CronoMST

Has anyone else been reading this fantastic series. One of my friends introduced it to me. It's pretty interesting.

So, first of all there's this wizard named Harry. ... wait! Come back! This is a different guy. His name is Harry Dresden. He's a private investigator. He's also the only entry in the Chicago phone book under the heading of "wizard."

It's an interesting mix between hard-boiled detective stories and good, ol' fashioned spell-slinging. If you want to get started on the series, the first book is called "Storm Front." I'm currently in the middle of "Proven Guilty."

It's been awhile, but I've finally found a web host where I can put my games again. The new site is sqgames.110mb.com. It seems to be working pretty well, so far. I haven't really updated much since the last time it was up, except for a couple bug fixes, but for those of you wanted to play it again (or those who never played it in the first place), it's there.

The best way to play it is with the mouse. Holding down the left mouse button makes the character fly where the mouse is pointing. Holding down the right mouse button as well will make the player dash (though at the cost of agility).

Let me know what you think or if you have any suggestions. In particular, I'd still like to update some of the graphics (the city, for example) so that they don't look quite so cheesy. Also, so music that isn't completely ripped off from ocremix would be nice as well.

EDIT: I've finally updated the city background graphics! I actually had to write a program to generate the building images so I didn't spend all day trying to draw windows. Heheh. What do you think?

Is anyone ignoring My Dream until they've completed the game? I've found that going to My Dream after every level is really slowing my progression through the game. I like how My Dream works, but sometimes I just want to tear through the levels without worrying about the Nightopians are doing. I'm considering just letting it fall into ruin while I play through the rest of the game. Once I finish, then I see no reason why I can't go back and clean up the mess, replaying certain levels to get what I need.

Has anyone done this?

I get some funny ideas in the shower some days. Today was one of those days. How might a NiGHTS RPG work, do you think? What kind of overworld or exploration setup might it have? Battle system? Side-quests and mini-games? What sort of things might one gain by "leveling" (assuming there was any kind of traditional leveling system). I also have to wonder how the story would play out to allow for an RPG-style game.

The one thing that really popped into my head is maybe, instead of random battles, there would be quick sequences that would be like mini-mares. Perhaps going through the rings in these sequences, or collecting blue chips, would add XP (or some NiGHTS-themed equivalent), with successive links working as multipliers.

Does anyone else have any ideas of how something like this might work? I feel it's pretty interesting to think about.

This afternoon, I'll be buying a Saturn from somebody on craigslist. I've got my fingers crossed that it works since I won't be able to test it until I get home, but the guy seems like a good guy and the price isn't bad.

My next step is to find NiGHTS for a decent price (and probably the 3D controller since the Saturn just comes with a couple 3rd party controllers). In the meantime, I guess I'll have Dragon Force to play.

What's a reasonable price for NiGHTS now, anyway?