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On Iron Man mode (I have not played DD50, but have played a build before that). Did not take the other start game option with weaker levels.

I am playing on ToK.22b, not ToK22.c, which was uploaded after I began playing.

I went with wand and shield.

In the in-game help system accessed with 'H', mouse wheel doesn't work with scrolling.

Nitpick: Iron bar gate doors/yetts seem to block projectiles, unlike iron bar walls which let projectiles pass through.

I often feel like I do not know when I am fighting a "regular" boss, except if my health decreases more quickly than usual and an enemy takes more time to kill than usual. The visual difference is not always clear. The game is of course generally dark.

Nitpick: Is there any way to move the minimap up, even if temporarily?

SPOILER START:

I had trouble with a boss locked in a room on the "Lower Dungeon 2" level. I entered the room at first, reading the text about "please let me out" and stuff. However, I was holding the left mouse button down all the time, and when I hovered over the lever in the room to read its text, I accidentally use the lever. The boss fight then started, and I felt unprepared and soon found myself outmatched. I then kept running away from the boss, occasionally taking damage when trying to attack at range with my wand. After running in circles for ages trying to figure out what to do, I tried using spells and timing it, which I had a bit of success with, but could not do reliably without taking damage. I had trouble re-equipping health potions during the fight, but found out that if I clicked far away, the character would keep moving, giving me time to middle-click health potions in the inventory. However, I ended up running out of health potions. Then I tried going to the main menu and load again. That apparently placed me a bit away from the boss. After a few tries with going to the main menu and load the game again, I succeeded in starting far enough away from the boss for it not to chase me. I do not at this point know how to deal with the boss without gathering enough health potions and then trying to duke it out in "melee". I do not yet have a spell that enables me to slow the boss, which would enable kiting. I do not believe it is possible to run. Alternatively, I imagine that the way to deal with the boss is to avoid it, and come back later once you are stronger, but it would have been nice if I could not use that lever while holding down the left mouse button, since I did not intend to open the door (I had not yet arranged all my health potions to prepare for the boss even).

I only found a spell book of "Ice spike" on the "Halls Of Pain" level.

SPOILER END.

Nitpick or suggestion: For the spells that have levels, include a level number in the icon in the spell book?

Nitpick or suggestion: Add an "auto-sort" button to inventory to avoid having to manually move potions around? Though sorting like this can be computationally complex. I would still think that a basic sort that just tries to move potions to for instance the right would well decently.

Nitpick: In "Halls Of Pain", there is something called "???" that offers to give equipment in return for 5 years of the MC's life. Is the "???" a placeholder name or on purpose? I would guess on purpose, but just asking to double-check. I tried to attack him with shift-leftclick with a wand, which not surprisingly did nothing :) . I did not take the offer, so I do not know what that does and did not test it, sorry.

Nitpick: Why is the default hotkey for changing inventory equipment backquote? Is that not awkward to use on many keyboards? It also did not work for me I think. But if it works well on most keyboards, I would guess that it is fine since it can be rebinded.

The slow effect of "Ice Spike" does not appear to work against the sun warriors with the big hammers, is this on purpose?

I ended up fighting a very fast "skinless/flayed" boss on the "Halls of Pain" level, and I ended up using the "go to menu-load again and appear a bit away" exploit to "kite" away from him and avoid aggro. I first tried using "Ice Spike", but for whatever reason (whether I was too unskilled at doing it or that tactic not working, I failed to kite him with pure "Ice Spike" usage without taking damage. I do not feel like I can outskill that boss, and I am out of health potions, so my current strategy is just to leave that boss behind using the exploit.

Now I have encountered another very fast "skinless/flayed" boss on the "Halls of Pain" level. I am going to attempt using the exploit against it again. I succeeded, lured it back a way, used the exploit in a long hall, and can continue. Count of bosses left behind, lurking in the darkness, biding their time (across multiple levels): 2 regular bosses, 1 special boss. I do not quite know how I could have defeated the two regular bosses with a wand/spell character (just spamming a good damage spell and have enough health and mana potions?), but that might be a skill issue on my part.

I still have not found any way to regain health outside of potions (outside of the "cauldron" spells, which I on principle am not going to use - possibly at the cost of my MC's life), not any lifestealing or manastealing items either, apart from one melee weapon gaining something on kill I think, but I discarded that due to my character focusing on wands and spells. I think at the end of "Halls Of Pain" I found an amulet that gives 1 mana on kill.

On "Upper Halls", I found a ring that gave 1 health on kill.

I found a book of "Mana Shield" in "Upper Halls".

In "Upper Halls", I defeated a very fast (and large) boss purely by using level 1 "Ice Spike". I still spent a fair number of health potions, but I had managed to lose very little health in part by relying on the "Mana Shield" spell and in part by kiting and being careful, so I still have some health potions left.

State of the game so far:

Maybe I am wrong, but, if you are being chased, and you leave a slow enemy's line of sight, might it despawn entirely?

For some reason, the minimap is in the center now. On earlier levels, I believe it was offset down.

Nitpick: When being damaged while having a mana shield and not losing any health, would it be possible for some "mana-shield-clang" sound to be played instead of the "aw" sound that is played when the character loses health? Maybe play both when the mana shield is emptied and the player loses both health and mana in one attack?

I wonder whether my strategy of leveling up both "mind" and "intelligence" is a poor one, since both increase offensive options in some way ("intelligence" also provides some defensive options). On the other hand, some "mage-type" gear that give bonuses to both "mind" and "intelligence" requires "intelligence" of a certain level to use.

On one of the first levels, I used a "menacing obelisk", and I think it decreased my maximum health by 2, with a message that included "exertion". On a later level, another "menacing obelisk" said something about treasures being refilled, but I did not want to go back, since the bosses I exploit-escaped still lurked in the shadows on earlier levels. But now I am in "The Burrows", I have a good stock of health and mana potions, and I have encountered another "menacing obelisk". So I think I will take my chances, backtrack, see if I can defeat the bosses, and look if there is any new treasures in previous levels (I am not quite certain why previous levels would get treasures refilled, since it sounds a lot like backtracking), and after all that, activate the "menacing obelisk" I have found here in "The Burrows".

I have killed all 3 bosses (the two regular bosses and the special boss) that I exploit-escaped earlier. I use level 1 "Ice Spike" spam against them all. One of the regular bosses dropped the paladin's shield. The special boss dropped "Lashing Claw", which I am not going to use due to my build, but which looks interesting. During my backtracking, I did not see any new treasures, so I do not understand what the message of the second "menacing obelisk" meant.

Some minimap objects are apparently not stored, but can be rediscovered, like pillars in "The Burrows", and I think at least one exit in one level.

The third "menacing obelisk" shot out a lot of fireballs which dealt 31 damage to me, luckily I was at full health at 83, so I am now at 52 health. It said "Evil lurks where we least expect it".

I think it was primarily the bosses in the early levels that were difficult to recognize, at least the bosses of the last few levels were recognizable. But I have not completed the game yet, and this is on Iron man mode, so I might not survive until the end.

I found a book of "Bloodlust" in "The Burrows", near the ancient skeleton level entrance. With the "Fetish Idol" I have that gives a level in it, I now have access to "Bloodlust" level 2. The "Bloodlust" spell scales really well and seems really nice for a wand-focused user, but I have yet to test in practice how good level 2 "Bloodlust" is compared to not using "Bloodlust" (the 40% extra damage should be substantial).

I wonder what would happen if I gathered and gave all the unique items I found to the golden goblin or what it is called (I already used it previously with mage-type equipment, and got a good crown, which I am using). I do not know if it always gives "build-appropriate" equipment or not, and how it would check that, so making it dependent on the type of equipment you give it would make sense, I think.

I am overflowing with potions now:



I encountered a "Pureblooded bugman" boss. I could not differentiate it from the other enemies easily, apart from the huge amounts of health and damage output of it. I messed up and almost died (got to like 8 health when I escaped in the wrong direction - I also ended up attacking enemies when I really wanted to run and flee at one point, which I think is my fault and not the fault of the game), and when I tried "Ice Spike" spam, it tanked through it, and I had to escape. I found out that it is possible to escape enemies through going to an earlier level, which I did not realize until now. I re-equipped potions, went back to the level "The Burrows", and tried kiting it a bit, since its pausing just barely allows kiting, but I ended up switching between kiting and "Ice Spike". It finally died, but I did spend a fair number of health and mana potions on it. I still have a lot of potions left, though. Is ice damage weak against that type of enemy?

It is a bit annoying when enemies that are close by and which would clearly be in line of sight of the main character can hide completely behind walls from what the player can see. Would it make sense if enemies showed their outline (like when you hover over them with your mouse) when an enemy is both: In line of sight of the character; Is fairly close by; Is behind a wall?

I found a book of "Haste"! I did not know the game had a spell like this. I wonder if this means I will be able to reliably kite many enemies including bosses, as long as I have at least a bit of mana left. I found it somewhat late, in "The Burrows" level. It is rather expensive, however, at 10 mana.

The level "The Burrows" have a very nice creepy-crawly atmosphere.

On the level "The Burrows", the entrance to the ancient skeleton level is not saved on the minimap and is only added to the minimap once you re-discover it.

That level is called "Skeleton Pit". But is one of the lower, earlier levels not also called something like that?

The "Ancient Golem" is very large and menacing, but not so dangerous for a ranged-focused build.

I have replaced "Manashield" with "Haste" in my Spell Wheel, but I have not used it yet for a practical purpose (currently in the ancient skeleton level).

I found a minor visual bug, with a black poodle where my character is visually on top of it but the lightning shots from my wand go below it: https://ufile.io/xfq3vusx

My "Purifying Circle" spell is at level 2, and I have found three books for it that I cannot use yet due to too low "intelligence" level.

The unique weapons seem interesting, I like the "Non-Euclidean Basher", though I am not going to use it due to the wand-mage build that I am using.

The ancient skeleton level might be the first level that I have found equipment that has "steal percentage health/mana" properties.

I think the game froze when I used lightning disk, or when it hit an enemy, or something:


I have had the game running for some time after the crash, but the log file at "C:\Users\itch-player-redacted\AppData\LocalLow\osur\Tower of Kalemonvo\Player.log"  is over 2GB by now!

The Itch player wants me to update to version 22c, but will my Iron Man save carry over? However, I can also choose to not update, so I am continuing in 22b.

I am moving the Player.log file , and am using " Get-content -tail 50 .\Player.log" in Powershell (as per https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36507343/get-last-n-lines-or-bytes-of-a-huge... ) to get the last 50 lines in it:


(Filename: C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime/Export/Debug/Debug.bindings.h Line: 39)
Error here!
(Filename: C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime/Export/Debug/Debug.bindings.h Line: 39)
Error here!
(Filename: C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime/Export/Debug/Debug.bindings.h Line: 39)
Error here!
(Filename: C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime/Export/Debug/Debug.bindings.h Line: 39)
Error here!
(Filename: C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime/Export/Debug/Debug.bindings.h Line: 39)
Error here!
(Filename: C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime/Export/Debug/Debug.bindings.h Line: 39)
Error here!
(Filename: C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime/Export/Debug/Debug.bindings.h Line: 39)
Error here!
(Filename: C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime/Export/Debug/Debug.bindings.h Line: 39)
Error here!
(Filename: C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime/Export/Debug/Debug.bindings.h Line: 39)
Error here!
(Filename: C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime/Export/Debug/Debug.bindings.h Line: 39)
Error here!
(Filename: C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime/Export/Debug/Debug.bindings.h Line: 39)
Error here!
(Filename: C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime/Export/Debug/Debug.bindings.h Line: 39)
Error here!
(Filename: C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime/Export/Debug/Debug.bindings.h Line: 39)
Error here!
(Filename: C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime/Export/Debug/Debug.bindings.h Line: 39)
Error here!
(Filename: C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime/Export/Debug/Debug.bindings.h Line: 39)
Error here!
(Filename: C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime/Export/Debug/Debug.bindings.h Line: 39)
Error here!
(Filename: C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime/Export/Debug/Debug.bindings.h Line: 39)

But I do not know how useful that is to you.

Continuing in a new post.

The Iron man save is still present, but I lost all my progress in the ancient skeleton level, items gotten, experience, everything, from what I can tell. I am going to avoid using the lightning disk spell from now on.

Possible bug: I am taking on and off a ring that has "Increases Attack Rating by 5". But I cannot see any changes in the level screen. Does "attack rating" not affect wands?

Minor bug, three skeleton archers stuck behind a bookshelf:


A golden goblin, together with some rings that gave extra poison damage, health/mana on kill, and some other properties, yielded a very good ring that gave extra damage of other types and +3 mana on kill. Combined with level 3 "Purifying circle" and other items that give extra mana and health on kill (I am still carrying a book of that which I cannot read yet, I did not pick up yet another book like in the lost progress before the game froze previously), I can remote-clear several open areas rather easily in this level.

Regrettably, I lost my Iron man run. I realized too late that I was up against a boss in the "Breeding Grounds 1", in a panic I retreated into unknown territory, and ended up stuck in a corner.  The game felt really easy right before I died, since I dealt something like 16-22 damage per wand shot (with items that gave extra damage per shot), and I believe I could have comfortably deal with that boss if I had not in a panic foolishly retreated into enemy territory - my inventory was full of potions and I also had the "Haste" spell for kiting or escaping. I would not mind it at all if bosses were made much clearer, because the game for some portions changes between "killing mobs that are no danger at all if you play at least a little bit well" to "need to kite, maybe retreat, maybe think how to deal with it, refill potions, can very much die" bosses. And even then, many bosses are not really that dangerous.

(+1)

In case it helps, here is the first 10.000 lines of the log file for the Player.log file that ended up over 2GB large, by using:

Get-content -TotalCount 10000 .\Player.log | Out-File -FilePath .\First10000.log

https://ufile.io/q3s6ny4u

(+1)

thanks for the very detailed feedback and playthrough! i am truly humbled to have made something you valued enough to take the time to write this out

the error, from what i can gather, appears to be that an enemy couldn't find a position to path to when doing a random-movement they do while they're active with no enemy in sight. that's rather strange since i never had this issue - but since i never had this issue i never remembered to exit the movement loop when bringing up that message. so you had your logfile filled with plenty of dev-comments that repeated themselves in a while loop until a crash. i'm unsure how it might be related to any spell usage, but i'll take a look now.

to address some specifics:

>Cell doors block projectiles
noted, will fix this eventually. it has to do with "door" type object preventing obstacles. i recently fixed this with statues, ill do it with doors soon

>Boss fights
Usually they have a different skin and some light effects, but bosses that have non-aura modifiers (for example "Extra damage") have no other visual changes. it's something i'll need to address.

>Minimap
You can move the minimap with the arrow keys, or dim it with + or -

>Spoilers/Vedomot
What a funny encounter. i'm glad to be able to instill this panic/fear in players. i'll look into making the lever a "click only" interactable

>Spell Levels on icons
sure, i'll try it out.

>Potion sort. 
you CAN soft of sort them, but i'm not planning on autosorting. pressing middle-mouse on a potion in the inventory sends it to the hotbar. if the hotbar is full, it sends it to the first available slot, going from values 0 to 49, with 0 being the top left slot, and 40 being the bottom right. in this case, slot 9 is top right, so the potions will be sorted horizontally.

>???
it's on purpose! i'll change it to something like "Unkown entity" or something - the idea is that the protagonist can't tell what he's looking at exactly

>Bosses Continued
i find it amusing how you were able to problem solve your way out of bosses. perhaps i should persist their targetting on saving/loading

>Icespike vs Sun Cultists
correct, they cannot be slowed!

>Despawning enemies
enemies never despawn, but they do lose sight of you and de-aggro after some time. they will either return to where they came from or go "patrol" somewhere

>Manashield SFX
noted. good idea

>Minimap pillars
noted. i'll take a look

>Menacing obelisks
they're 50-50 whether they give a boon or a negative effect! the fireball one you've gotten is my favorite!

>Ice damage weakness
im curious about your spell drop rates - since i feel like icespike that late into the game should be at least level 3 or so, and not level 1. i'll take a look at book drop rates again and see if something is amiss

>outline
another player had a great idea about outlines, i'll try and implement that by next DD

>crash
Noted above, looking into it now. 

>Death
I'm very glad you have made it this far. it's an impressive and valiant ironman run
You're right that the game tends to 'shift gears' when a boss appears. i will need to make their presence much more obvious to avoid startling the player with a much stronger foe

again, i am tremendously grateful for your long and detailed feedback. thank you for taking the time to play and document your experience despite the hardships. i hope you have enjoyed your time, and i will try my best to ensure the future version is bug-free, at least from these bugs mentioned today!