As we near Tower Song's launch date, we are excited to share a nearly-completed campaign with our avid playtesters. This update includes three new playable chapters for players to experience, plus a host of balance changes, bug fixes, and quality of life updates. Thank you as always to our players who have helped us make this a better game!
Please also read on for two important notes about save files and character selection.
Campaign Content Unlocked: The Kido Desert
Join Solace and her companion as they return to Solace's homeland to rescue her sister from the clutches of the Fire Tower! Unfortunately, during their absence, a terrible darkness has fallen over the land that threatens the Mana Knights and their loved ones.
Pack up your gear for the continuation of the Tower Song story, and recruit the 4th (and final) member of the party, the Elementalist, Akeno!
Save File Compatibility
This update to the game renders all old save files unusable. While we had hoped to maintain continuity for save files for the rest of the playtest and into the full launch, this was simply impossible to do while still delivering the latest functionality we wanted.
That said, we have locked in our core engine features, so we will endeavor to maintain save file continuity going forward. This means that starting with this version of the game, save files will be transferable from both Steam Playtest and the Tower Song Demo.
Character Selection: Neat Unplayable
To allow us to focus on quality, this update of the game only includes Tali as the playable character. We are working as hard as we can to make other characters available for launch, but we wanted to be up front about the choice for this build. As it turns out, writing, scripting and balancing an RPG for multiple characters is a lot of work! But we don't want to compromise on the quality of Neat's story just to keep him playable.
v0.16 Release Notes
Read on for a detailed list of changes to the game.
A Note on Save Files
- This beta test build is destructive towards old save files, which will not work after updating. This is the last time we will do this, but it was necessary to get some key features to work. You should be able to skip to whatever chapter you left off on from the Chapter Select menu. Just let us know if you have any problems or concerns about this - and we are very sorry!
- Going forward, playtest (and demo) save files will be transferable to the main game, although we may have to provide players with one-time options to upgrade their save files if more destructive events do occur.
- As such, the extra level up in the demo after the Wolf Cave has been disabled
A Note About Character Selection
For the time being, Tali is the only playable character, as she has been the focus of our writing and development for the beta test. Neat is still planned for 22 November. We wanted his dialogue to feel impactful and unique to his campaign, so we are still working on it!
Thus, the character select menu is temporarily disabled
New Features
New Playable Chapter: Vistham
- Solace's homeland is under attack. Team up with a new ally and save the port city of Vistham from monstrous invaders!
- Select "Chapter Select" from the title screen to dive right in.
New Playable Chapter: Armin Mountains
In order to save her homeland, Solace must lead her teams on a secret route into the capital of Kidonia, the Jewel of the Vito Coast, Qadam.
New Playable Chapter: Qadam
Our heroes prepare for their most dangerous mission yet.
Lore/Dialogue Revamp
- Cutscenes have been revised and cleaned up for the entire game. No changes to the core plot, but a lot of jargon has been removed, and character motivations are cleaned up, while relevations and plots twists are sequenced a bit better. There is not enough change here to warrant re-playing Chapters you already completed, unless you just enjoy reading or replaying the game! That said, read on for a spoiler-filled update of major changes:
- SPOILERS Chapter 1 - Emerald River
- The rest of the Mana Knights are not in prison, but simply attending to business in Qadam.
- Solace and the player are now here to rescue Kiran in order to get his help rescuing Solace's sister, Amara, who is trapped in Qadam's Fire Tower
- The player characters were all originally Mana Knights and know Kiran
- SPOILERS Chapter 2 - Moldlight Mines
- A Tower Guardian is now a theoretical entity, but one Kiran is determined to pursue and interrogate.
- Less information about the Fire Goddess is revealed during Aomr's final conversation, and there is no longer a suggestion that she is also a Tower Guardian. Aomr appears to be one of a kind!
Combat
- Enemy HP increased in Chapter 2-3 to account for increased party size
- Solace: Scatter Shot's Stun effect has been adjusted to Quick Stun Quick Stun only lasts for the current round, instead of two.
- Hudson: Fixed a bug where Live Loadout was not swapping weapons correctly.
- Tali & Jiji
- Adjusted sort order for Volatile Spray and Catastrophe
- Summon Familiar displays cooldown properly
Gameplay
- Game now autosaves after achieving a Milestone
- Saving and loading in cut-scenes is now disabled. This will also enable us to bind the skip button to the controller (coming soon!)
User Interface
- A notification now pops up on the map if exiting a menu with an empty skill mod slot. This option can be disabled in Options.
- The crafting UI has been adjusted to reflect total changes in statistics when hovering over new equipment.
- ord wrapping in dialogue has an extra character of buffer to help keep text clear
- New Tutorials have been added for Player Characters
- Some Options have been recategorized and renamed to better suit their intentions.
- Upon losing an encounter, the option to change loadout has been renamed for clarity.
Art Updates
- Jiji's collar is now green, like our real boy's was
- Character biography portraits re-worked to better fit into the menu
- New ladder shortcut art in Kido Highway!
- Installed new sprites on Kidonia overworld
- Implemented new Aomr animation during cut-scene
Bug Fixes
- Fixed crash when trying to run the battle test in the Performance Mode test
- Fixed a bug where Heat damage splash damage was incorrectly ignoring barriers
- When looting chests, the item description now properly word wraps
- Fixed tileset bugs that broke passability on almost every tileset
- Fixed crash during Aomr boss cut-scene
- Fixed sand worm animation
- Fixed loop bug that prevented players from exiting crafting
- Fixed bug that leveled players twice after defeating the Monument miniboss
- Fixed bug where party did not appear during Soul Golem cutscene