Final comments on Deus and ToG
Hey guys. I've noticed there's been a little chatter on ToG lately, and figured I'd share a little. Especially considering Deus hasn't signed on here in over a year. I hope that guy's doing alright. Anyway, in the latter half of development (which, for ToG, I'm not even sure what that means) I was at least one of the people helping Deus out on the project. I'd beta test versions that weren't ready yet, give feedback on how things were, and discuss writing and quest ideas. Hell, I even wrote a few things. I remember doing the ant queen sidequest, a few of the bar scenes, some of the stuff in the hedge maze in the revamped beginning, and maybe a few other things… its been so long, hard to remember. I also had a ton of quest ideas he never went for. They were fun to think up.
Anyway, wanted to defend Deus a bit. First off, he basically made the "Tickling Games" tab here. Before he started developing, we had Cackling Cave. Which was an awesome little game, do not get me wrong. I still have it with a save at the end point with all the scenes. But Deus wanted to make something much bigger, and with the fun of a real game (not that CC isn't real, but a good challenging game). He put out tons of updates, revisions, did a huge amount of work and got us all interested in this concept. I'm pretty sure he's inspiration for the japanese LoL, for Screamer's games, as well as Wizard and AnimeWatcher to make their own ideas. Deus deserves a lot of credit for getting that ball rolling.
Second, he wanted (at least originally) to make a well balanced game. A ton of work was done on balancing classes and making them all workable in combat. I think he did a very good job of it, and it wasn't easy. There's always updates where "the Slayer is OP!" "the thief is weak!" Because classes were spot specific (and hey, wasn't that cool? You pick a class and get more than a few scenes targeted at your favorite area! Plus in combat, it makes a difference. Hell, at the end you could even customize how ticklish you were and where (tickle spot aside), basically making a cool difficulty scale.)
I'd like to think I helped make that bit happen, as Deus was a foot guy and rolled a mage all the time. As did a lot of the player base, IIRC. But I was a thief (belly), also dabbling with Adventurer (hips), Slayer (ribs) and Ranger (underarms). I tried to give him the perspective of those different classes in beta testing, as Mage played very differently.
He didn't just want to make a game where you spam "attack" and the boss will fall over, but challenging and fun as a game as much as any old 8-bit RPG would. I think he did a good job for the most part. Towards the end, stuff got crazy. If you've ever dealt with developers, they can be a touchy bunch to criticism. Sometimes he responded well, but sometimes he stuck to his guns. I can't blame him, but the powerpuff mansion solution was so bad that his signature had to be the answer to that quest. To this day, the solution will have to be written down somewhere for anyone to play it.
Also, I forget what they were called, but those weird bonus areas in space post-revamp? WAY too hard, but that's what he wanted. In my opinion, the simple mechanics of RPG maker do not work well with that, but he wanted something a lot of people wouldn't beat. An extra challenge area. I think it did go too far.
But the level bosses: Venus, the fly woman Bebe, the Spider woman? I think those all had very good but challenging difficulty levels. Same with the sidequests. And that revamp was done once Deus had a lot of good ideas for differentiating the play styles of the classes and making the levelling system more interesting. Instead of just "you level up! Get stronger!" You picked abilities and passives. That WAS cool. And I was working with Deus to try and get a special thief-only crafting system if you were greedy enough to steal during hard fights. I liked the revamp, even if it meant delaying new content.
But as time goes by, things fall apart. Deus got a new job, and good for him. Got his life going and had a lot less time to devote to this. I also ended up with way less free time, and eventually had to tell him I couldn't in good conscience keep helping him out with Beta stuff. I feel like that was the straw that broke the camel's back, but maybe I'm being self-centered.
I'm not trying to get any credit to ToG. This was Deus's game, I just really enjoyed it and wanted to help make it happen, and make it awesome. While we lament it being unfinished, we should actually be amazed at how much actually came out. We got multiple engaging chapters.
I hope pre and post-revamp versions are available to download, as they should both be kept up for posterity. The game has a ton of cool stuff in it. Lady Venus, Honey Bee, Hathor… the goal was to get a romance system in by the end of the game. Anyway, just wanted to say my piece, and I hope Deus is looked on well for what he did do, and not negatively for what he didn't. Despite the name, he's just a normal guy who did a ton of work for weirdos like you and me.
