More PreVIew

For this update, I took a quick video so you can see a little of the gameplay and hear the shiny new music!

The Hiemal Holes will lead you to another part of the Precipitous Precipices:

You will need a sharpened axe to climb the hill and get to the upper parts of the Hiemal Holes.

Did I mention that the Hiemal Holes are a bit 3-dimensional? The cave passageways sometimes go "above" and "below" each other, which I did with a complicated system of specials that swap sections of the map. :)

Exploring the upper area will lead you to the very top of the Precipitous Precipices.

You will need to be holding the Shovel to clear away the debris and reach the Pitiless Peak.

You can finally meet the Balloonist here! But first, you will have to do a quest for him where you kill the dangerous monsters so he can safely land.

Once he lands, you will be treated to another change I made - the balloonist can travel to any of his 6 locations as soon as you meet him!

You can immediately travel around between the towns, which is super helpful.

Two of those locations are places you haven't been to, and you will need to explore them.

If you travel to Sankyo Castle, you can jump off the tower's edge and reach a new area. The Sinister Slopes is the last area that you can reach well before you are ready to handle its monsters. This is the volcano from which the Ice Titans have been emerging, after all...

However, the monsters are sparse enough that you can run past them. Or, hey, you can try killing them for the XP. :)

The Roper household is in these dangerous slopes, so you will need to find Rupert and dig him out of a snowbank as usual.

There is also a cave network under the slopes, but there is less for you to do here. You will need to come back later, since you must travel through the caliginous Cavities to reach the upper part of the Sinister Slopes.

After freeing Rupert Roper, you will finally be able to buy Ropes and place down rope bridges, just like Loonyland 2. However... he does have some other items for sale...

Now you can visit the other area you can find by balloon... The Rickety Ridge allows you to place, not a rope bridge, but a rope ladder.

And where does this rope ladder lead? Why... to a side entrance to the Toy Factory, of course! I'll show off the Toy Factory in the next post.