Towers of Twilight

[CryptRat]

http://sinistersystems.com/home/?m=games&t=towers_of_twilight

I'm currently playing this (it's free). I don't completely understand what's going on, the game is supposed not to be finished and you have to enter the game files to change your initial party composition, but it is fun so far.

More screenshots :

Spoiler

You control 3 initial characters + hirelings.

The combat is turn-based (except that basic attack is automatically repeated).

There are some cool twists, some random examples :
- during combat, you and your opponents will try to win tactical advantage by "maneuvering" : it's important since you will eventually be able to cast spells and use range weapons while your opponents won't.
- depending on where you choose to meditate to level up, you won't upgrade the same stats.
- I can't talk with some characters (and I was unable to enter a tavern) because I don't know some tongues (troll, elf).
There's also a duel combat type ; I challenged some brute and lost.
- There's a stealth system but I still need to dig it.

The encounter rate seems insane but otherwise I like the game. I haven't done much more than fighting some trash mobs, collecting loot, resting and gaining some level-ups so far, because most of (blocking) encounters are far too hard for me, though. The UI seemed weird at the beginning, but in fact I think it's OK.

 

[octavius]

I love the ZX Spectrum graphics.
Reminds me of Lords of Midnight, Runestone and Sorderon's Shadow, which no doubt were inspirations.

 

[dragonbait]

This looks cool. I'll have to try it out and it'll be interesting to see what the final version ends up like.

Sinistersystems seems to have a couple more interesting looking rpg/adventure/strategy style games on their gamejolt page.
Legends of the Land
Dark Forest

 

[octavius]

Sinistersystems seems to have a couple more interesting looking rpg/adventure/strategy style games on their gamejolt page.
Legends of the Land

Now that one is definitely LoM inspired!

 

[CryptRat]

I'm definitely enjoying the game.
My current party counts 8 members and I can finally fight some named enemies with their own party. I have more or less completed the first map, there seems to be 5 of them ; I found some portals to other maps.
My current party :

There are a lot of cool things :
- Some villains walk on the map on the way to a keep. If you don't manage to intercept them before they reach their goal, they will invade the keep and kill the keeper, which can be some "important" character, possibly a recruitable one.
- I don't know how a character (you find named characters everywhere, in their home, guarding a town or a keep) finally wants to join your party, but there's a cool reputation system (I assume it's linked). Your reputation increases when you do some heroic act, but it also decreases when you flee a battle or when you attack when hidden (coward!) ; that's cool because on the other hand attacking when hidden gives you an important "tactical advantage".
- NPCs and potential PCs are friendly, neutral or hostile, but for example one of them won't talk to me anymore because I proposed to give him an apple (because why not) and he was offended.
- The worst enemy, at least on the Midgard map, is the blizzard. It kills you by inches during long battles against monsters which, generally, don't do much damage. In general when I would have to fight many enemies under a blizzard, I retreat and lose some reputation by the way. Dragon breaths or paralysis are strong too, though.
- The big fights are fun, the "tactical advantage" gimmick is very pleasant, for example you can cancel mage spells by damaging them while they're preparing it but you'll need a decent tactical advantage score in order to be able to target them.
- The economy is good, so far, I bought a few spells and some equipement but the good stuff is expensive enough.

 

[CryptRat]

I don't think there's a limit to the party size.

The game is meant to be played Ironman, but it's long and hard enough and it's fun to keep my big party so I'm cheating through the save system .

 

[dragonbait]

How many members in your party now? 15?

 

[CryptRat]

Well, I killed the three Overlords, I don't know if there's anything else to do.

I don't think procedural RPGs are the future, the game is not great, however it is fun enough (especially considering it's free), with some good ideas like, from what I've only vaguely mentioned :
- the different brutal weathers
- the multiple ways to persuade NPCs to join your party (winning a duel, giving them a unique item they're requesting or more often doing nothing particular, expect gaining reputation I guess)
- the different languages that you need at least a character/item to know if you want to speak with certain characters, or the multiple skills you can use to open door, not all of them always working
The combat/skill system/itemization are OK, even if most of the time the characters seem all the same.
There are a few UI annoyances , for example I've never find a way to see the HPs of all my characters at once or the fact that you can ask all your characters to attack but you can't ask all of them to maneuver, but in both cases maybe I missed something.
They are a few things I didn't even explore, for example I've never given a required item to an enemy NPC (I'm almost sure it's possible).

 

[charon_sin_sys]

Hello everyone!

I only noticed this topic a couple days ago, and it sparked me up to make an account here and post.

Let me first introduce myself, I am charon@sinistersystems, the author of this little experimental game.

I really enjoyed reading this thread, I am glad that somebody found the game worthy of writing about! So I am not here to debate the review, it's awesome!

But I do want to respond to this:

"I don't think procedural RPGs are the future..."

Of course this is just an opinion, and at this moment, it's all entirely speculative. So I am not going to argue the point in general... much

However, reading it, it made me feel like this game in particular made you think even more so. And I don't think that's fair to procedural RPGs as a whole because this game really is just an experiment. Or, more like a bunch of experiments, so it's actually really really bad in many regards! It doesn't work as a game and I stopped developing it half way in because the code became too complex and because the retro games dvd that I was making it for never got published in the end.

So I just don't think it's a fair example of why procedural RPGs would't work. This is merely a tiny tiny aimless beginning but I am still working on it, and other people do too I am sure!

The furthest I came is with my latest game, and I hope you don't mind a bit self-promotion here but I won't be posting any links, if you want to check it out it's called "Daily Chthonicle" and was just recently greenlit on steam. It's still far from what I would like to achieve, but it's a lot more coherent and a better game in every way.

Hope you don't mind the intrusion, have fun you all and cheers!

Charon@sinsys

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Agad, these guys worked on Mistmare?

FAKE EDIT: Oh yeah, indeed.

charon_sin_sys release Mistmare on GOG plz, I'm tired of looking for a proper English version.

 

[Melan]

Welcome! I, for one, am very interested in where people could take the Lords of Midnight formula. It is a game that stands alone in history as a towering achievement of its time, and was never really followed by the expansion and refinement that happened in other RPG/strategy formulas. Where would we be, if people took the LoM "epic game" formula and ran with it? Could it be scaled down (for quest-based games) or used for an RPG that takes place on a larger scale than the traditional, party-scaled, action-by-action default?

Even as an experiment, your game is fascinating.

And I really dig the graphics.

 

[octavius]

Hello everyone!

Hi there.

Can you tell us which games where your inspirations for your games?

 

[charon_sin_sys]

Agad, these guys worked on Mistmare?

FAKE EDIT: Oh yeah, indeed.

charon_sin_sys release Mistmare on GOG plz, I'm tired of looking for a proper English version.

Oh cripes... >.<

Would it help if I told you sinister systems only designed the game while arxel tribe actually developed it?

I suppose even if it would, I can't realy deny coding a pretty big chunk of that game myself anyway

So yeah... :/ and eh...

If you want to read my tiny postmortem here it is, but I advise against it, it's kind of whiney:
http://www.sinistersystems.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=charon:past:mistmare
http://www.sinistersystems.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=charon:past:mistmare

As for releasing it on GoG... unless this was a joke (it was a joke, right, I am now making a fool of myself? ^.^) I will ask around if anyone has a proper version!

Welcome! I, for one, am very interested in where people could take the Lords of Midnight formula. It is a game that stands alone in history as a towering achievement of its time, and was never really followed by the expansion and refinement that happened in other RPG/strategy formulas. Where would we be, if people took the LoM "epic game" formula and ran with it? Could it be scaled down (for quest-based games) or used for an RPG that takes place on a larger scale than the traditional, party-scaled, action-by-action default?

Even as an experiment, your game is fascinating.

And I really dig the graphics.

I'm glad that you like it! I had some big plans with it that never came to happen but I learned a lot, not just in terms of plot "generation" but also game mechanics and design. It was a very fruitful "failure"!

As for LoM, I love that game as well and I agree that no other ever came close to it in its very specific genre and atmosphere. I tried a couple times, but it's hard to advance something that creates its power with this kind of concise minimalism. I think we'll have to make some advancement in the AI field first to be able to make believable and glorious epic stories and worlds. The games today, it's all about graphics and gradiose landscapes and worlds, but they all seem... a bit empty somehow without some true artificial life going on inside!

Anyway I will keep working in this field because it really intrigues me, not just in terms of ai development but actual gameplay elements of games employing such ai. So I keep making these little experiments also as a hommage to old games aestethics and gameplay.

cheers!

 

[charon_sin_sys]

Hi there.

Can you tell us which games where your inspirations for your games?

Mostly old spectrum, commodore 64 and amiga games. I love that period because the lack of resources forced the developers to be minimal and concise, and there were many great gameplay mechanics invented in that time. I am also a bit nostalgic, I can't help it I suppose :D

But I also love that graphics, for the same reason: I just think artistic expression can benefit from limits and lack of resources... think Haiku!

Of course some modern games as well. I love Ultima Underworld and both System Shocks. I played some modern 3d rpgs too, like Skyrim and VtM etc.

But main inspiration still comes from the past... and the future. Because my other inspiration comes from how people see games of the future: full VR, artificial life in fully functional open worlds, and so.

I could list specific older titles but when it comes to good old games, almost all of them are simply great and inspiring, so it's really hard to be specific. Since I am mostly an RPG, adventure, simulation and strategy fan, I am just more inspired by Lords of Midnight or Enigma Force or Shadowfire etc than Manic Miner. But Manic Miner also rules!

cheers!

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Oh cripes... >.<

I've read the postmortem and it sounds pretty shitty when the publisher forces you to add tons of stuff right before release.
And I've heard a lot of negativity about the game and played some broken localized version a long time ago, but IIRC vonAchdorf or V_K persuaded me to keep looking for the proper version.

I will ask around if anyone has a proper version!

I guess I found one, but I'm not sure yet.

 

[Dorateen]

The need to learn languages in order to converse with other characters reminds me of NWC's Tunnels & Trolls.

 

[Got bored and left]

It's a damn shame Mistmare ended up being a trainwreck; I remeber playing a demo of it as a kid and being really intrigued.