Ren'Py Completed The Princess and the Tower [v0.9c Public] [y.v.]

[Hermenegild]

yv0751 I have finished the 0.7 version minutes ago, and I'd like to share my impressions.

First, thank you for the first ending in the game. It was... unexpectedly anticlimactic. I assume this is the first draft, and it will be expanded further.

Second, there are a few quests which do not disappear from the list despite being finished. I assume this is a matter of them not being fully developed (like "Take your pet on the walk"). Some stay in the list because they're unable to be finished (like "Gain access to the Institute"). On the other hand, "Foiling the attack" quest should not even be a quest, as you can't finish it with your actions, it's more of a matter of holding the fort long enough.

Third, and probably the simplest: please make the standard message displayed during dungeon/archive minigame (the one with the "Continue" button) closeable using the keyboard, like space or enter. This will allow the player to go through the whole minigame using only the keyboard, without switching between mouse and keyboard all the time.

 

[Devchi]

As there have been a few questions on that:
Nyx SUB in V0.7 is 7 max. You get 5,6,7 after having Nyx go through the plug training sessions with Irith.
Offer Nyx the crystal plug, she turns you down. Chat with her in the evening about it and you get the idea that Irith might help. Chat with irith, she will help if she has experience with the plug (belt plug scene done)

He just says "I better keep that for a while" when trying to give to Nyx. Chatting with her is just ramdon talk. Same with Irith.

 

[Hermenegild]

He just says "I better keep that for a while" when trying to give to Nyx. Chatting with her is just ramdon talk. Same with Irith.

You have to be ready for that quest. I believe you have to give the plug to the queen first, and ensure she's wearing it for a few days. Only then you can start training Nyx.

 

[72Loki72]

Think I found a bug, if Nyx already has plug state before you give her crystal plug, can't trigger her accepting it.

 

[yv0751]

Think I found a bug, if Nyx already has plug state before you give her crystal plug, can't trigger her accepting it.

Hmm... There should be no logical connection between those. Only conditions for the trigger are as mentioned above. Anyway, will open a bug CRQ to be sure and revisit in system test for the final version.

 

[yv0751]

yv0751 I have finished the 0.7 version minutes ago, and I'd like to share my impressions.

First, thank you for the first ending in the game. It was... unexpectedly anticlimactic. I assume this is the first draft, and it will be expanded further.

Second, there are a few quests which do not disappear from the list despite being finished. I assume this is a matter of them not being fully developed (like "Take your pet on the walk"). Some stay in the list because they're unable to be finished (like "Gain access to the Institute"). On the other hand, "Foiling the attack" quest should not even be a quest, as you can't finish it with your actions, it's more of a matter of holding the fort long enough.

Third, and probably the simplest: please make the standard message displayed during dungeon/archive minigame (the one with the "Continue" button) closeable using the keyboard, like space or enter. This will allow the player to go through the whole minigame using only the keyboard, without switching between mouse and keyboard all the time.

Thanks for the input.

• GUI has been revised in V0.8 already and all notifications are closable by space
• The Institute I forgot to tag with "V0.8", so thats resolved as well in V0.8
• Good point on the "foiling attack". This quest will be cleared once the queen is captured and post-capture play in V0.8 starts
• The first ending is the "standard" ending. In V0.8 there will be the dark-ish ending and in V0.9 the Harem ending. Need to build to that

 

[Janzig]

Hmm... There should be no logical connection between those. Only conditions for the trigger are as mentioned above. Anyway, will open a bug CRQ to be sure and revisit in system test for the final version.

I have the same problem with Nyx. Can't get the Irith training to trigger. I have done all the other Nyx training, etc. but all she says when I gift the crystal plug is "I told you I don't want that."

 

[Janzig]

I have the same problem with Nyx. Can't get the Irith training to trigger. I have done all the other Nyx training, etc. but all she says when I gift the crystal plug is "I told you I don't want that."
View attachment 2156461

Think I figured it out. I had to send Nyx scouting in the dungeon naked once before the 'talk to Irith about the plug' triggered.

 

[stec]

Is there a gallery in 0.7?

 

[Diconica]

This isn't a rant just a complete list of issues I ran into how I solved them or couldn't It is meant to give an idea were it can be improved.

So I just captured the queen. ?
It says I should go visit her but she is no place to be found.
She supposedly in the lower level locked in her cage but I don't see a way to get there.
I haven't tried the dungeon because that is currently impossible without going to the next day and well I can't sleep without seeing her.
Guessing I am at end of current content? An indicator of that might be helpful. Maybe there is and I'm blind.

I played on normal mode. I didn't wait to start the portal captures. I should have wait to do the research on the top right till last.
Research everything else first then do it. Friendly advice for other players.

If I played fairly there is no way I could have won. Attackers are doing 30 points of stuff or more in there 10 turns. It might be different on easy but on normal mode she attacked it did 3 damage unless there was less than 3. She seemed to always be able to put down more than I could as well.

To be clear using page up by itself and replaying doesn't help it roles the same thing over again. Even reloading won't help in the game because the RNG position is saved. It's pseudo random in this part of the game at best.
I tried it thousands of times a lot of different ways.

So I devised a strategy. First it uses pathing to determine where it attacks and weighted probability for some stuff.
I then chose to leave areas that were in unlikely path locations against enemy positions with 3 or less in them. If you attack with a 3 the most that will attack is 2 leaving 1 behind no matter what so you won't loose 3 of them. If you attack with a 2 only 1 will be at risk. So when I seen I get a 3 loss I would use one of those instead on another part of the map to reduce how much I lost.
Also rotate using attacking positions. if there are 3 blocks surrounding an enemy block rotate through them to make the attack.
If you run out of 2 & 3 level areas to attack with use the lowest one you have that is the farthest back from the enemy position. example if you have 3 blocks in an L shape use the one in the corner. If you take that position over you want to dump points into the new position not fill stuff behind the line.

If I based it purely on the amount of gems I could bring in with plugs and extra turns I could make each round there is no way I could win against the enemies numbers. I had over 120 of each gem. You can increase the gems points by combining Ex with sparkle purple that gives you Sc. Combine Sc with sparkle green fragrance and you get Green gem. Green gems count 2 points, Sc counts for 1 point Ex is half a point blue is 1/3 of a point when exchanging.

About the most I could get in extra turns each day was 12 average 9 to 10. That is cheating by having her re-roll what she brings back. To do that just use page up till it brings up seeing what she has then page down to see the new selection.
Without cheating average is 3 to 5.

You can do the same thing when opening chests also.

The defense zone is next to worthless. It does slow the queen down some but she will just go were she doesn't find it for the most part. I got to the point of just sticking it on the left side of the queens zone because she doesn't build up that area much. I then just stacked up the boarder south of her zone. I only lost a few tiles and would gain them back the next day when I did loose any. After some time it started just loading up her tiles in the back and only doing 1 or 2 attacks against me.

I haven't looked at the code. But it also does not appear to be a 50/50 chance when attacking or defending. At least not per each star. It almost feels like he made a list of the types of out comes then used a weight system on them.
From what I calculated just by wins and losses directly it was about 25% or less.

Lastly I never seen the queen when she attack kill less than 3. I seen her place down 7 in the tile she took over on her last turn. When I take over a place the most it transfers is 3. It costs me turns to reinforce a location. So lets assume it only transferred 3 it put 4 more down with no turns left. Consider those numbers in 10 turns she can do up to 30 damage and place down as much as 40. The most you can do on average without cheating 25. Cheat like I did and it goes up to 30.

You do have one benefit from what I recall if you win a single attack against a star you it doesn't cost you a turn. Not sure if that works for each attack you win though. I can tell you it doesn't help though other than attacks.

Some times the RNG is so bad you can't win a single attack regardless where you attack and it is better to just page up to the first loss then just start reinforcing call it a day. Yep, even using the cheat above I had to still do this a dozen times. That's just bad use of RNG.

 

[stec]

It says I should go visit her but she is no place to be found.
She supposedly in the lower level locked in her cage but I don't see a way to get there.

There should just be a button in the cellar saying Illiana's Cell. Next to the stash/retrieve money buttons.

 

[gotmashed]

How do I get the items for pet training?
I've renovated the training room and nothing ?

 

[Diconica]

There should just be a button in the cellar saying Illiana's Cell. Next to the stash/retrieve money buttons.

Thanks

 

[yv0751]

This isn't a rant just a complete list of issues I ran into how I solved them or couldn't It is meant to give an idea were it can be improved.

So I just captured the queen. ?
It says I should go visit her but she is no place to be found.
She supposedly in the lower level locked in her cage but I don't see a way to get there.
I haven't tried the dungeon because that is currently impossible without going to the next day and well I can't sleep without seeing her.
Guessing I am at end of current content? An indicator of that might be helpful. Maybe there is and I'm blind.

I played on normal mode. I didn't wait to start the portal captures. I should have wait to do the research on the top right till last.
Research everything else first then do it. Friendly advice for other players.

If I played fairly there is no way I could have won. Attackers are doing 30 points of stuff or more in there 10 turns. It might be different on easy but on normal mode she attacked it did 3 damage unless there was less than 3. She seemed to always be able to put down more than I could as well.

To be clear using page up by itself and replaying doesn't help it roles the same thing over again. Even reloading won't help in the game because the RNG position is saved. It's pseudo random in this part of the game at best.
I tried it thousands of times a lot of different ways.

So I devised a strategy. First it uses pathing to determine where it attacks and weighted probability for some stuff.
I then chose to leave areas that were in unlikely path locations against enemy positions with 3 or less in them. If you attack with a 3 the most that will attack is 2 leaving 1 behind no matter what so you won't loose 3 of them. If you attack with a 2 only 1 will be at risk. So when I seen I get a 3 loss I would use one of those instead on another part of the map to reduce how much I lost.
Also rotate using attacking positions. if there are 3 blocks surrounding an enemy block rotate through them to make the attack.
If you run out of 2 & 3 level areas to attack with use the lowest one you have that is the farthest back from the enemy position. example if you have 3 blocks in an L shape use the one in the corner. If you take that position over you want to dump points into the new position not fill stuff behind the line.

If I based it purely on the amount of gems I could bring in with plugs and extra turns I could make each round there is no way I could win against the enemies numbers. I had over 120 of each gem. You can increase the gems points by combining Ex with sparkle purple that gives you Sc. Combine Sc with sparkle green fragrance and you get Green gem. Green gems count 2 points, Sc counts for 1 point Ex is half a point blue is 1/3 of a point when exchanging.

About the most I could get in extra turns each day was 12 average 9 to 10. That is cheating by having her re-roll what she brings back. To do that just use page up till it brings up seeing what she has then page down to see the new selection.
Without cheating average is 3 to 5.

You can do the same thing when opening chests also.

The defense zone is next to worthless. It does slow the queen down some but she will just go were she doesn't find it for the most part. I got to the point of just sticking it on the left side of the queens zone because she doesn't build up that area much. I then just stacked up the boarder south of her zone. I only lost a few tiles and would gain them back the next day when I did loose any. After some time it started just loading up her tiles in the back and only doing 1 or 2 attacks against me.

I haven't looked at the code. But it also does not appear to be a 50/50 chance when attacking or defending. At least not per each star. It almost feels like he made a list of the types of out comes then used a weight system on them.
From what I calculated just by wins and losses directly it was about 25% or less.

Lastly I never seen the queen when she attack kill less than 3. I seen her place down 7 in the tile she took over on her last turn. When I take over a place the most it transfers is 3. It costs me turns to reinforce a location. So lets assume it only transferred 3 it put 4 more down with no turns left. Consider those numbers in 10 turns she can do up to 30 damage and place down as much as 40. The most you can do on average without cheating 25. Cheat like I did and it goes up to 30.

You do have one benefit from what I recall if you win a single attack against a star you it doesn't cost you a turn. Not sure if that works for each attack you win though. I can tell you it doesn't help though other than attacks.

Some times the RNG is so bad you can't win a single attack regardless where you attack and it is better to just page up to the first loss then just start reinforcing call it a day. Yep, even using the cheat above I had to still do this a dozen times. That's just bad use of RNG.

Thanks for the extensive feedback on the mechanics. It definitely should not leave the impression it's not winnable.

When I test play it I possibly use some implicit knowledge to outmaneuver her where everyone else struggles. That is probably part of the learning curve for game development i didn't think of.

As to the RNG, it's coded fair, she does the same rolls you do and when she attacks she is at at 80/100 disadvantage. She has stacked her fields with quite a lot of units though.

Thought I was being clever by avoiding back-spamming through predetermined RNG sequences but I noticed this only annoys players. Will remove that.

Foolproof strategy:
She only attacks where she has a numerical advantage (single cell view). So deliberately set up an area with lower unit numbers, place the defense zone there and let her run against it and mostly lose. Dont attack for a few rounds (just strategically place your units). She'll exhaust her units soon enough and never really recover from that.

Anyway, thanks for the tips! Will use them to balance the final game.

PS: The cell is only a button in the hallway menu in v0.7. In V.8 its a fully integrated trapdoor and cell level.

Oh, and never ever attack from cells with less than 4 (=3 combatants), or statistically rthe outcome is suboptimal.

 

[Diconica]

Thanks for the extensive feedback on the mechanics. It definitely should not leave the impression it's not winnable.

When I test play it I possibly use some implicit knowledge to outmaneuver her where everyone else struggles. That is probably part of the learning curve for game development i didn't think of.

As to the RNG, it's coded fair, she does the same rolls you do and when she attacks she is at at 80/100 disadvantage. She has stacked her fields with quite a lot of units though.

Thought I was being clever by avoiding back-spamming through predetermined RNG sequences but I noticed this only annoys players. Will remove that.

Foolproof strategy:
She only attacks where she has a numerical advantage (single cell view). So deliberately set up an area with lower unit numbers, place the defense zone there and let her run against it and mostly lose. Dont attack for a few rounds (just strategically place your units). She'll exhaust her units soon enough and never really recover from that.

Anyway, thanks for the tips! Will use them to balance the final game.

PS: The cell is only a button in the hallway menu in v0.7. In V.8 its a fully integrated trapdoor and cell level.

Oh, and never ever attack from cells with less than 4 (=3 combatants), or statistically rthe outcome is suboptimal.

80/100 are you sure that was coded right?

The end of the game lasted about 7 days once she was surrounded.
Out of the attacks she made she lost very few. I say that because it seemed I never lost less than 3 on any of her attack moves. Like I said the only way I kept her in check was stacking the area to the left of her about 10 high and putting the defense zone there and stacking the area under her area 40 deep. When it was 34 deep she still managed to take a tile. at 27 deep stack she took it and the two tiles behind it 5 and 3.

You can see the issue in the 2 images below. She has 42 at the start and 42 at the end. I have 40 in the square she attacks at the end of 10 turns it is reduce to 10 for me and she still has 42.

Spoiler: Last Battle

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As I said it isn't impossible to win without cheating!

 

[unspecialkay]

Any idea what are the missing gallery scenes?

Is it possible to win the battle with the queen? I see some comments stating it is but she seems to win every battle.

 

[yv0751]

Any idea what are the missing gallery scenes?

Is it possible to win the battle with the queen? I see some comments stating it is but she seems to win every battle.

On page 2 you are missing
- bathroom massage (use a honey soap in te bath with irith)
- training room horse (surprise irith in the training room at 15:00 when she should be in the cage...)

The remaining one on page 2 and three on page 3 are filled afetr you capture the queen. They can be seen before you go to sleep after capture

In V0.8 there's a gallery access button from the end credit screen as well, and all the "blank rows" are not shown to make clearer what is missing

Oh, and the the battle with the queen on the board cannot be won, you have to capture her via Nyx mission.
In V0.8 after capture the blue zone is gone and you can capture the rest of the board for optional endings.

 

[asdfg_dk]

- training room horse (surprise irith in the training room at 15:00 when she should be in the cage...)

Do we get the opportunity to give her a riding lesson without the belt

 

[BCGuy]

After portal room key you need to do 2 things to be able to activate it:

1. talk to the queen
2. research the portal in the arcane room

I tried to activate the portal using the SuExSu combination (as was directed in the game message from the thieves guild) at 18:00, but it still gives the message "doesn't work like that." Is this a bug, or am I missing something?

 

[pablo1360]

I tried to activate the portal using the SuExSu combination (as was directed in the game message from the thieves guild) at 18:00, but it still gives the message "doesn't work like that." Is this a bug, or am I missing something?

Look right side wall portal room for combination gems.