The Daily Click

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Author:	David Newton (DavidN)	Submitted:	10th May, 2005	Favourites:	1
Genre:	Platformer	Downloads:	1106
Rated:
Game of the Week Winner

Edited By Wong on 5/10/2005

Last summer, I started work on a game, with the intention of writing a half-decent platformer - something that I'd wanted to do ever since getting Klik and Play all those years ago. This is the result.

In "Crystal Towers", you play as Bernard, the nightwatchman at the Column Temple. He wakes up during the night to discover that the Life Crystals which he was supposed to be guarding have been stolen, and now has to recover the crystals from around the world before anyone discovers that they're gone.

You have to find all five of the crystals to finish the game entirely. A number of different routes are provided in the game, and you have to explore all of the stages eventually to recover the crystals. The coloured crystals are hidden in a tower each, and the route to the fifth crystal will become available after you have all four of the others.

A Readme file is provided, but everything you need to know is explained in the in-game Help.

Crystal Towers features 25 levels in total in four separate routes through the game. It took me almost a year to make, and it's certainly the project of which I'm most proud so far. I hope you enjoy it!

Review This Download

http://wired.st-and.ac.uk/~wong/crystaltowers.zip (7.92mb )

Posted by Trusketch

10th May, 2005

Sweet jesus, congrats, quite an impressive game.

Posted by ben mercer

10th May, 2005

Wow that looks cool i'll download it later. A YEARS work? WOW! That is some devotion to making a game! Nice one!

Posted by hishnak

10th May, 2005

This is fun. My little brother who's three just laughed and laughed at the sound effect for when you fall in the pits. Good work.

Posted by AndyUK

10th May, 2005

from what ive played so far it's great stuff! Although each level seems to be much the same from the last with slightly different baddies. oh and pictures 3 and 9 are the same screenshot.

Posted by David Newton (DavidN)

10th May, 2005

Well spotted! Corrected it now.

Posted by gustav

10th May, 2005

worst level design ever. it should be a crime to put out so many pits without the slightest warning that there is one just below you. i found most of my actions in the game to be trial and error, you shouldn't have to guess wether it's safe to jump from a platform or not :p would be a very nice game if it wasn't for those infernal pits.

Posted by Smeggy

10th May, 2005

Not a bad game at all, Wong.

Posted by wario

10th May, 2005

interesting game ^_^

Posted by Bo Fu

10th May, 2005

This game reminds me of Hocus Pocus. Nice!

Posted by Nuklear41

10th May, 2005

I am downloading right now. Expect a reveiw. A good one......ohhhyheh////

Posted by Windybeard Games

10th May, 2005

looks good, downloading...

Posted by Nuklear41

10th May, 2005

Extracting now..........

Posted by Nuklear41

10th May, 2005

I hate side scroller games. This one is the best of them all though.

Posted by Dustin Gunn

10th May, 2005

Apogee called, they want their style back... Just kidding, it's a fun game.

Posted by Radix

11th May, 2005

From the beginning we knew it was supposed to be apogee-like.

Posted by - Yelnek -

11th May, 2005

IVE BEEN WAITING!!!!!!!! HEll ya! Now downloading slowly :( Damn dial-up...at least the file isn't too big :)

Posted by thinlikenate

11th May, 2005

yeah it's good. and by good, i mean there aren't many bugs and everything is spelled right. it's kind of tedious and obviously not very original, but who cares? at least three year olds will enjoy it. high fives

Posted by Radix

11th May, 2005

I propose that the Cox brothers be barred from writing reviews, ever.

Posted by The Chris Street

11th May, 2005

Seconded.

Posted by Rogue

11th May, 2005

Nice game ! :)

Posted by DaVince

11th May, 2005

Great game!!!

Posted by Hayo

11th May, 2005

nice :)

Posted by axel

11th May, 2005

me likes :)

Posted by AndyUK

11th May, 2005

i was going to say about reviewing a game before you've finished it, but then i think circy covers that in his Nuklearesque review.

Posted by Eutteck

11th May, 2005

good job Wong

Posted by Destroyer (CrobaSoft)

11th May, 2005

great game. Althoug i find a major bug http://www.sitesled.com/members/destroyer/BUG.png

Posted by Tom

11th May, 2005

hey nice game! glad to see you put those screenshots down to size ;) very fun to play, but i often found that alot of the game relies on luck (see gustavs comment about the pits). as a whole i think you pulled it off quite nicely though. nice to see a joystick option too. some quick comments about the graphics. glad to see they're original. maybe next time spend a little more time on them, they do set the scene nicely but are pretty "tacky" in alot of places. and where the hell did you learn to make music like that? its awesome :) some of the songs are really catchy, nice job on the sound there! thumbs up! hows about a sequel? ^_~

Posted by CsaR

11th May, 2005

nice game overall. A save function or passwords would have been nice. Also sometimes it's hard to see which things are obstacles and which things that are backgrounds. A little more contrast would have been nice.

Posted by Retired Kliker Lazarus

11th May, 2005

At long last! :D

Posted by Evil-Ville

11th May, 2005

Great game although I am horrified of crater lakes bad level design.

Posted by The Chris Street

11th May, 2005

Heh. I know a cheat for the game XD

Posted by Reno

11th May, 2005

Um, i tried it, and my game shut off. X-D *J/K*

Posted by Smeggy

11th May, 2005

Haha, nice review Circy. XD

Posted by AndyUK

11th May, 2005

i thought the scrolling was very jerky with all the parralax, notice the slowdown on the title screen and path selection?

Posted by AsparagusTrevor

11th May, 2005

I liked the game. Very generic, yeah, but fun nonetheless.

Posted by Airflow

12th May, 2005

Nooooooooooo! I can't download it! It said something about a corrupt zip.

Posted by Chrisbo

12th May, 2005

freakin awesome dude. brings back memories of the DOS days :)

Posted by Teapot

12th May, 2005

This game has a great open feel to it. First click game I've played which captures the freedom of dos platformers. Awesome level design and graphics too.

Posted by guri-n ha

12th May, 2005

i'm gonna download now...

Posted by guri-n ha

12th May, 2005

this is far beyond what i expected(in a negative way).

Posted by guri-n ha

12th May, 2005

and yes, the camera is a little jerky:P

Posted by Hayo

12th May, 2005

This game is pretty cool, Tho I don't really like the gfx, and the engine is not as solid as I expected, its just really fun to play. And thats what games are all about :) Good job Wong.

Posted by Cybermaze

12th May, 2005

The game is generally good ... but still just another average platformer. I think I have found a bug though. Whenever I start a new game I get a cutscene saying something about:"Having returned the 4 gems, you see a white tower, that must be where the last gem is, so you set out again" or something along those lines. I then play Temple level 1 which I believe is the right one, but surely it is a wrong cutscene I see!?

Posted by David Newton (DavidN)

12th May, 2005

Thanks for the feedback so far - it looks like there are a couple of questions for me to answer... gustav: You should always be able to see a platform to jump to, either directly or by using the Down arrow to look below you. If in doubt, follow the gems - they will never lead you in to trouble. Having said that, there are bound to be a couple of places that I've missed. nuklear: Thanks for reviewing. super dope: Thanks... I think. destroyer: I think I can only respond to this with "Aargh!". I thought that I'd fixed the places where that could happen. How did you manage it there, and is it reproducable? CsaR: Your progress is saved after the completion of a route of five levels, which I thought was enough as each only takes at most half an hour... nevertheless, point taken. Evil-Ville: I can't defend myself much here, I thought Crater Lake was the worst level as well! AndyUK and o-s: Now that you mention it I can see some slowdown on those screens, but not a lot - it's possible that this is because of a difference in computer performance, though. Does the same happen in low resolution mode? Phizzy: At least you got something out of it! Dr Evil Face: Are you sure? I tested the ZIP again and it still seems fine to me. Cybermaze: This is rather worrying as well... the scene you get at the start of the game should change depending on how many of the crystals you've already returned (and it sounds like you haven't returned all four). Have you edited the SAV file at all? I found that I sometimes got the wrong one when I had the file open at the same time as the game. Otherwise, it must be a bug in the formula that works out how many have been returned. I think that's everything - thanks for both the positive and constructive negative comments.

Posted by axel

12th May, 2005

@circy's review: Urrgh, all those smileys @_@

Posted by guri-n ha

12th May, 2005

Same happens on full screen, you screen just shakes while the character is walking.

Posted by guri-n ha

12th May, 2005

btw, you broke a record by getting 55 comments on 3 days!

Posted by The Chris Street

12th May, 2005

and five of those comments are from you XD Psh, it's not a record.

Posted by Jason Dudie

12th May, 2005

Cool game Wongy. it looks very professional.

Posted by Imadjinn

12th May, 2005

As much as I love platformers, this one just p*ssed me off. Great game, just couldn't get anywhere.

Posted by Radix

12th May, 2005

I have to say I liked this, even though I'm not normally a fan of Apogee-type stuff. However, a few criticisms: -The guy seems to have major problems with corners. He throws an epileptic fit when you walk towards a wall. -It's damn hard. -I really hate the way you can fall from the very top of the level down into a pit at the very bottom. That just strikes me as bad design, since through so much of the game it's fine to switch from a higher platform to a lower one. Unless you're aware of pits you should be avoiding (as you would've been making it, but a player wouldn't the first time through) that just strikes me as bad design.

Posted by The Chris Street

12th May, 2005

I think the level design is fine, but then again, I tested it, so like Wong I know my way through most of the levels. It's just a case of looking up and down and seeing if there are any "pills", really. When I made my earlier games, it was only me who was able to beat them XD

Posted by Joey Drasal

12th May, 2005

This game is awsome I gave it thumbs up!! @Circy: I have nothing over u it is just that U shouldnt be cracking on people because well I'll crack on u harder so watch out.By the way like the game they made bout U. Well g2g nice game!!!

Posted by Joey Drasal

12th May, 2005

O yea almost forgot U should make a scoreboard!

Posted by The Chris Street

12th May, 2005

Am I supposed to be scared or something? You forget who's the admin here.

Posted by Radix

12th May, 2005

I'm not even sure what he said.

Posted by David Newton (DavidN)

12th May, 2005

That's a good point actually, Radix - the earlier levels have mostly solid ground at the bottom, but now that I look at it I sort of drifted in to a "suspended platforms in the air" level design style later on. That'll be something to think about in future. As for the difficulty level, you might find it hard to believe but after I'd finished the game I spent quite a while making it easier! I find it rather difficult to judge the difficulty level of my own games, because as you said, I'm always aware of what's going to happen next. I realised what causes the bug that Cybermaze mentioned: It happens if you delay too long before starting the game from the main menu. This is because the crystal stands, which are used in the calculation for which screen to show, are destroyed after they scroll off the screen! That's pretty badly thought out code there - this must be why they're trying to teach me Formal Methods at university.

Posted by Dustin Gunn

12th May, 2005

Oh Circy, you card!

Posted by Joey Drasal

12th May, 2005

Lol jk Circy I forgot the smiley and the "JK" no offence thats y I said I have nothing against u. LOL!!!!

Posted by The Chris Street

13th May, 2005

haha, ok XD

Posted by guri-n ha

13th May, 2005

still didn't get it:P

Posted by The Chris Street

13th May, 2005

Me neither, but meh.

Posted by vortex2

14th May, 2005

First I will comment on the game: First of all as a platform game this game is just above average. The graphics are a bit better then most click games, and the engine is alright but nothing special.. The gameplay elements are a bit basic including springs,gems,and moving platforms.... The only really orginal bits were the enemy movements which I enjoyed... Compared to a dos game, although this is more like a dos game then most other click games it still has some flaws.... 1) Pushing Escape does not take you to the main menu where you can ethier resume the game/save/or exit... 2) Pushing F1 does not bring up the help screen (F1 brings up help screens in most dos games, commander keen and hocus pocus..... Also this game is missing the classic orginality and creative elements that the old apogee games had..... hocus pocus had all kinds of stuff like shootable bricks that made up walls, switches that you had to arrange in a pattern, potions that transported you to different areas, ect...... Commander Keen had polls,platforms that moved every direction just about, switches, spikes that popped up every so often, a pogo stick, ect....... This game brings nothing "new" to the table as far as I can tell...... I see no really totally new game play mechanic but I could be wrong on this one. If there is one please point it out :).

Posted by Teapot

15th May, 2005

All those people who call this 'just another platformer' are wrong. The level design is what really puts this a bajillion lightyears ahead of the rest.

Posted by columbo borgi :C

15th May, 2005

Woooow! Its a great game!

Posted by AndyUK

15th May, 2005

The level design is certainly open.

Posted by GrieferSutherland

16th May, 2005

nice platformer but nothing special to help it stand out. reminds me a LOT of sonic.

Posted by ben mercer

16th May, 2005

The level design is great most of the time but sometimes there are gaps that you cant see the other side of, so you chance a jump then die and have to start again, which is slightly annoying.

Posted by Jimbob

18th May, 2005

Has anyone got a crystal yet?

Posted by Cazra

18th May, 2005

Great game. Am I the first to notice that in the story intro, Bernard says "damn it!"(shimata) in Japanese?

Posted by Airflow

19th May, 2005

I argee with Grief with the "SONIC" style. Fantastic game! ;) The main chararactor's cape looks flat though.That about the worst thing I can point out.

Posted by Windybeard Games

21st May, 2005

Loved it, one of the best games ive played. music was fantastic aswell which really adds to it.

Posted by Airflow

31st May, 2005

Authough my computer bitched and I lost this game in the process, I must get this again...

Posted by Zapper

2nd March, 2006

This game is brilliant, it's so well joined together by the menus and everything, and the gameplay is ace. The music is awesome too, I want a soundtrack!

Posted by Del Duio

16th March, 2006

Although I'm about a year late to comment about this, I just downloaded it the other day (I'm going back and getting a lot of older games on here lately) and it's really something. The titles before each stage remind me a lot of Ninja Gaiden for the NES! The main character looks really awesome, but more like a thief than a guard (a good thing). So far the movement is flawless and it's really a fun game to play. My daughter likes it too and wants me to always play "The little blue guy game" whenever I'm on the computer. Thumbs up!!

Posted by axel

22nd October, 2006

Ha, messy review