Crown of Zephyr (Playdate)
A downloadable game
A Helios Universe entry into the PlayJam 2 weekend event.
https://itch.io/jam/playjam-2
Crown of Zephyr (CoZ) is a mini-adventure game with a mystery to solve. Set as a prequel to The Wizard's Apprentice and Castle Helios, adventure as King Solus, before he became king and before he became emperor, on his quest for the Crown of Zephyr. Legend says the wearer of this crown will become the true ruler of the Olden Kingdom of Zephyros.
CoZ mixes some RPG elements with Choose Your Own Adventure and classic text-based adventures. To reach the Crown of Zephyr, you will need to explore, look closely at your surroundings, use magic spells, use items, combat monsters with your crank, and talk to NPCs.
Having a difficult time in combat?
- Start over in Easy Crank Mode.
- Stick to fighting Lyzards first in the areas closest to the Entrance.
- Use Fireball first to soften up enemies. SP recovers slowly by walking.
- Drink a potion. You don't lose a turn for doing so, and you can get more.
- Look for a new weapon or armor.
- Level up to 2 or 3 before attempting Rockshells or higher.
Stuck on advancing the story?
- Revisit areas you've explored before.
- Use the Look command to check details you may have overlooked.
- Try a different spell in an area you hadn't before.
- Talk to NPCs again. They may have something different to say the next time.
- Look for unique items that could help you advance your quest.
How to play?
There are two ways you can play Crown of Zephyr.
- You can sideload it to your Panic Playdate handheld console. Instructions can be found here: https://help.play.date/games/sideloading/
- Or you can download it to your PC/Mac and play it in the Playdate Simulator. The Playdate Simulator is included in the free Playdate SDK. Link to SDK: https://play.date/dev/
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Crown of Zephyr v1.1 UpdateDec 13, 2022
Comments
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Played through the whole game this evening and loved it! Makes me excited to get Castle Helios. Really inspiring and clever usage of pulp to make an old school style adventure game/crpg. Great work!
Thanks Zach for your kind words!
Hallo, kannst du bitte die Fehler korrigieren mit dem Krummsäbel? Ist schon 2 Jahre her aber das sollte machbar sein.
Danke!
Please,i need help,how to get a permit from merchant?where need to find something to give it to him?
I absolutely loved the concept for this game. The theming, aesthetics, and art design were all top-notch.
That being said, I think some of the game mechanics and/or design could use a bit of work. I loved the old "Sierra Game" style that Crown of Zephyr went for, especially when it came to the puzzles and exploration. But I feel like a lot of what hampered my experience was the combat system and the abundance of random encounters (although the lack of compelling combat no doubt effected my view of them)
The combat system has you use the crank a lot, having a sort of "crank off" between you and the enemy that seems to reward cranking faster and faster (something that probably isn't great for the playdate). This also makes it hard to tell if you are under-leveled or just need to crank harder/faster. I think a more technique-heavy use of this idea could absolutely save this for me, and make it feel more like the mini-game battles in games like the Mario & Luigi series or Mother 3. I don't mean to compare this game to those, since they are trying to do way different things, but just to show how a more mini-game centric battle system can work.
I'm not a game designer so take these suggestions with a grain of salt. But perhaps some sort of balancing act, where you have to crank to keep a dial in the center, or having to crank to match the pattern of the enemy, could help to resolve some of the issues I had with the game's combat
While yes, this game was a little buggy at parts, mainly when using or dropping an item the game doesn't expect you to use/drop. However there was nothing too huge that ruined the experience or stopped my progress.
I absolutely believe that if the combat system is tweaked/redesigned, and some little bug fixes here and there this could absolutely become a huge hit for the Playdate. But at it's current state, I was left feeling a little bit unsatisfied
TLDR: It's an amazing concept, with great art, and exciting exploration, but so-so encounter structure, and disappointing combat that brought the experience down. Overall a 3.5/10 for me
the minute I got into a battle, I couldn’t do anything to the rockshell, it seems to me in order to make a damaging blow, I might have to crank the play date harder or faster than I’m willing to crank it. Unfortunately that means I turned the game off instead, which is unfortunate since this is exactly the kind of game I want to play with this device.
I enjoyed this a lot! It's a pretty straightforward adventure, but I enjoyed my time in its world.
Loving the game. I get a crash when I USE the Scimitar
Thanks. I've been meaning to get around to fixing that scimitar LOL :D
It isn't really meant to be "used".
Fantastic adventure game. I tried to drop my iron armor at the castle guards and the game crashed. I assume I was not supposed to do that. :D
Looking forward to playing more!
Whoops! Looks like you caught a bug. It was just suppose to deny you being able to drop it with a message that you will need it. Looks like I have a bug to fix. Thanks for catching that one. :)
The same issue happens when you try to drop the scimitar.
Thanks for the heads up.