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The moral of the story is that a good king should have good advisers, guys.
I kid, of course. But this was a very thought-provoking game, and that's evidenced by the sheer amount of "the message is..." posts. Great job!
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People who are saying that the message of this story is that the king is a bad person, i'm pretty sure you're not understanding this correctly.
In each case we've seen so far, the king's choices were completely correct (except for maybe the festival), and necessary. What the game is trying to say is that as a ruler, no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, your people will never accept your decisions, they will always think that they could have done better, and will spit on your name the second you do something that isn't perfect.
The king wasn't a bad person, not by a long shot. People in his kingdom suffered, and he fixed their problems, but because the people in his kingdom still suffered a tiny little bit because of his solutions, they decided to blame him instead of accepting that he had made the best possible decision.
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Game's nice but some of the characters don't get my sympathy. The general's job is military strategy; if they didn't have a different plan, that's the general's fault, not the king's.
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The game didn't really make me think that much at all. It seemed to me like a king that did what was needed when it was needed, and an overly dramatic wizard. The plot was also kind of weird: why did the king just not kill the wizard after she summoned two giant monsters that could have just destroyed everything?
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lol the theme song "id rather be a farmer".. but really this game is really well done. Plus for the voice acting and another for the nice music. the game play overall was really good. very refreshing.
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Overall I think the story line is when you're in charge it doesn't matter what you do... people will hate you. I guess you've just got to do the best and live with?
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Whoever made those castles gets a monument in honor of them... unless their wife died during construction or something. In which case we just behead him right off the bat.
Also we really need to stop building castles on top of dead things.
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I tried really hard not to like this, but failed I loved the Castlevanie-esque music and original take on the climb the castle storyline. I love the audio narration even in game. Gotta give it 5/5. Sorry.
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Lag spiked real bad on Floor 4. Not sure if that is on my end or something in the game, but might want to add a Quality option?
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[Continuation]
Ok, enough about that - now gameplay and technical stuff: The gameplay is unique and challenging, but always fair. It was fun to play through, but levels were kinda short (In terms of height... I would have preferred more "stretched" stages with less objects on the screen). Controls were ok. Didn't notice any remarkable music, only the credits-song was kinda nice. I really liked the art, only the 3 characters didn't fit the quality of the other stuff, e.g. the "cutscene"-artworks or the pieces you crush ingame (LOVED them!). I had ONE techical problem: In the first stage I was completely busy with jumping and watching that skeleton dragon... so I completely missed the dialoge.
All in all: Good game with some flaws. For now It'll get 3/5, but I'd love to see a more conceived sequel.
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The basic plot is pretty good and leads to a parable about ethics and the moral conflicts of "sacrifice some to save all", that was really interesting. But sadly, storytelling and the story details are rather poor. You have a king you don't know anything about and two "villains" you don't know anything about either - exept the pretty biased mindsets. The narrative part of the "levels" is stereotyped to the max ("The good king saved all those people - by killing others."), but I'm actually not sure whether I liked or didn't like it. It's bad for storytelling but a kinda good "opener" for the mentioned parable. Oh... btw: The division into the different "stages" kinda reminded me of "A Christmas Carol", especially when the wizard said "Now I'll take you to your last castle." (or similar).
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Bad king for not considering unintentional consequences. So let's depose you with no plan of leadership in mind, what's the worst that could happen?
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"a king has to make some tough decisions" I agree, but still, you can't take all the water from a village just to have a festival
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I agree with uberpenguin: harsh decisions are an element of being in control, and there always will be those who don't agree with the price. On Last two levels were very hard for me - i almost resigned.
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To be perfectly precise (substitute your own, if you are not Catholic): "From thy place in heaven, most powerful protector, graciously come to our aid in this conflict with the power of darkness, and as of old thou didst deliver the Child Jesus from supreme peril of life, so now defend the holy Church of God from the snares of her enemies and from all adversity." /// Actually, the wizard is a positive character in my eyes. The word king was related to the concept of hierarchy, in which there is always a man, who can be held responsible for anything that had happened.
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I generally agree with teal; aside from maybe draining the other town's water supply, everything else he did was 100% appropriate. So they're going to get another king who's going to literally be totally infallible? Is that what this game's message is, that unless you are literally a god among humans who can somehow see into the future and perfectly predict the outcome of all your actions that you're a bad person and deserve to be ostracized? If the king hadn't sent that little distraction thing he'd probably be getting chased down by 10 other guys who lost their sons, but b/c that guard was a selfish mofo no, the king was wrong b/c HIS son died. If he could've killed the other king and didn't, he would had to deal with the ppl the other king killed off. The king literally couldn't have won here. The gameplay itself is good, but the moral behind it is really rather off, and it annoys me how self-righteous the wiz/guard are.
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Amazing game. At the beginning of the game I was thinking of how the king wasted taxpayer wealth to gorge the dragon. Apparently this sort of criticism of the king's actions was thematic to the game. Unique mechanics that were fun and introduced slowly enough, and an entertaining plot make this one of the best of this game I have played. My only complaint was that the controls felt problematic at times. And also, the boss art seemed at odds with the game and comparatively low quality. Nice work!
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I really enjoyed this. It is much better than other up-scrolling platformers I've played. I think the game was less about good vs. evil, but about being wracked with guilt for things you've done, despite your good intentions.
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I don't get the third story. There was slighty chance to win that war, so the king did what he needed to do. He sacrificed some ppl, so that whole country could live in peace. After all he even did a memento for his soldiers. He hadn't forgotten them. So he was ok in this situation.
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the story was good but the scenes between the games were just awful, maybe its not the voiceact, but next time try to add some music there (where you did, that was good, like at the intro)
and the third story was a bit silly for me... they were complaining about death... in a war, thats just silly
but the game was unique, and nice, and make the ppl think about it after playing, thats good nice job overall=)
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If you liked the ending song, you can download it here!
http://debsanderrol.com/wiki/index.php?title=Life_on_the_Throne
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first upward platformer that actually made sense to me. the story is great, the mechanics are unique even though they have been done before, and the voice acting is admirably done. needs a little polish around the edges but over all a really great short game
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So what makes a good king: Good understanding of moral values? Kind heart? Who always knows (how?) where the help of a king is needed most? Who best makes people to listen to his orders? The game leaves me with this question and a confusion in my mind. Will the next one be better? Anyways 5/5 fav. A nice story of a wizard who is not to follow orders blindly. The conversation is not 100% fully logical.
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Maybe at loading instead of King's Ascent its loading! XX%, you could displaying "King preparations for ascent done XX%!"