[challenge/hard (hopefully)] Eurydice

Pretty much since I finished my first level, I've been working on my second, 'Eurydice', which is, conveniently, based (fairly loosely) on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice; a mother's baby son dies, so she goes searching for a legendary tunnel to take her to the Land of the Dead, so she can plead for her child's return. Basically, having gained a few meagre skills during the progress of making my first level, this is my attempt at making a better balanced, less confusing, better written one!

Progress was slow at first, but the last couple of weeks have seen a lot of progress, and if things keep up, I'll be done reasonably soon... If things keep up, that is 

The story is quite... heavy, as much as a KS level can be really :p It's better than the story of my last level and since writing is usually more my thing than computer-game-designing, I've put a lot of effort into dialogue and plot - since I'm not so good at making things really pretty, I've used the writing to generate atmosphere instead (hopefully). I've also made some custom tilesets, as well as making use of the public tilesets. It's prettier than my last one, though I'm still learning the decoration side of level designing.

Anyway, if people take an interest, I'll post reports on my progress here. I may or may not ask for beta testers before release; I haven't decided yet. Posting this is as much to keep myself motivated as to advertise, so if you're interested, let me know! 

Screenshots are fun.
1. The well
2. The old temple
3. Underground ruins
4. The lighthouse
5. Ocean rocks
6. Something taken more directly from Greek mythology (if not Orpheus and Eurydice per se)

Great screenies! The plot sounds not too bad as well. I'll have to play this when it comes out.

This is indeed looking interesting, a great idea for a level!. I'm looking forward to it.

And if you do decide to ask for beta testers, I'm definitely interested (Thanks PP!)

It's actually 'definitely.'

Hey, the tiles shown in the first and second screenshots are from the original Lemmings games for DOS... am I right? (I'm not saying you shouldn't use them or anything like that... it's just that I remembered those old games when I saw the screens).

Anyway, your level looks promising. Most of the KS levels I've played weren't focused into plot and narrative, so it'll be nice to play something different for a change. I'll keep an eye on this

They are from the old 'Lemmings' games, but I thought it would be ok since there have been tilesets from Mario, including one in the User Level Pack. I'll give credit to the game, and it's not like I'm profiting from it, or distributing ROMs of the game or anything.

Is Simon Jonsson, who made the custom tileset 208 (the one with the grey statues, one of which has a sword) on the forum/contactable? Since I wanted to use an edited version of his tileset.

I don't think you'll have any problems at all, I was just saying. I've even played levels with music ripped from much newer commercial games (like "Ending Amazing Waterfall", which uses the Dragon Palace theme from Okami).

Several problems with those screenshots.
1. Ripped graphics almost never look good in KS levels.  Or anywhere else, for that matter.
2. Those tilesets do not fit together at all.
3. Did you get permission to use the bucket from A Strange Dream?  Granted, the level is already illegal (re: ripped graphics) so this is probably a smaller problem.

I didn't use the bucket from 'A Strange Dream' 'cus all the tilesets in that level say 'do not use' on them. I did draw the well rope based on the rope from 'A Strange Dream' because I'm not a great artist and the ropes I was drawing looked awful so I used the Master for inspiration, as it were. So it's similar - but they aren't the same.

As for the ripped graphics, I only used them in two places (so it was probably a bit silly of me to screenshot both those places); there are other tilesets I've made that are original. At the well, I edited them so they get darker the deeper you go, so actually they're quite effective. And I think they really work in the temple; the big, chunky blocks make the whole thing feel massive, and I used a background from a normal tileset; the result is it isn't too in-your-face, like it would be if I hadn't put the two together. I might tone-down the brightness of some of the blocks in the well because, as you say, they don't match the dark atmosphere too well. Thanks for the feedback.

And as I say, if I was making money from it or claiming I made that stuff, then it would be illegal. But I don't see why people would object to me saying 'this game is very pretty and therefore it's worth giving money to the company that made it'.

I think what he means by them not fitting together also has to do with how the ripped graphics scaled horribly and are all blurry, whereas the other tiles are not.

Hmm... I don't think it looks that bad, but maybe minmay and Monkey have a point. Some of the scaled tiles look strange (looks like some tiles were scaled at exactly 2X the original resolution while others were scaled up by a non-integer factor). You could try re-scaling those with an special filter like 2xSaI or HQ2X. It would make them look a bit blurry, but less pixelated. Still, I don't think this is a major issue (it would be if you were trying to do an Environmental level), as long as the gameplay and the narrative are good and your ideas are well executed. Just my $0.02.

Ripping from ASD is sacrilege.

Progress is being made; I'm running a bit low on ideas but fortunately I'd say apart from 'story screens', I only have three 'challenge' areas to complete, one being for the bonus ending and therefore of a higher difficulty and one being a different sort of challenge to the rest of the level, so hopefully I should be able to get on without any blocks. Just need to find the time to get it done!

Anyway, I have a few more screenshots from the back-end of the level for your viewing pleasure; enjoy!

Looking good, though it is hard to comment on your screens.  That could be simply because there is nothing wrong with them.   

Cool