Hey friends, welcome back to our development diary. We’re excited because this week we closed out alpha development. The game is feature complete – in other words, everything that we plan on putting into the game is in the game.

There is some building and construction work to do, though in a game that randomly generates its ‘dungeon’, there’s not as much to do as there might otherwise be. That doesn’t mean we can kick back with a cold glass of something tasty and enjoy the summer yet! We still need to script out all the events that could occur, and load the game up with all the fun loot that we’ve devised over the last  year. However, we will be getting the game into beta testers’ hands soon, and that’ll be good times.

We’re actually behind a little on where we thought we’d be, because we took some time to rework our concept of the game’s controls! During a recent demonstration with our friends in the IGDA’s Detroit chapter, we got a lot of great feedback, but the biggest thing was that nobody liked how the game controlled. So we went back to the drawing board and devised what we believe is a better system – as well as the ability to choose what kind of control scheme you like best! If you like our original concept, like we do, you’ll be able to use it. If you want to use the revised control scheme, that’ll be available to you. And if you want to use a virtual D-pad instead, you can do that too.

Hey, we’re nothing if not flexible.

The big thing I want to introduce to you guys today, is the last key feature in the game. Right now we’re calling it the Ghost Swap mode, though it’s deeper than what it sounds like. Here’s how it works.

Legends of Phantastica: The Clockwork Tower is a roguelike – and as it happens, you are probably going to die at least once or twice. Sorry, it’s part of the challenge! But when you die, your character isn’t lost to the either! He or she can pass into the afterlife on our servers, and we will store your character’s name, stats, equipment and even some last words of your choosing. We’ll even try to determine what kind of alignment you’ve played as, whether you’re nice or kind of a jerk, and store that data too. Now, when someone else is playing the game, they might come across your ghost – and it may be helpful, or it might become another obstacle in their quest to unravel the secrets of the tower.

One special aspect of this, is that a friendly ghost can join up with your character, and you can switch back and forth between your character and the ghost that you’ve met. That way, an errant brawler in need of some magic defense (or offense!) can team up with a powerful ghostly mage, and use her abilities to topple some areas that would normally be a challenge for him!

It’s great fun, and a neat way to play with other players and their characters. We can’t wait for you to try it out and let us know what you think!