Nifflas' Support Forum
Released Games => Knytt Stories => Topic started by: radonschism on January 29, 2010, 08:30:47
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I am going to make my first public Knytt Stories level (which will take a while, as I am taking my time) and I want to know if people still are interested in it.
I'd also like to add that the level is story driven, not gameplay driven. There is a considerable amount of gameplay, but the focus is on the story.
Also, what are the greatest levels to look at for inspiration?
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I am.
I have to admit that I haven't played much levels lately because I simply lack the time and most levels are kind of the same. So I usually only play levels if I have time and they're recommendations. I really do like the idea of playing a story that's actually story driven instead of just another gameplay driven story. I welcome gameplay driven stories when their gameplay is unique entirely or partially though.
As for recommendations... The beginning of my "The Explore Challenge" has a story (intro, and cutscene during the 4th screenshot) the rest is basically all gameplay.
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People don't play knytt stories so much anymore, me included. It has had it's time and these forums has lost alot of good level makers so it's pretty dead around knytt stories for now. Since the forum crash it's been much worse even.
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You can look at my level, "Colors" (watch it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaVWcuXJyAU), for a bit of inspiration regarding story-driven challenges. The story of the inhabitants of the island (including the "final boss", the elder), is deeply embedded in the game. There are hints on the events of the island, some foreshadowing, and the ability to make a meaningful decision (let the elder live or fight him*)
* Actually, the "compassion" ending was suggested by one player - players were able to empathize with the story of the final boss and wanted to do something else instead of fighting him.
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I know that I, for one, am still heavily interested. This is probably because I'm new to the whole Knytt scene in general. Sadly, I feel that KS can only hold the communities interest for so long, and I wish I would have arrived here earlier. If only there was a way to make KS popular again, as it once was(new installment, new something). However, for the time being, I'm still strongly interested.
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Knytt Stories isn't so much "dead", as it is the only free and finished Nifflas game that constantly has something new to play, therefore constantly giving it something new for the public eye. It's in more of a dry spell, as a lot of very good level makers have left or quit working on KS and only problem is finding new people who are strongly dedicated to making levels worth noting... or waiting for some older KS level "supergods" to create new astounding levels.
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'Course I'm still interested! I've only been into KS since, hm, the middle of last year or so!
I'm working on a huge level, too. And there's at least half a dozen levels currently being built by various people here that I'm really looking forward to. So these people *better* don't give up on KS, either! Or else... ;-)
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I think the KS lost of interest is because some people are now more focused in Saira than KS. And the lost of the "Supergod" Farik dint exactly help :/.
As for me. i quite losing the interest in KS level creation. but i still playing other peoples levels ;).
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I think the KS lost of interest is because some people are now more focused in Saira than KS. And the lost of the "Supergod" Farik dint exactly help :/.
Farik doesn't have to be a "Supergod" when real life intervenes.
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http://nifflas.lpchip.nl/index.php?topic=2667.0
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I've been losing interest lately, I confess, because many of the levels and ideas I consider wonderful received very little feedback. It was particularly shocking for me to see "Area of Radiation" cancelled because noone cared:
http://nifflas.lpchip.nl/index.php?topic=1899.15
A (more or less) original visual style, nice challenges, a lot of work put into it and a lot of stuff promised... and well, it never got past the early beta stage since so few people showed any interest. Right now the same seems to be happening to Exp HP's Bit Knytt (), where there was a lot of enthusiasm at the beginning (some 10 people, no less! approving the project), but now that Exp HP needs a little bit more feedback, there's.. almost no reaction. I've recently beta-tested a large, beautiful, complex level that is yet to be released by its author, and it pains me to think it might attract only 4 or 5 replies.
Or here's a level I didn't particularly enjoy, but which still had a lot of work put into it, and some very original ideas:
http://nifflas.lpchip.nl/index.php?topic=2062.0
Only 5 people commented, which isn't nearly enough... And I'm pretty sure dozens have played it. I host a few of my levels on my website and can see the stats; Moonlight was downloaded like a hundred times, but only 4 people commented. If that's the usual picture (I wouldn't know), then I guess a lot of people still care for KS levels... just not enough to support the people who make levels.
And as for reasons, well, Salmoneus and Silhouette have already nailed it.
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I'm not abandoning Bit Knytt because I don't think anyone cares. And I don't plan to abandon it if nobody posts, either. I'm not abandoning it at all.
I feel the need to explain: I have a hard time controlling my priorities. Other things are higher priority in my mind right now. I have another KS level I'm working on. I have an unfinished hold in DROD. I'm trying to set up dual boot on my system. Biggest of all, for almost the past year, I've been building an adventure game from the ground up in VB - that alone results in a daunting number of mini-projects, like how right now I'm trying to add syntax highlighting to gedit for an NPC scripting language used by the game. These all are things - short term or long term - that right now are higher priority to me than Bit Knytt.
When I said it would help if people posted, I was more or less stating a truth of human behavior. As it currently stands, Bit Knytt is not the first thing on my mind. I don't think that much about it. If it starts receiving attention from others, then I too will pay more attention to it. I'll think more about it, and it will naturally "move up" in the list of things I'm working on. And as a result, work on it may pick up once again.
But don't think I'm basing the future of Bit Knytt solely on whether or not people still care. I'm just telling people that work on it has come to a standstill lately, and that if people really want me to work on it, they can influence me by posting.
I probably shouldn't have said anything, though. The initial hype has died down. People are unlikely to post, and even if they do, it won't be very genuine since, after all, I asked them to. If I had some killer new screenies to show, of course there'd be more hype, but that will only happen once I actually start working on the level again.
I guess in the end, the only thing that post accomplished was to disappoint everyone who was looking forward to the level.
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I have, I found out about Knytt 2 days ago :)
It would be good if there was a levels archive with ratings and ability to sort by rating.
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There's already a level archive (http://www.knyttlevels.com) which new version is being created - it will have all the feaures you mentioned, and much more :)
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I dont think it has died i have just recently doing let's plays of the game.
Hey I have recently started doing let's plays for different stories for Knytt stories. if people are interested I will do a play though of any stories that you are creating. either give me an email with your game in it, or post it in the archive and send me a link. I will record myself playing though it give commentary and critics.
Here is my youtube account: http://www.youtube.com/user/guywithcivilwarbeard
-Guywithcivilwarbeard
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I care about KS levels! I recently got a new Windows PC (I had a Mac before) so I can play again. :)
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Wow, people who have been around this community a while are spoiled.
Compared to, say, the Civilization 3 community (let's just not talk about Civ 4) Knytt Stories has a frankly ridiculous number of level releases still happening. With Civ 3 mods -- and really, the mods are what makes that game worth playing, despite the perfectly adequate versions of the game released by Firaxis, just as user-created levels are far more what brings people to KS than Nifflas's handful of KS levels -- even at their peak it was rare to get more than one good mod release in a month. Here we are two and a half years after KS came out, and between levels being uploaded to the archive directly and levels being announced here but uploaded elsewhere, there have to be at least a dozen levels coming out in an average month.
If there were multiple great levels coming out on a daily basis back in the day, I can understand how the current slower rate could seem disappointing by contrast. Still, it's not as though there are merely one or two diehard KS fans left creating levels solely for each other.
The forums aren't the only yardstick that should be used to judge interest, either. I found the level archive, and was selecting levels partly randomly and partly based on recommendations from other sites around the web, for a couple of weeks before I even realised there were levels here that weren't on the archive. The whole old forums/new forums issue is confusing for people who weren't around when the old site went down (myself included), and KS isn't the only or even main focus of the forums anyway, which may be part of why it doesn't come up in a Google search for 'Knytt Stories levels' -- maybe we ought to organise a googlebombing of the Level Releases forum (http://nifflas.lpchip.nl/index.php?board=39.0) with the link text 'Knytt Stories levels' or something similar, so that people who are looking for levels can actually find the forums?
Just recently a couple of art school (I'm guessing? There were no degrees in computer game design when I was growing up!) students visited the forum long enough to post a level they'd made as a school project. They'd plainly never visited the forums before, yet they were either familiar with KS already or had it given to them as part of their assignment. Possibly there's a whole world of KS players out there, trading levels they make with their siblings / cousins / neighbours / classmates / whatever and thinking they're the only ones who're doing it.
Just look at how often posts are read and commented on in the KS section of these forums, and you'll see your question was answered before you even posted it...
Edited to add:
Just to clarify what I meant by 'spoiled' -- NOT in the sense of a 'spoiled brat' but rather in the sense of, people who never have to worry where their next meal are coming from (which pretty much covers most people with regular internet access) are spoiled compared to people who will literally starve if they don't get that daily handout of a cup of rice in the U.N. refugee camp where they live. People who dine on caviar and wagyu beef filet mignon and pate de foie gras every day are spoiled compared to the first group also, but that's not the kind of spoiled I meant either... Basically I'm pointing out that whether this is an active community with lots of user contributions, or a quietly-dying one, is very much a matter of perspective.
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the Jack, thanks for your post. Kind of made me realize the "spoiled" part X)
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Well I'm another noobie just off the boat, and I'm here because knytts story is exactly the kind of game i've been looking for, and I've been working hard on my own stage since I realized I could.
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This thread makes me a bit sad :sad:
I've been playing knytt stories for approx. 2 years and I honestly believe that it's the best platform game experience I have ever had C)p It will be quite some time before I stop caring.
EDIT: I have an idea for a rather large level that I started about a week ago. Seeing that it will probably take over a year to complete, should I stop?
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EDIT: I have an idea for a rather large level that I started about a week ago. Seeing that it will probably take over a year to complete, should I stop?
No. Everything that's worth doing is worth doing even without an audience.
But there will be an audience. It may not be huge, but it will be there. At the very least, I should still be here, because I'm building a big, slow-to-grow level, too. ;-)
And, seriously, does the size of the audience you get for doing something really matter? I've always found it just as pleasurable, or even more pleasurable, to find just one or two people who got a real kick out of something I did, than a bigger, but usually more 'casual' audience. Or rather, as soon as I've found a couple of people who *really care* about something I've made, I feel it was worth it, and it doesn't matter that much anymore if many other people also find and enjoy my work.
(I wouldn't be able to keep writing, for instance, if I needed a big audience, as I'm both incredibly slow, and somewhat weird in my story preferences and ideas, so a big audience is something that just doesn't happen for me. Instead, I get the occasional reader who's genuinely moved to tears, or deeply disturbed by something I wrote; and that's enough.)
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Thank you for your reply Hmpf! It's really inspiring to know that there are people like you out there :)
You bring up a very good point, I do enjoy working on the level and I don't think I really would have stopped even if noone had replied or if people had said yes.
When I wrote that edit I was just feeling reeeeaally uninspired by this thread. Though when I read through it a second time I stopped thinking about the people that had gotten bored and started to think about the people that still cared. That is also very inspiring ^^
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I definitely agree with the last few posts. I do think this is the best platform engine I've ever seen, especially since I usually don't like platform games! As such, I think it will continue to attract an audience of like minded people for years to come. And the more people pour their passion into it, the more people will eventually come.
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I still regularly play new levels that are coming out. I made one level myself, but I'm not talented at it at all, so I'm afraid I'll have to remain a consumer instead of being a provider as well :^^:
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Um...I'm a bit Noob'ish to the forum, but 've been colecting KS levels for the last couple'a years.
9_9 And when I make levels (which I have a few) I generally make them for myself. I remember the old'en days when I was still in an institution for emotionally disturbed youths drawing my little platformer games and no way to make them. Now I just make them for myself with the KS editor.
Just recently started releasing level for no other reason than they are what I would call 'Interesting,' and I hope others find them neat, too.
Still, without this community, I'd honestly still be making and downloading levels.
Yeah, we still care.
Um...Just my 0.02$
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Ahh so its not just me whos been thinking this!
It was roughly i think two years ago i became interested in knytt storiess. And by god knytt stories is the most amazing thing ever!
Out of all the indie platformers out there i still reckon this beats em all!
Of course those amazing levels like Dark Sky of Wish Mountain is not as numerous. (played it yesterday and now i remembered why i love KS)
But i guess levels have become quite similar... just need to wait for that amazing original level.. or something...
I just ramble! :awsum:
Hopefully my Empty Corridor won't be a bore and will interest some people!
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I'm not sure but I think I still hold the record for level with most screens in it, and some time in the future I intend to make one even larger than that.
And, as can easily be imagined, these things take a lot of time.
But I'm fairly certain my levels are rarely similar to others.
I suspect many editors are similarly attempting to be ambitious in their levels, and thus are taking a lot of time to finish them (or they have given up, a case I've witnessed a few times). Patience is key for quality.
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I still have a HUGE backlog of levels I haven't played yet, which is kinda embarrassing as I'm planning to become an LPer and play most of those levels on a semi-professional level for Youtube. I will still be here in a year from now if the forum is here. I will not forget my favorite indie platformer.
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I'm not sure but I think I still hold the record for level with most screens in it, and some time in the future I intend to make one even larger than that.
And, as can easily be imagined, these things take a lot of time.
But I'm fairly certain my levels are rarely similar to others.
I suspect many editors are similarly attempting to be ambitious in their levels, and thus are taking a lot of time to finish them (or they have given up, a case I've witnessed a few times). Patience is key for quality.
Trust me your levels are definately ..... original! :D
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If you have any doubt that people care about knytt stories levels, just check the level competition thread. :)
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hey how do I post my knytt level?? :)
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*points to RPG* HA! More proof people still love the Juni!
@rpg
Um...You can post on, like Mediafire or your own site or whatever, but most people go here.
http://knyttlevels.com/
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Once you have uploaded it (to mediafire, knyttlevels.com or any other external site, but NOT to the forums) you can post a link in a new thread in the Temporary Level Releases board.
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woo hoo my level has been uploaded to mediafire!!!!!! (oh ya please download it and tell me if its good) C)
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And you suppose we could just go to mediafire and download it there.
Go to knytt level releases, make new topic, announce your level and share the link.
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Just was at my favorite online game website, www.jayisgames.com (http://www.jayisgames.com), which is how I came across Knytt stories in the first place, and I've noticed that at least once a month I see Knytts mentioned. Yet more evidence this place is no dead.
Unrelated, this made me wish Juni had a grappling hook: http://messhof.com/you-found-the-grappling-hook/ (http://messhof.com/you-found-the-grappling-hook/)