Timehole Travellers - first public Alpha file

First steps / Hints:

You will start in a room called "The Void". It can be used to save or load your progress, you can leave it to the right (or left). After talking to various people in "London" a portal will open up and your quest starts.

Controls:

Either use a gamepad (XBox360 controllers work fine) or use the arrow keys to move. "SPACE" makes your character attack/talk. (right) "Alt" casts a spell, switch the active spell using "M/N" buttons. There's a full description in the launcher under "Buttons", and also in the manual (which unfortunately contains some translation problems (will be fixed in the beta)). You can enter any available level/area on the map by simply "attacking" the flags marking the spot. Blue means: Town/Merchant; Red means: Dungeon/Level with enemies; Golden flags represent optional skill quests.

Estimated time until you are done with the alpha:

...depends on your "grinding"-affinity. If you rush through you might make it in 1-2 hours. After you finish the game "hard-mode" will be unlocked, making all of your foes much stronger. However an unlocked hard-mode status can't be saved yet. I'm planning to change the final enemy, right now it is pretty easy to defeat and its graphic is also just a placeholder.

Weapons & Companions:

You can equip any weapon and get any pet you want for free at the local blacksmith/petshop marked on the map.

Things you might want to experiment with manually:

Now and then I change values for testing and balancing purposes. Under "actor->Player1.ini" you can find the configuration according the first player. You could set these stats manually. If you want a "clean" character with zero "cheated" benefits: change stat_agi to "0", as well as all the spell-levels (lvl_fire,lvl_ice) to "1". If you don't want to play the whole game and just have a look at the later levels, set quest_main to any number higher than 20. You can also do this for the second player. The PlayerX-Files containing a suffix (i.e.: Player1_2.ini) represent your saved games. Don't forget to backup your files before changing anything!

One note about the editor and to all modders:

The Level-Editor is basically just some development tool I've created for me to make things easier and more handy. If you are REALLY interested in creating your own levels you COULD change the level files manually using the editor as a tiny help. Everything is editable and can be changed: graphics/enemies/weapons/levels/dialogues and even the main quest so a whole new game could be created but this would require a LOT(!!) of work. In case anybody might ever want to mod the game I could release the editor's code and a guide about the levels' / enemies' structure, but i doubt this will happen. ;) However I won't release the base-game's source, sorry 'bout that.

Since I've got a lot of work to do at the moment, I'm not sure when to release a proper beta, but I'll inform you when there's news as usual. Below you can find a bug list, feel free to report stuff not listet.

And now have fun testing the alpha! :)

KNOWN BUGS:
- English translation isn't 100% done yet and contains some faults
- few sounds, graphics and animations are missing or wrong (explosion spell, "dark doll")
- minor AI flaws (second player sometimes isn't following, mobs "push" themselves away)
- balancing needs improvement.
- mobs have bad spawn points after you are changing the room
- some environmental objects can be attacked / talked to
- if player 1 dies and player 2 is cpu-controlled you might get stuck
- if player 1 dies and player 2 is controlled manually, camera still focuses on both players instead of player 2 only
- some values in saved games might be corrupt when loading
- weapons/pets don't get saved (won't change this since you can select your weapon/pet anytime for free)
- after changing a room the game speeds up for a few seconds (timer-based problem, might include a loading-screen)