The short answer is that it was taking too much time from
A Door to the Mists.
I had originally intended
The Crypt of the Dark Heart to be a very short project indeed--I think that I originally hoped that it might take only a few days, or a week. By the end of last week, it had taken up about a week and a half, and still wanted for at least a day--perhaps a few--before it would likely be ready for release.
For the most part, the game is done: While I don't think that all rooms have been tested, it should be possible to play through to the end of the game and see one of four ending-texts. Which ending one gets is determined by whether one manages to complete two sets of notes hidden in short side-branches. There are four enemy-types, each with its own attack and simple AI.
Conversely, there are a number of incomplete elements: the main menu lacks a check-box, the "licence" text is unfinished, the options menu doesn't yet do anything, there is neither sound nor music, one of the ending-texts overflows the space provided, and there are no images to go along with the endings.
The gameplay is fun, I think, but I also think that it wants for some balance and tweaking--including a simple "lives" mechanic and perhaps a basic save-game system to reduce the number of times that the player is sent back to the start.
On top of that, there are a few matters of polish that I might want to make, such as improving the look of the UI and providing a limited "outdoors" tileset for the first "room".
Overall, for so small a game, it doesn't feel worth the extra time taken from
A Door to the Mists, which is, after all, my current main project.
That said, I'm not unhappy that I embarked upon this little digression: I enjoyed it, and I think that it was an idea worth trying. In addition, it provided some practice for an upcoming week-long competition that I'm likely to enter.
Nevertheless, I'm eager to be back to
A Door To The Mists. The prologue level is, I think, coming close to completion; once that's done, I intend to use it to make a new gameplay video.
Stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^
