The trouble with finishing Crystal Towers 2 is that it is, not to mince words, bloody enormous. When I started the whole plan off I neglected to go through the basic mathematics to work out just how huge this would make the game, and would have stopped myself coming up with new ideas there and then had I realized just how much of a challenge sorting every route and ability through the game would become. I'm beginning to realize why I've been somewhat disappointed with the linearity of a lot of hub-based games - when the branching factor goes above, say, 2, keeping track of the paths through the game is like teaching an octopus to play the piano.

After taking a somewhat longer-than-intended break to work on some Flash games, I'm back on this now, and the good news is that the layouts for all 33 levels and a sufficient 12 bosses are now finished. This doesn't mean that it's complete, though, because even with physical completion at last, I still need some graphics done (and will talk to my graphics artist about that if I can find him) and have to put together the game to tie everything together around the levels:

The Hub - This is now finished, or nearly so. The layout of the hub decided which levels you can get to with what abilities, whether a level is behind a locked door or up somewhere you can't get without some sort of extra jumping ability. I've managed to squeeze in everything that I have on offer in what I hope is a sensible pattern, but I'll have to play through it (and get other people to do the same) before I can call it ready.

The Missions - Each level has seven missions that involve doing something special or completing the level in a certain way. This makes eight "levels" per physical area in the game, which when multiplied by the 33 levels, comes out to ludicrous. As far as I could see, the demo of the game took about three hours to get through if you knew what you were doing, so the full edition is going to be the length of a decent RPG. Fortunately these are quite easy - I built the mission framework very early on and most of it can be manipulated by just entering some definitions into my spreadsheet of death.

The Synthesis Sidequest - Also known as the most overly ambitious idea ever. Throughout the game you pick up items from enemies and can use them to create other things that grant you more abilities, further complexifying the tree. Again, though, the drop rates can be changed instantly without editing the game - what I need to do here is organize the absolute chaos of the synth items and recipes that I've come up with so far, and pare them down into something that might theoretically be completable in the next hundred years.

What I'm doing just now is going to be released for a price as the "special edition", and I'll release a cut-down edition as the standard one - perhaps having about half the number of levels and abilities - as the standard one (which means I get to do another massive hub-balancing project). A further advantage of this is that it's more important that the whole tree is manageable the second time I do it, when I've had practice, as the standard version is where people are going to start playing.

Well, wish me luck.