mrimer
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Everyone who's a fan of DROD and has been around the Caravel Forum knows that we have an august tradition of releasing some neat (with varying definitions of "neat") new DROD material and news each April 1st. Well, we won't let you down this year! So, I just wanted to send off this quick note to our stalwart DROD fanbase to let you know that you're in for a real treat this year.

I need to give a real shout-out to the Caravel development team. They have burned the midnight oil making progress on the upcoming game. If you've been watching the Progress Bar for "DROD: The Second Sky", you can tell we've arrived at a distinct amount of progress. Be prepared when April 1st rolls around, and stop by the Caravel Forum to delight in the neat news we have for The Second Sky! There's so much in store. Much more than meets the eye, so it's time to put on your puzzle hat.

That means there's no more news in this newsletter. We've been coy, but that's all about to end. You'll be seeing the rest of the news here on the Caravel Forum on April 1st. Don't miss it!

forum.caravelgames.com

Happy DRODing!
-Mike

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

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[Last edited by mrimer at 03-31-2013 05:45 AM]

Ezlo
Level: Smitemaster

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Sounds exciting enough to wake me out of forum hibernation!

____________________________
Call me Citrus.

The Architest
Level: Master Delver

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What an excellent day to have a holiday!

UrAvgAzn
Level: Smiter

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Ezlo wrote:
Sounds exciting enough to wake me out of forum hibernation!

Hear, hear.

____________________________
"The leaf, still green, must someday fall.
Such grief, such joy, to live at all."
- T.A. Barron, The Lost Years of Merlin

Jeff_Ray...
Level: Smitemaster

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I'm expecting the surprise to be a single pixel screenshot of one of the rooms.

If that's the case, then this is going to be the greatest surprise in the history of surprises.

____________________________
I make Let's Plays too!
Click here to find out my LPs' progress, and find out what I plan to tackle next!

Currently playing:


My Holds:
-Completed:

-Work in Progress:

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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I cannot argue with that. It would, uh, definitely be surprising!

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

Godot23
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 114
Registered: 02-28-2013
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mrimer wrote:
I cannot argue with that. It would, uh, definitely be surprising!

This isn't going to be some sort of April Fools joke thing, is it? I sense tomfoolery...

____________________________
Roses are red
Violets are red
Everything is red
My house is on fire

mrimer
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Godot23 wrote:

mrimer wrote:
I cannot argue with that. It would, uh, definitely be surprising!

This isn't going to be some sort of April Fools joke thing, is it? I sense tomfoolery...

I'm not sure what you mean. I was just responding to Jeff_Ray's idea.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

Godot23
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 114
Registered: 02-28-2013
IP: Logged

My apologies, I accidentally hit the post reply under your post not at the bottom. Didn't realize it. Whoops

____________________________
Roses are red
Violets are red
Everything is red
My house is on fire

averagemoe
Level: Smiter

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Nice minigame, It's a lot like Pirate101 (I've gotten at least one advertisement for that while playing flash DROD) Someone should make this into an actual hold. It might be possible in TSS, but just in case, keep it on the internet for a while, mabie forever.

____________________________
The internet is no place to act like a wild animal.

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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Thanks! Skell gets big props for this. Try to make it to the end!

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

stigant
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1182
Registered: 08-19-2004
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I wasn't sold until I got to about level 3. Then things started to click. We can only play it once, though? I want to try to lose less units on the earlier levels.

Also, when I get to the end and click, I just see the finishers' table and a big blank space where the game was... am I missing something?

____________________________
Progress Quest Progress

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[Last edited by stigant at 04-01-2013 09:02 PM]

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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stigant wrote:
I wasn't sold until I got to about level 3. Then things started to click. We can only play it once, though? I want to try to lose less units on the earlier levels.

Thanks to our new Cloud technology, your progress is stored with your user account. Which means that yes, once you're at the end you can't start over.

Maybe we can get skell to change that in the coming days.

Also, when I get to the end and click, I just see the finishers' table and a big blank space where the game was... am I missing something?

Hrm. Well, I can see that you actually were not on the game page any more, you were on a different page. I'll PM you some questions.


____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

PMIT
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 159
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Whoa, as a big fan of turn based strategy games like the Fire Emblem franchise, this was an awesome surprise. I've only played through the second level so far, but I'm looking forward to continuing. Thanks Skell for making it!

That said, I'm having some trouble getting the music to play properly. It works fine for the first loop or two, then fades out only to come back randomly for brief periods. Other times it stutters a bit and plays the first few seconds of the track repeatedly. It's hard to be more specific since it didn't seem to be tied to anything I did, so has this happened to anybody else?

It's also kinda funny that the citizens keep rooting for the enemy.

____________________________
aka VioletPumpkin

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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This is maybe the best April Fool's surprise so far. Because the fakey thing that happened is inherently enjoyable and not a letdown. At first, I thought that the game wasn't playable--meant to be a facade. And then after fiddling a bit, I picked up the controls, and was really impressed. Currently on level 4.

I also think that though this type of game has been done before, the puzzle mindset of DROD works well with it. I like how tactics sometimes neatly amount to logical constraints, e.g. you will need at least two attackers to kill a tar baby inside of an alcove without taking damage.

Congrats to Skell. At some point, it would be cool to see credits for the voice acting (Michael Abbott?), music (Emmett?), etc.

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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ErikH2000 wrote:
Congrats to Skell. At some point, it would be cool to see credits for the voice acting (Michael Abbott?), music (Emmett?), etc.

You've got that exactly right!

And if you

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

robin
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 845
Registered: 09-01-2004
IP: Logged

This game opens some doors for "smartphone DROD"...

____________________________

silver
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 915
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love the minigame. just sad that it says I lost 21 units when I used restart over and over and over to make sure I lost 0 :/

____________________________

komachi
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 163
Registered: 07-30-2012
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The progress bar is pretty long and it's -9000% .
The minigame is very fun but should be possible try again the levels( when they are conquered ) to improve the records.
Thanks to whoever did the minigame.

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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I added a link on the page that will let you remove your old score and start over. Due to the hurried way we put this together, your old score must be deleted for you to start over.


____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

skell
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Schik wrote:
I added a link on the page that will let you remove your old score and start over. Due to the hurried way we put this together, your old score must be deleted for you to start over.

Pretty soon the game will be released more officially, not as a bar minigame, with some improvements and fixes, so I think it would be better to not make it possible to replay the game right now so that there are still people interested in the fixed version later

____________________________
My website

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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Huh.

...okay! Removed.

____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5419
Registered: 02-04-2003
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Since April Fools is over, but there is a lot of cool stuff many people haven't seen, we're going to reveal some hints to help you all through the riddle.












____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

Znirk
Level: Smitemaster

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Huh, turns out there is a game after all. Reading the messages in this thread I automatically assumed that the joke was to pretend it existed.

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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silver wrote:
love the minigame. just sad that it says I lost 21 units when I used restart over and over and over to make sure I lost 0 :/

silver,

In war, people die. We try to dull the pain by giving them other names like "units" and focusing on our more recent success. But they are heroes, and must not be forgotten.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5134
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Wow, that's a lot of hidden messages still to be revealed.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

Tahnan
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2460
Registered: 11-14-2005
IP: Logged

Schik wrote:

Secret #2:

Click here to view the secret text

×2. If Tactic DROD is too hard or isn't your thing - the video is at http://forum.caravelgames.com/tsslp.php

I just want to take a moment to say...

robin
Level: Smitemaster

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OK, this is what I found so far.

Do not read the secret tags if you don't want spoilers

First hint room:


Second hint room:


Third hint room:


Fourth hint room:


So who is:



____________________________

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[Last edited by robin at 04-03-2013 07:31 PM]

robin
Level: Smitemaster

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Is it:


____________________________

The Architest
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 255
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I make a wild guess based on robin's theory, so all honor to him!

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[Last edited by The Architest at 04-03-2013 06:37 PM]