Another Journey ~ Complete new adventure

[OneMoreNameless]

Features
* 65 new and varied challenges aimed at experienced players.
* Play as a second survivor of the Maria Kristiyna, your travels told through level text.
* Each puzzle is closely themed around the ministory in progress.
* Includes modes and blocks not used by Tidalis's main adventure.
* Individual tips given for all levels.

Download & Install Instructions
1. Download the zip file from dropbox here.
2. Extract the "Another Journey" folder into ...\Tidalis\RuntimeData\Logic\Adventures
3. Extract the "Levels For Another Journey" folder into ...\Tidalis\RuntimeData\Logic\LevelFolders
4. Run Tidalis and start a new adventure!

[mrhanman]

Awesome! I'll try this out later.

[Fiskbit]

Enjoying this so far. Thanks for posting it!

I've played the first 6 levels. Some thoughts I had while playing:

-I think the time limit on the first level might be a bit too restrictive, given that the player is already focusing a lot on trying to not pop the balloons. This might be me being rusty, though, or it might be the random number generator not being nice to me (which is one of the problems I had to keep in mind when trying to balance the levels in the original, though I think I occasionally failed).

-I really like what you're doing in level 6 with the block items and small board to make that mode more manageable, but I think the items appear too infrequently. The low rate encourages me to mess around at the beginning collecting blocks to use later on, which is perhaps what you intended, but when I start trying to light up the board and run out of those items right before the end, it's frustrating to juggle things in hopes of getting a random block combination that'll allow the stage to be completed or a block item that might be useful in undoing the damage my flailing has caused. I've gotten stuck right at the very end multiple times, making me feel too much at the mercy of luck in a stage that takes a lot of time and planning.

Aside from that, I've been having a lot of fun with this and am looking forward to playing through more.

[OneMoreNameless]

There are, I admit, a few levels where dumb luck can be the only difference between 'moderately challenging' and 'catastrophically implausible'. That swing kinda comes with the nature of the gameplay though - I doubt you could avoid it without rewriting the RNG into something far more static (and less enjoyable for all kinds of other reasons). Now in the case of the original adventure where you're expecting new players, anything that could lead to a seemingly impossible challenge would a Bad Idea. But in my case where I'm familiar with the mechanics and am playing around after completing (well, 95% story) the main adventure, I'd rather set the difficulty high and have a 30% chance of instantly restarting from a nasty initial block layout than set the difficulty low and have a 30% chance of breezing through the entire level without thought. So that's why that is.

As for the restrictions etc. generally, I tweaked them so that I was able to beat most levels within 2-3 attempts. The timer in "Ocean Depths" actually feels redundant to me (other than for atmosphere) since I tended to play aggressively at first, take care to avoid just the last couple of balloons, and finish within 90 seconds if I hadn't screwed myself over. The Light-Up level did take me 22 minutes including a few minor setbacks, but it was my first and only experience with that mode ... I have no idea how you're supposed to manage it on a normal board without items, honestly.

I might do an update with individual level hints and/or a few adjustments later. I've mostly moved on to a different game now, but I'm still playing quick rounds of this occasionally.

[mrhanman]

Yeah, I must be really rusty.  I can't get past the first level for the time limit! 

[Fiskbit]

I've completed the first 16 levels and am really enjoying myself so far, even with some hiccups with difficulty (not that the main adventure doesn't have its share of those!) that may come down to the random number generator. I'm still really surprised that someone's made a custom adventure for this game a whole 3 years after it came out, but it's really exciting and a lot of fun. Thanks again for putting this together.

Regarding RNG, there was a lot of discussion about this during development, and at one point we even had an option to set the random seed for a stage, but it was ditched. We discussed things like Tetris RNG systems where they have guarantees about the longest sequence of blocks you can have before you must get a block of one particular kind and that sort of thing, but I think right now it's just straight probabilities. Definitely makes for a challenge in getting difficulties right.

And as for Light Up, that was one I didn't know what to do with, which is why I didn't have any levels featuring it. Having block items is a really smart way to make it manageable; I like your approach there. There were several modes and blocks I had no good ideas for how to use, like block swap and wind, but you've made them work pretty well here. I think there are probably a couple brilliant ways these things can be utilized, and it's a matter of figuring out what those are, so it's good to have multiple people experiment with them. I hadn't planned on using jumping bean until a friend came up with the idea for coupling it with locked blocks and frenzy, but I'm thrilled with the results of that one (stage 111 in the main adventure).

[keith.lamothe]

On the RNG thing, what exactly would you like it to do?  Just always give the same blocks in the same order, regardless of what else happens?  Or are there other things that need to be "locked down", so to speak?

I know Chris didn't like the idea at the time, but I imagine now he honestly wouldn't care

I'd just need to hunt up the update process for this thing...

[OneMoreNameless]

The download has been updated. The adventure now includes unique on-loss tips for each level. I've also made minor adjustments to a small handful of levels, mostly to reduce difficulty.

[OneMoreNameless]

Updated again with 10 extra levels. They don't fit into the storyline; their locations are marked not-so-subtly on the adventure map.

[Cyborg]

I'm going to give this a spin.

[tombik]

Wow, such fresh ideas, and even more consistent gameplay mechanics than original campaign.

Kudos to you sir, this is the best thread necroing I did for a while.

[tombik]

Any possibility to include this in the main game with the author's permission? It definitely satisfies the standard quality level for the game, and will add value to the game.