Universal Tallowmere 2 (by Chris McFarland)

I really don‘t know what you are talking about. In my version of the game there is no way to upgrade any weapons in the starting area with money. The lady in the lower left is a man called Matthias and the only thing he says is - i should come back after the game gets some patches. I had about 120.000 gold.

Question for the dev. In my last run I also did kill one cat by accident in the beginning. I hoped it would still be possible to get all nine. Normally every 5 dungeons you have a chance to free a cat. I got 8 cats up to dungeon lvl 45 - but no cat spawned on level 50. Is there a way to get all cats once you kill one? I sadly died on level 51 and I‘m a bit frustrated after playing for 5 hours to reach dungeon level 50 for absolutely nothing.


I really love Tallowmere 2. Everything from the first game is in here but done so much better. (Except for some weapons and head armor)

But there is one thing i dislike about this game: It takes very long to go deep into the dungeon (lvl 50 takes about 5 hours) - but it only takes a second to die! After having spent so much time this seems unfair. The armor is never good enough to withstand big attacks. I play a lot of roguelikes with permadeath - but most of them don‘t take so long. After having spend 5 hours i expect to get a second life or at least something that can help me to redo the last dungeon a second time.I would prefer to give away the 120.000 gold for one more try or something like this. The gold has no function anyway - because the merchants weapons are cheap and mostly bad. So you wont use the gold.

 

What i meant was the fact that yes upgrades are planned for the weapons but they haven't been implemented yet in the game. The developer is planning to add the upgrade option in the future updates. Same goes for the grim reaper, he's also not able to provide anything to you at the moment but will be providing you challenges once the required updates roll out

 

Not in to platformers, but this game is special.

 

Decreasing movement speed while shield is raised is a core design decision. From the character's perspective, visibility isn't as great – you've got this big, weighted shield being held in front of you. Probably hard to run at full speed. Also forces the player to make the decision if they want to run at full speed or not, lowering or raising the shield. Also affects jump height when raised. Puts the character into a "caution" mode in a sense, slow-and-steady.

I'll add to my ideas list to create a starting rune to remove these speed limitations though! (the ideas list is long...)

Yes, adding headgear and outfits is planned. Has been a highly-requested feature. With each character having different sprite shapes and sizes this time, will be a bit of work to ensure all clothing sprites fit each character well. Not impossible – just need to make it happen! Will also help make loot and rewards more interesting, especially once bosses are added.

• Issue: Outfits and headgear need to be lootable and itemised #85

With character bodies not having arms in the sequel, some weapons from the first game felt more appealing to try and implement first, while also experimenting with new weapon types. Still keen to try and add the Flamethrower, Emerald Dagger, Spiked Club, Ice Wand... Rocket Launcher needs to make a comeback too, if it feels right. Not all weapons have been experimented with yet.

The biggest changer is the Stun Bomb – no longer homes in on enemies (though maybe can make it happen with a modifier!).

Lightning was only used by Conductors in the first game, yet the player can wield Lightning Orbs now in the sequel.

There's also the consideration where I'm trying to allow enemies to use the same weapons the player uses this time – this was not the case in the first game. I think there will be exceptions to this rule, but where possible, I am trying to let the same weapons be used by enemies as well.

Also is extra work this time around trying to add elements to every weapon! And then related achievements, unlocks... The technical / design debt scales high as more and more is added! But it will add fun in due course.

• Issue: Add more original weapons from Tallowmere 1 #716

This is why this game is still a work-in-progress: there are just so many things to be added still! Everything takes time, and I jump around from issue to issue to avoid burnout. As a solo dev, tackling one task pushes everything back. Gets tricky to prioritise everything. Fun stuff, features, cross-platform support, tackling cheaters, bug reports, this IAP model... 5 years to get to this point so far! More to come...

 

Back in the 2020 Steam launch, the ability to use Quick Swap (using arrow keys or D-Pad) with the shield raised was a thing, if I recall. But you couldn't use the Weapon Selector UI with the shield raised. And there were some glitches with the weapon-swapping system while having the shield raised that were problematic.

So with a refactor to fix the glitches, the ability to change weapons with the shield raised became disabled. Wasn't quite intentional.

There have been requests to restore such functionality. I'm on the fence about restoring it as a permanent core design feature, however. Quoting myself from this issue – Weapon Swapping + Shield Raised: Enable as a Ruleset and/or difficulty option #982:

So, on the cards to allow weapon-swapping with shield raised again in one form or another. Sort of leaning towards for the upcoming Cuddly difficulty option, and as a pre-run selected rune, or to be available in another form as a modifier somehow.

Game design is tricky! What's too easy, what's too hard... convenience over punishment... what's too streamlined, but what's the cut-off point for frustration...


Even things like picking up a key – this wasn't a thing in the first game! But now you can pick them up, throw them, and sort of have to juggle them through each room, rather than just watching a number increase on your UI. Is it more fun? Better? Worse in some ways? I want to experiment with having keys just follow you around (like an inventory item gliding behind you), or having it attach to a belt...

Should a key open a door by throwing the key at at the door? Should just walking near a door with a key automatically open the door, without needing to press the Interact action? I feel some of these things will have their place for upcoming runes... Gets hard to decide what should be streamlined from the get-go, chores / satisfaction / easiness... Unlocking such mechanics, or acquiring them during a run, or choosing them before the run starts... So many options for me to consider!

 

Yeah, on-screen buttons for specific weapons (issue: Touchscreen Buttons: Add options for floating repositioning #1029) should do the trick once implemented. Using the Weapon Selector UI is probably the next-best thing for now.

If you select the Radial or Grid layout from the Loadout tab, you can manually choose which weapon goes where, which gives a little bit of predictability with the Quick Swap action.

 

Thank you for the feedback. Yeah, I'm just one person doing all this, donning my programmer hat and designer hat, for better or worse.

If something is amiss, or could use some more TLC, I do appreciate the feedback. I try to aim for "good enough" initially, and then make improvements over time. If nobody says anything, I assume it's working well enough.

A lot of the menu stuff follows a simple mantra: Items on the left, and info and buttons on the right. Allows me to not have to create a new UI system for every little part of the game, though it is clunky in some places.

Filed new issues now:

• Menu tabs: Able to become clipped #1085
  
• Menus: Allow left panel to be scrollable instead of paginated #1086
  
• Menus: Add sliders for certain options #1087

 

No, there's no in-game explanation at the moment. On the plans to add such info at some point.

• Issue: Create in-game knowledgebase #363

Demonic items are Tier 2, and they give extra attack power or health, plus one extra modifier.

 

I agree. The Blacksmith in the home room is quite bored at the moment...

(some upgrade systems are in the works, but not ready yet)

 

The current game mode features 9 kittens and 9 blessings. No more, no less. Perhaps the term dungeon "crawl" is appropriate here.

And this is the roguelike style of gameplay. No room for error. Mistakes are deadly.

I would say, in the current Ruleset for 0.3, the kittens are too fragile, able to be slain accidentally too easily. Some health numbers will likely be tweaked in the 0.4 Ruleset.

With upcoming difficulty options (currently planned for 0.4), I will also be looking at preventing kittens from dying in the Cuddly mode.

I haven't made any concrete decisions for future alterations for the base game mode yet in terms of kitten counts. I want to add more blessings, but should the kittens be capped at 9? Will they overflow the home room if there aren't enough shelves to sit on? Will the blessings be random, and then that's it for the rest of the run (so maybe you'll get a good set of blessings, but maybe not)?

Also am working on designing game modes with a set room limit (rather than being endless), to help give certain runs / game modes an actual ending that doesn't involve dying. Will be easier once some bosses are implemented. Also want to add story modes (with or without endings). There are many avenues and gameplay tweaks to be added – just a matter of implementing them in due course.

Headgear and outfits are planned – but not added yet.

I'm hoping the upcoming Kitten Collect-a-thon mode (planned for version 0.4) will breathe some life into the types of runs. Plan is to have 99 kittens available, each with different attributes, and just collect them all (multiple kittens per room), in a more quick-fire style of gameplay, rather than the slow gruel of the current mode.

Too much gold – yeah, more end-game options need to be added, and/or gold value tweaks. Blacksmith upgrades, gambling merchant, ankhs to buy... Much more to come. This really is why the game is not done yet – so much more to add. Releasing on mobile now, rather than later, allows me to get more feedback and suggestions from more players, rather than just adding touchscreen controls at the end of the development cycle and moving on. Really want to improve upon this game for a long time; I appreciate the feedback.

Gameplay number values are also hard to test at times – will the player get a lot of lucky rewards? Permanent upgrades via potions? Choosing attack power at every Demon Statue, or maxing out health? Items have a rough scale they gradually follow as levels increase, but enemies "grow stronger" in different strengths as well – they follow a base line of improvement, but sometimes they level-up more weaker than usual, or sometimes harder! So some runs, you can feel really strong, or really weak... all in the name of roguelike randomness. Still, your shield keeps you alive, regardless of the numbers.

Ruleset 0.3 went through a significant overhaul of number values, compared to version 0.2 and prior, in an effort to make the game more "fair". If there's a lot of feedback saying things feel too unfair, I will attempt to adjust in 0.4.

 

@LordGek Thanks for reporting this.

Can you please tell me (write down or screenshot if possible) which resolutions are available within Options > Screen > Screen Resolutions?

Using my iPad Pro 12.9" 3rd gen, I only have one resolution in the options: 1366 × 1024

I'm thinking this is a two-part issue:

1. I can confirm the Attributes tab's content gets cut off horizontally if the resolution is not wide enough (and/or the UI scaling is too high).
   Filed new issue: Attributes tab: Add horizontal width-checking #1088
   
   
2. Reading other feedback here and looking at bug report data, I get the feeling the screen resolution is being set too small for many devices.
   I will need to check my screen resolution options code, as this is likely the underlying culprit.
   Filed new issue: Mobile: Screen resolution dimensions can be set too small #1089

(I feel the latter is a critical issue; will prioritise for next version)

 

@ChrisNZL it’s hard to believe this is done by one person, as it’s a very good game even when compared to games by big studios.

But the main point of my post was simply to say your game has earned a place on my front page of apps! Not inside a folder just there on the front page and I can tell you right now, that’s some prime real estate not many games get close to.

 

@ChrisNZL I’m not sure if this is a bug but I had to pause the game mid battle when I unpaused the game it lower my shield and I got killed before I could even blink. Tested it again by raising shield then using pause then when I unpause it lowers the shield.

 

Is there some kind of bestiary or something so I can see what the different enemies are called? It makes some the drawbacks of the upgrade pedestal things hard to weigh when I don’t know which enemy it’s upgrading

 

I just upgrade everything regardless, I don’t care if it’s two of any of them. More gold and exp.

 

I’m really enjoying this so far, the first game somehow completely passed me, so it has been a real treat to discover this sequel.

One of my favorite parts is how there’s friendly fire between all the enemies, it adds a nice tactical puzzle element but also makes for some funny moments. On that note, is there a reason why the dudes wielding the swinging mace don’t damage other enemies?

Looking forward to see what’s next for the game.

 

Thanks for reporting this. I can confirm this is a bug. Will aim to fix soon.

• Filed new issue: Mobile: Unpausing lowers shield #1094

 

I've created a Bestiary webpage now.

I'll try to get this in-game in the next patch as well.