Water, lava, ice, and a brand-new story

Week two was the busiest yet: 88 commits and five new versions. The hero was still a green rectangle, but the world around him gained almost every kind of terrain a Wonder Boy-style platformer needs. The story was also thrown away and rewritten from scratch.

A new story: the Lands of Valdor

The first draft borrowed too much from The Lord of the Rings: a hero called Dren, eight worlds, familiar-sounding names. On 22 August it was replaced by an original setting. In the Lands of Valdor, the Crystal Heart that kept the seven realms in balance has been shattered by the immortal sorcerer Noctis, and young Ash sets out to recover its fragments. The title screen was redrawn to match.

The redesigned title screen: "Cristal Dream, a fantasy pixel journey", with crystals and a castle under a full moon — The second title screen. Still spelled "Cristal", for now.

A test world full of mechanics

The single level became six connected areas, a sandbox where each new mechanic gets tried out. Some of them:

Ladders to climb, and one-way platforms you can jump through from below, some of them moving (horizontally or vertically, set up in Tiled).
Spikes that hurt, and knockback when you get hit, for Ash and enemies alike.
Floating in water: Ash, enemies, coins and hearts all bob on an animated surface with bubbles.
Slippery ice, where you keep sliding even in mid-air.
Lava with jets of embers and a glow, which you really don’t want to fall into.
Areas stacked vertically: a cave below the first area and a sky island above it.

A strip of ice blocks next to a pool of water, with floating platforms above — Ice and water side by side, in the second test area.

An underground cave with a ladder and a glowing pool of lava — The lava cave.

A floating island with a ladder, high above purple mountains — The sky area above the first map, reached by climbing.

Enemies with personality

Enemies are now placed in Tiled instead of being hard-coded, and there are two new types: the jumper, which hops around, and the shooter, which fires projectiles when it has a clear line of sight. Defeated enemies drop coins depending on their type, and every now and then a heart.

Houses, signs and chests

Walking through a door now takes you inside a building: the outside world dims and the room appears in front of it. The test village gained a house and a tower with an L-shaped interior.

A house with a wooden door in the test village, with floating platforms around it — The first house of the test village.

At the end of the week came the dialogue system: signs you can read, with text that types itself out letter by letter (with a typing sound), automatic paging, and the game paused while you read. The game also got its first fantasy font. Chests release coins when opened, and the Options menu gained Audio and Language tabs.

A sign being read: a dialogue box at the top of the screen with the title "Boschi di Sylvaris" — Reading the first sign in the game.

By the numbers

88 commits.
Versions 0.3.0 to 0.8.0.
Six test areas, two new enemy types, one new story.