Good news: While being reluctant to give a release date after all the delay, by now we can be certain that we are only a few weeks away from releasing GemCraft chapter zero. The game is almost complete, we need to finish or refine some content - sounds, graphics, level details - and fix a bunch of errors, balance the game as good as we can, and make some finishing touches before releasing it. GC 0 will be released on ArmorGames.com first, and it will be available on other sites after a few weeks. Sorry for both the long waiting and the gappy communication about the progress of the game, we hope you'll have a lot of fun playing GC chapter 0!
Looks like the best we can hope for is April, if that. That's a lot late.
There is a YouTube trailer with some Gemcraft Chapter Zero action (someone else linked it in another thread, but I can't find tha tpost right now).
I have been watching that and I think if we expect gameplay as per that trailer, we will be sadly disappointed, based on my current Gemcraft Chapter 1 experience.
The very first screenshot shows a mana pool of 2.4 million mana out of 20 million. It is definitely not easy to get to those numbers (unless you use a cheat engine). It also shows 7 gems that are at least lvl 6.
The next screenshot has 32 gems of ta least lvl 6 and a mana pool of > 2 million out of 10 million. Anyone can beat any level with that kind of numbers.
Th erole of gem bombs have been much increased in chapter zero. If you read the pop-up in that video (select High quality and go to full-screen), you will find that gem bombs are used not only to destroy monsters as in Chapter 1, but also to destroy beacons that assist the monsters, as well as "smaller buildings that spawn creeps." Wow. The video then shows a few gem bombs being thrown (into a really large bunch of monsters being wiped out rather suddenly. (they have a little pop-up right over where the number of monsters should be sidplayed, so it isn't possible to track how the monsters disappear (I suspect they skipped a few frames).
The screencapture is definitely not from any attempt to play a real game, it shows that only the first frame has been unlocked, the wizard is at 7 and the game allows for 20 million mana? not in any game I've ever played.
