth challenging yourself to get).

You might notice that the endings are additive. The harder difficulty level you pick, the more content you get, and there is nothing worthwhile on an easier difficulty that is not available on the harder difficulty levels. The Normal Mode gets you a perfectly adequate ending (though you may feel it's a bit abrupt - that's intentional), so that you don't have to strain yourself to beat the game on Hard, but at the same time, I think the extra scene is worth it. Plus, I think I might make the secret ending available only on Hard Mode, because I want it to be a challenge.

But all this can change in the future, if I change my mind, or get some negative feedback on how it's currently all laid out. In the meantime, you have only to play it and let me know what you think!

14/08/14: Ascension - Stage 11b (5.71 MB) [edit: new release available, check sidebar for info]

Edit: Remember when I mentioned filenames and crashes above? Well, in a true facepalm moment, I just discovered that I forgot to update each one of the gargoyles in Erebus. So, if you already downloaded Stage 11, you'll want to replace it with 11b if you don't want the game to crash every time a gargoyle catches you in Erebus...