And another big update, bringing the game to 170k words.
New changes:
-You can now visit the Ossis Library in another plane, which has a repository of all the spells you may have lost to rats (obviously, a trade-off of learning a spell there vs doing something else).
-The “salamander war” sequence has been updated, hopefully bringing something to the middle of the game, where maybe not enough was happening before?
So… Friday and I’m feeling a bit tired and burnout is starting to hit me. Do you think the game finished?
@Zarkrai @Jacic Those posts gave me inspiration, so that there is now a library you can visit! 
@expectedoperator Sorry, not quite sure I follow what you were trying to explain? (could you elaborate on the point, and what you think should happen?)
@Jacic yes, the rats were dialed down on lower difficulties, but you might have started your playthrough before I implemented the rat army spells…
I saw you updated the bartering mechanics, which should definitely help and may have made this point and following paragraphs moot, but here’s issue: the lowest amount of iron the game requires for the Stone of the Present happens at choice 15 (earlier, I mistakenly said before you could visit the Present’s location at choice 10). At this point in the game, the interplanar counter is at 2, so
*temp barter_high (30 + (interplanar_counter*1))
would make the iron offered at 32. And this is only if the player somehow finds the forge, raises enough minions to gather the materials, crafts the portals, has 20 iron by choice 10 to give for the past stone, gathers 32 iron by choice 15, and chooses the highest option right away. Before, when the multiplier was 5, it seemed impossible for the player to catch up after this, which is why I wondered if was even possible to do all that by choice 15, or if there was no chance from the start – but I think you solved the issue by lowering the multiplier, so mechanically it’s fine.
However, I still wonder how fast the player can actually get the stones, because the narrative heavily suggests you don’t wait –
Thus, time will be of the essence in your race to attempt to get these stones.
– and it seems like the player is being punished by doing as the game suggests if they use the portal at the earliest opportunity. Is there any hint that you don’t get a second chance to travel the planes, or that you even need iron?
Anyway, I just tried to do a playthrough to test it out and I was unable to raise any skeletons, zombies, ghouls, or rats – the options aren’t showing – so I’m a lich that can’t do necromancy. 
It seems well polished from what I’ve seen but haven’t had a chance to play since the most recent updates. I’ll see if I can take a look asap
Ah, yes, that little sentence is maybe not the best. How about the following:
You realize that some other beings that were present might also want to acquire these stones,
and possibly also attempt to forge the Time Ring again.
You'll also be needing to quickly figure out a way to transport to where their guardians are located.
Nevertheless, you take some extra time to read through your books about the creatures that inhabit the Harmonious Hunting Grounds.
Many of them appear to be fickle, and operate in manners and with customs that appear rather alien. Also,
you find passages that describe how iron is relatively rare in that plane, and much coveted. Apparently,
in many instances payments in the Harmonious Hunting Grounds are made in iron, which works as a currency of sorts.
Thus, it appears that you will have to prepare well to obtain the stones.
Reading passages from other necromancers who have attempted to bargain with denizens of the Harmonious Hunting Grounds
indicate that they hardly ever bargain twice with the same individual. Agreements or rejections tend to be final,
so you will likely only get one shot at attempting to secure each stone.
Also, thanks for noting that bug… which was much larger than you would even think! Amazing how one little space (not even a typo, just an extra space) can do in choicescript, basically disabling tons and tons of options! Anyway, that will be rectified when I push the new update in a few minutes!
Thanks, I corrected that bug! I will upload new version in a couple of hours. There may not be anything too new, although this weekend I’ve been spending most of my time coding a new RO, although they will not appear until I can make a number of other changes to the game, hopefully tomorrow.
But, in the meantime, I wanted to ask people how they felt about the game balance.
-Are fights too easy? Too difficult? (I know there are different difficulty settings, but do any seem either too easy or impossible in the various settings?)
-Any other nerfing that you thing is necessary?
Also at that part if you saved there and try to load that save it doesn’t allow you to load it I don’t know if it’s intentional or it’s a bug
I honestly have no clue because I don’t know the Hosted Game standards or criterias.
Another pretty bug update with everything I was working on during the weekend and today (which should solve all the bugs mentioned in the past few days).
New stuff:
-Introduced one new character, a death knight, who can be a RO. This expands on the lore of the cauldron.
-You can now return the cauldron to its original owner to get a reward.
-There is the possibility now to end the game earlier if you know the location of a nexus of power with many elementals, and ascend to demi-godhood
The updates are coming faster than I can finish the game. I don’t know how you do it 
Agreed. Am a little surprised at how fast these updates are coming. Last week had more than 3 updates.
Term is finished! Instead of working on my research I am throwing all my hours into writing… today I ended up with a big headache… tbh there is also quite a lot of code that gets copy-pasted (all these codes about spells etc). Tomorrow I’m hoping to manage another 3-4k words, if I can work 8 hours
And… a new fairly big update today, which brings me to the end of all the feedback I had from various playtesters, and the list of things I wanted to implement myself. I just uploaded the new version
So…I will give everybody a couple of days to read, and will implement any feedback I get. But, my current plan is to submit to CoG this Friday. So, please let me know if you have any last minute feedback!
New stuff:
-Cultists can now be managed in various ways (they will can be made to pay gold to you, etc… there are various styles of cult available, depending on whether you want to be a rather benevolent or evil object of adoration). There are also some events related to cultists.
-Two new spells, transmute iron into gold, and transmute gold into iron.
-You can now buy (with gold) iron and other stuff from the surface, if you have minions (ghouls or cultists) there.
-You can now craft amulets of fire resistance and ring of fire protection. For that you need to seek a new component.
Congratulations for finishing the game 
Does anybody have any issues when playing the game on “Easy Mode”? For instance, any thoughts on how to minimize the amount of micro-managing that you have to do, so that the story comes out stronger?
I’ll shamelessly admit I play on Very Easy mode, and I always put points into the mind/body/soul stats while changing what spells I use from playthrough to playthrough – however, I think micro-managing during character creation is part of the experience and wouldn’t change it.
If you had to add something, though, perhaps options to raise all the attributes at once for 3 or 6 points.
I like playing for the story and will often start on easy (and sometimes continue that way 
) myself. I actually do like the option of whether you want to play as a stat challenge or a more relaxed story based experience.
Best of luck with your submission.
