Ascension (MV) Alpha 2.1

I was very eager to post my release last night, but today I took the time to play through it, start to finish. I mostly made a few minor tweaks, mainly to improve the consistency of text. But I also mitigated to some extent the difficulty of Har Megido, which has proven to be one of the most frustrating stages in this game to play (along with Chaos and Labyrinth), as much as I like it. So this version should be a slight improvement over the last one.

Edit: Funny how a few tweaks can turn into a full day's work. I forgot to modify the menu (which has lots of RPG-related info that's completely irrelevant to my game). I couldn't find a satisfying plugin to make it simpler - not much more than a classic pause screen - so I just figured out how to code it myself. I might work on it some more in the future, but it's much closer to what I want now.

Ascension (MV) Alpha 2.1 (incl. Limbo, Tartarus, Sheol, Har Megido)
Download (~76 MB): Windows | Mac [see sidebar for latest release]

Ascension (MV) Alpha 2.0

To make good on my previous promise - I've been busy as a beaver - and since I haven't released nearly enough playable material in the past few years(!), I'm putting out a sort of demo of what I have so far. A day hasn't gone by since the start of the new year that I haven't made significant progress on Ascension. Let's see if I can keep this pace up, at least until this game is finished. There are certainly some hurdles to overcome in the future (Labyrinth, I'm looking at you).

There may be bugs. There may be inconsistencies. I could easily have overlooked some things even in the sections that should be "finished". And it hasn't been tested nearly enough. (I guess this should all go without saying). But, as far as I know, the first four stages (out of thirteen) should be playable. They are mostly as you would remember them (if you've played them before), but with a couple minor gameplay tweaks (and the semi-significant splitting of one stage into two), and some superficial updates (particularly in the framing narrative). But now on MV! Give it a try.

Ascension (MV) Alpha 2.0 (incl. Limbo, Tartarus, Sheol, Har Megido)
Download (~76 MB): Windows | Mac [see sidebar for latest release]

Next stop: Pandaemonium!

The Resurrection of Ascension

As you are no doubt aware (or have surely suspected), development on Ascension has been on hold for awhile, despite my initially over-optimistic plans to have it released by Halloween 2015 (or even 2014 before that). The reason for this is that I got so caught up in what Ascension hypothetically could be, that I lost sight of what it is, and I buckled under the pressure of the anticipated workload.

As a perfectionist, this is, unfortunately, a common problem that I have. But a wise man once told me that any project is a product of its moment, helping me to realize that it's better to make a statement with the possibility for improvement, than to withhold expression of one's talents until some hypothetical (and probably never-to-be-reached) point at which ultimate perfection will, hypothetically, be achieved.

Ascension is not the first project I started on RPG Maker, but it deserves to be the first project I finish, given the sheer scope of the RPG I am working on. I cannot even envision completing a project like Dragonfaith, until I have realized the completion of a smaller effort like Ascension. And I'd rather put out a complete project - imperfect and flawed though it may be - as an expression of what I am capable of at this point in time, even as an amateur game developer, than to withhold it until it satisfies some impossible rubric of professionality that exists as a vague, ideal form in my head, and that I cannot hope to reach at this time (indeed, if ever).

At the end of the day, I know I can't compete with the professionals out there. And I don't want to. I haven't dedicated my life to that path, and I'm not sure it isn't already too late if I even wanted to. But I don't. All I want to do is learn what I can - whatever bare essentials are necessary - in order to tell this story I have in my head that I want to share with the world. I don't need to make a flawless, groundbreaking game. It's just a delivery mechanism for my creativity.

So with that in mind, I am recommencing work on Ascension, with the goal of creating a complete (not perfect, but complete) version for release in the not-too-distant future. I'm not going to set down a date, but I'd like to say that I should have it ready before the year is out. Certainly I don't intend for it to take longer than that. After all, I still have much work to put in on Dragonfaith (which I'll probably continue to work on off and on, as I have been all this time).