Lmst

Item list :neofox_flag_trans:

Did less work on the game than I wanted this xmas break due to illness (cold/flu/who knows) but it was still plenty enough.

Wishlist and play the demo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3962750/Towers_of_Scale/

#gamedev #ScreenshotSaturday #TowersOfScale #MagicTower #IndieDev

A screenshot from Towers of Scale showing an item list on several different floors. Due to the color palette used, the item list has trans flag colors (arranged just like the flag too).

Work on Towers of Scale continues - I am pushing hard to get the initial set of levels ready - I still have roughly two and a half stages to make.

The stage I am currently focusing on is the boss stage of the second chapter of the game - and since it is a boss stage, it is a step up in difficulty even if you have a decent chunk of gems - the metaprogression resource. It will have a whooping 75 floors in total - and even with the ability to backtrack being disabled it will be a lot to even just scout. You can see one of the floors on the screenshot below - will you be able to spare enough power to grab these extra resources, or will you have to just rush to the stairs because otherwise you won't be able to survive?

By the way, some players dropped like 40 hours into just the demo, so please consider checking it out (and maybe dropping a wishlist): https://store.steampowered.com/app/3962750/Towers_of_Scale/

#ScreenshotSaturday #Gamedev #MagicTower #TowersOfScale #IndieDev

A floor from a work in progress stage in Towers of Scale. The floor is visibly split into two halves, each consisting of a single winding corridor. The top corridor is filled with small negative enemies, and ends with a dark key. The botton corridor is filled with battle gates, that progressively open with each enemy defeated. After every five battle gates an item is placed - in order they are: a pickaxe, 25 gold, another pickaxe, light key, and 100 gold.

The halves are connected with straight corridor leading directly to the stairs up. The stairs are guarded by a stronger negative enemy.

I have finally managed to finish making the 2-4 stage in Towers of Scale. It is a stage where the main gimmick is that backtracking hurts you. The deeper you go, the more costly the return to the surface is - and the stage is designed to force you to return to the surface to refill the resources.

I am really, really happy with how the stage has turned out - its gameplay flow feels so nice and it is currently my favorite stage that I currently have in the game. It was well worth putting in a lot of time into spreadsheets to get things right. I would love to infodump about it - but that would be too much spoilers, and I think exploring this stage for the first time should be an interesting endeavor.

#ScreenshotSaturday #TowersOfScale #MagicTower #Gamedev #IndieDev

A screenshot from Towers of Scale depicting floor B12F of the stage 2-4. The stage is called Descent into Abyss.
The critical part of the tower is the return path to the top of the tower being blocked by spike tiles. The spike tiles cost 20 thousand power to go through, which is a hefty cost compared to roughly 168 thousand power the player currently has.
The floor itself has a bunch of negative 10k enemies, and an impossible to currently defeat negative 100 million power enemy. There are also small clusters of 4 positive enemies each in the corners. Progress deeper into the stage is blocked via battle gates that force the player to defeat at least 18 enemies.

The math for one of the stages in my game will kill me lmao

The core concept of this tower is that backtracking to previous floors hurts you - and you will be forced to backtrack a few times to restock on keys and pickaxes from the shop. There is a good chance I will have to start putting in numbers from the end of the tower rather than from the beginning, which complicates getting even the initial pass for numbers :floofWoozy:

#TowersOfScale #gamedev

More QoL stuff incoming to the Towers of Scale demo - you will be now able to dim unreachable tiles!

Play the demo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3962750/Towers_of_Scale/

#ScreenshotSaturday #TowersOfScale #MagicTower #Gamedev #IndieDev

A screenshot from the messiest looking stage in the game called Tiny Tower. A little bit of progress have been made into the stage. Every inaccessible tile is dimmed, making it easier to see what options are available at any given point. A pink-gray color palette is used for this screenshot.

For this #ScreenshotSaturday I don't have any huge bells and whistles - but hey, now you can pathfind through one-way walls, yay! Of course, if you don't want to risk accidentally moving through one, you can disable the option for that. I also did a few small improvements and bugfixes, but that ain't really anything that would make for a good post.

Play the demo of Towers of Scale:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3962750/Towers_of_Scale

#Gamedev #IndieDev #MagicTower #TowersOfScale

I have finally released the demo of my game, Towers of Scale!

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3962750/Towers_of_Scale/
Itch.io: https://makiki99.itch.io/towers-of-scale
Trailer: https://youtu.be/ZguFvbeKgzA

It is an optimization puzzle under a guise of an RPG where you explore the towers and try to reach the crown with as much power as you can get. Furthermore, getting high scores will give you gems that you can use on the next runs, which in turn will allow you to push your scores even higher - and even unlock additional areas in the towers.

Feedback and wishlists will be both much appreciated.

#TowersOfScale #Gamedev #IndieDev #MagicTower #PuzzleGame

While this wasn't exactly what I needed to do to finish the demo, I really needed to change the task after forcing myself through figuring out the sfx (I took roughly 3 work hours per sound effect on average :floofWoozy:) - and the thing I did here were color palettes, just for a little bit of fun.

Unless something dumb happens the demo should be out next week - wishlist now if you don't want to miss it: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3962750/Towers_of_Scale

#ScreenshotSaturday #Gamedev #IndieDev #MagicTower #TowersOfScale

Screenshot from the first floor of the first stage in Towers of Scale. The color palette are shades of gold.

Same screenshot, but the color palette is reminiscent of these green LCD screens, like the one used in GameBoy.

Same screenshot again. The color palette is uses red for dark colors and blue for lighter colors.

The same screenshot once again. The color palette uses the pink and light blue colors.

#ScreenshotSaturday? More like Trailer Saturday!

Towers of Scale is a resource management optimization puzzle game with metaprogression under a guise of an RPG. Explore the towers, get high scores, obtain gems and push the scores even further beyond!

https://youtu.be/ZguFvbeKgzA

#MagicTower #Gamedev #IndieDev #TowersOfScale

Well, a completed title screen for #ScreenshotSaturday

I really, really should be working on sound effects today but I struggle to force myself to do so :floofCry:

Please consider wishlisting if you are interested a challenging optimization puzzle game with metaprogression elements: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3962750/Towers_of_Scale

#MagicTower #Gamedev #TowersOfScale

Late #ScreenshotSaturday but here I go - a work in progress title screen for #TowersOfScale. Might post the finished version next week, assuming I'll get to finish it by then :floofWoozy:

#MagicTower #PuzzleGame #Gamedev

This Screenshot Saturday I will simply show a bit of threatening game design. Still gotta work on releasing the demo and trailer, but that will be for tomorrow. (I kinda wish it would be Screenshot Sunday rather than Saturday considering I can mostly work on the game on weekends.)

Please consider wishlisting the game if this looks interesting to ya: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3962750/Towers_of_Scale

#ScreenshotSaturday #TowersOfScale #Gamedev #MagicTower

A screenshot from Towers of Scale showing a floor from a tower named The Orderly Order. The floor's contents are behind two pop-up tiles, meaning that without any special tricks you can only enter this floor once during a run. The floor's layout is a zigzag filled with enemies - however instead of walls, doors are used, allowing you to simply skip forward. The vibe of this floor is somewhat intentionally overwhelming.

Okay, two week vacation coming to end, and this allowed me to do some decent progress on my game - some level design, some small adjustments and most importantly I have finally managed to add music and some small animations that help with gameplay clarity. "Only" sound effects are missing now for the full experience and stuff I need for the demo and trailer.

I have also managed to set up a Steam store page - if you are interested in complex optimization puzzles, please consider wishlisting: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3962750/Towers_of_Scale/

If you want to wait for a trailer or a demo that's fine too - I will be posting more and more about the game as the time progresses, so if you have seen this post you will probably get reminded about my game either way :floofBlep:

#ScreenshotSaturday #TowersOfScale #Gamedev #MagicTower

Still slowly chipping away at making Towers of Scale - this time I have set up a very simple unlock system for the towers - the more crowns you obtain, the more stages will be available for you. Will probably still tinker with readability a bit, as well as think hard about the numbers here, but still it should work out well.

Also I think I didn't post the main menu/stage select of this game yet here, so here it is :floofWoozy:

#TowersOfScale #ScreenshotSaturday #MagicTower #gamedev

A screenshot from the main menu/stage select screen in Towers of Scale. On the left side there is a list of stages, most of them locked and stating how many crowns are required to unlock them. On the right side there is some basic information about the highlighted tower, which is also the only one unlocked - the data is name, challenger rating, size rating, highest score obtained, and grade thresholds. Below that we have the current gem and crown counts - both are at zero, as this is a fresh save. There are also several buttons there.

Haven't posted to #ScreenshotSaturday for like a month or so - but things are certainly happening. I am focusing on getting stuff ready for a demo release, which will have 5 out of initial 15 towers available - and one of these things is a stage select menu. I have to admit that it is a bit noisy, but I personally like how it turned out, with me being able to fit all the necessary info and buttons.

#TowersOfScale #Gamedev #MagicTower

A screenshot showing the stage select menu of Towers of Scale. A bunch of stage names are listed on the left half of the screen. On the right half there is basic info about the selected stage - name, estimated challenge and size ratings, current high score, and grade thresholds. Below that is the current amount of gems and crowns obtained by the player, as well as some menu buttons.

Just a little bit more... I can get this to a release.

No. I WILL get this to a release.

#TowersOfScale #Gamedev

A screenshot from forgejo showing a milestone named "Demo". The milestone is 84% complete, with 7 issues open and 37 issues closed.

I had a little bit of much needed break from the day job, and that lets me make more progress on the game. I did some small but much needed code refactoring, and I have begun to create the stage 2-4.

This stage won''t introduce much more in terms of mechanics - just a simple to understand battle gate - but it will still have its own identity... mostly because it does down instead of up :floofWoozy:.

Other than that, the defining aspects of this stage will be the relatively large starting power of the player (10000 instead of the usual 5) and forced spike tiles if you want to go back to the surface - and you WILL want to go back at some point of your journey.

#Gamedev #TowersOfScale #MagicTower #ScreenshotSaturday

A screenshot from a work in progress game, Towers of Scale, showing a floor of a stage named Descent into Abyss. The floor's name is Entrance to Abyss.

The layout of the floor is messy and slightly cave-like. The progress down is blocked by a battle gate forcing the player to defeat 10 enemies on the current floor - which in this case is all of them.

There is a tutorial box at the bottom that says: "Battle Gates open automatically after you defeat the given amount of enemies on the floor."

My work on the game has painfully slowed down - I pretty much only work on this during free days. I am determined enough to continue, but the brain is just too damn fried during workdays... to the point that even level design doesn't really work in my brain. Granted, I probably could be fine doing simple stages - but at the current point stages I have to make are a bit more unhinged.

Speaking of unhinged, EX-3 stage will be one of the three extra stages that will be available in the initial release of Towers of Scale - and it is a stage inspired a bit by a game made by LAWatson - I Wanna Lockpick. Expect negative keys here, and routing requiring keeping track of your exact keycount if you want to get every major objective, and several floors that will make you go wtf.

#MagicTower #TowersOfScale #Gamedev #ScreenshotSaturday

A screenshot from a work in progress game Towers of Scale. It shows the third floor of EX-3 stage named Lockpick Battle.
The major parts of the floor are a chain of 25 dark keys that the player is forced to pick to progress and an elixir behind 15 dark doors. The return path requires opening a light door, and in the corners there are pathways with a seemingly random assortment of positive enemies, keys, pickaxes and doors.
The sidebar shows that the player has a negative one key.

The work on the game goes pretty slowly, but I have pretty much finished respriting everything from the jam version. And since I did all that respriting, for this #ScreenshotSaturday I have decided to put a before and after - how the game looked for the GMTK 2024 jam release, and how it looks now.

Also, as you can probably infer from this, the jam tower will be available as an extra tower in the full Towers of Scale.

#TowersOfScale #Gamedev #MagicTower

The screenshot from the jam version showing the first floor of the tower. The UI is very barebones, showing just the player's power and floor they are on. The color palette is almost 1-bit, with only the diggable walls being light gray. The reinforced walls are somewhat painful to look at in places where there are more of them than just two or three next to each other. All enemies share the same sprite.

The current look of the game, showing the same floor as on the previous screenshot. Enemies with different power have different sprites. All the sprites are now (mostly) following the 5-color grayscale palette instead of 1-bit one. The sidebar shows more information, like current tower's name, currently held keys, dark keys, pickaxes and gems. It also holds several clickable buttons, which are from the top to bottom: Undo, Compendium, Map, Notes, Save/Load, and Return to main. Overall, the game is much more pleasant to look at and it seems far more polished now.

It took me a while to properly resume work on my game, but I definitely cooked a pretty demanding stage in my game. Tested it on my friend and it took them like and hour and a half to get through with just a D grade, but they claim the stage was fun which makes me pretty happy.

The theme of the stage is the introduction of passive held items - which are replaced only after you pick up another held item. Proper sequencing is the key to maximize the power gain and minimize the power loss - and I am yet to figure out how to get a decently optimized score on this stage without resorting to metaprogression mechanics... though I do have some ideas.

#TowersOfScale #Gamedev #MagicTower

#TowersOfScale

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