Howdy, Boz here.

Lately I've been working on a lot of the stuff I wanted to get into the game during the jam but knew not to touch with a 10ft pole. Coming from a design background, it's important for me to have more control over the typography.  With help from the creator of Dialogue System for Unity (https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/ai/dialogue-system-for-unity-11672), I gained more of that typographical control.

A few changes in this new version:

• Massive font customization
  • Speaker name is a different, larger font and stands out better from the dialogue.
  • Numbers stuff is in it's own font
  • Speakers have their own unique "voice" represented by a specific font used to display their dialogue.
  • Various subtle changes to improve legibility and overall aesthetics.
• Status Effect Tooltips 
  • Mousehover details of buffs, wounds, and equipment now work. Previously it was a "sry, working on this" message. 
  • They also have a system in place to add icons to them. While we wait for c0hil to make some, there are some placeholders, much like the unicode versions they had before.
• Removed a lot of the lore dump from the beginning, setting the stage to disperse it throughout the dialogue over time rather than all up front.
• Various Fixes
  • Gather Wood and Old Equipment previously didn't explain the stat increase you'd incur by selecting the action. Now they do!
  • The incident involving Friend getting hurt doesn't show up now if you have the wound Alone.
  • Some messaging wording fixes.
  • Various balance fixes - cards that seemed less useful should now seem more useful.
  • The game might be a little harder to create a more tense atmosphere at the end.
  • Backend code cleanup to make way for future changes.

The next thing I want to work on is more dynamic music than what we currently have right now. For example, the track could get more intense the closer the sand gets, or the higher the floor you get to. It's something we wanted to do during the jam, but didn't have time.

The Future of Twilight Tower

Let's talk about where we're thinking of taking Twilight Tower. Our primary goal is to make Twilight Tower more replayable. The game is set up where you probably won't win on your first or second attempt, but you learn the ropes and come back for a victory. Right now we see most players get taken over by the sand somewhere around the 5th floor, then they say "I'm curious about the story" and may genuinely want to play again, but they put the game down. Putting the game down on the first loss is not a good sign for replayability.  And sure, you could say the time it takes to learn the game on your first play can be a big time investment, so it makes sense to come back later. But I think we can do better.

So I looked to other roguelikes and started making a list of universal concepts that make them more enjoyable.

But before we talk about those, let's take a look the core concepts that Twilight Tower should maintain.

Foundational Concepts of Twilight Tower:

• No battles - I'm of the opinion that too many games focus on fighting as a game mechanic. We're trying to freshen things up with a different perspective. Instead of battling opponents, you're battling your fatigue and yourself. You could say you're battling something more abstract: reality
  
• Escaping the rising sands - this is a pursuit mechanic. There may or may not be a destination goal, but one thing is for sure - you want to stay away from the sand.
• Narrative and lore of the tower - The Twilight Tower is a mysterious place. Supposedly connected to another world by an atrium in the center leading to an abyss below. Sand is moving up through the floor but not in the center. There are other exiles and strangers populating it. It's a stone labyrinth, but supports its own plant-life and ecosystems. It's labyrinthian - as in there's not a clear-cut path to climb it, but instead maze-like rooms surrounding an atrium. A twilight above supplies a source of light to everything, but paints it all in blue and pink colors. The tower seems to stretch infinitely up and down. Who or what is Dream? Are there others like it? We could be exploring this more through narrative and subsequent playthroughs and additional characters.
• Companions system - Right now there's only one companion - Friend. But the idea is that you aren't the only one climbing the Twilight Tower. Since the first day of the jam we wanted to have a companion choice in the beginning (you decide who lives) and the companion to have passives, but there wasn't time for that. I'm thinking something more like the unique companions system from the SNES-era  RPG 7th Saga.
• Graphic novel style art - We were restricted to a color palette when we started this game, and we plan on maintaining this. This has led to a restriction on the art that mirrors the printing restrictions of graphic novels. It almost leads to a noir-like aesthetic, which supports the grim, dark decision making aspect of the game.

Okay, and let's look at what other games do that we could be doing better:

• Feeling of more control/agency over your fate - right now Twilight Tower feels too much like random things happen to you and you have to go with it. There needs to be more planning and skill rather than simply making decisions alone.
• Deck-building - Twilight Tower could start with a smaller deck and give you more options over what you can add to your potential actions.
  
• Combo-ables - Actions that have potential synergy with one another. The more of these, the more addictive the gameplay is - you'll always be on the look out for something to match what you already have.
• Save-Me(s) - ace in the sleeve - things you can collect to use in bad situations. If luck just isn't going your way, this is another method to feel like you have more control. Or at least lead to those epic moments where you just barely made it because of the ace in the sleeve.

A few other ideas to improve replayability:

• Sand Distance - Play with how you try to escape the sand. Right now the game is more of a battle of attrition where you have a head start on the sand and it rushes to catch up with you. What might be better is if the sand is constantly right below you and you're just barely staying ahead of it. Perhaps there are improved rewards for staying on a floor longer - this would make climbing the second you see it less optimal. Perhaps you can slow the speed of the sand, or you can climb further if you spend longer looking for a more optimal route.
  
• More situations to improvise within. 
• More dynamic incidents.
• Floors have passive modifiers (this was something I wanted to do during the jam but didn't have time):
  • Treasure floor
  • High Danger Floor, low chance of finding way  up
  • Food Floor
  • Easy Floor
  • etc
• More characters with their own themed decks and stats (after the base game works, of course). They could start as potential companions.
• Dynamic story that unlocks as you go.
• Very rare pickups that could sync with your situations or completely steer your decisions and deck-building in a new direction
• The classic: Unlock more advanced actions and items that might be too much for a beginner to handle after you complete certain milestones.

I'll definitely be adding to this list over time, but wanted to put something down for everyone else to see in the meantime.

Have any ideas or are excited about certain items on here in particular? Let us know, it helps us set our priorities.

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