Nifflas' Support Forum
Level Editing Support => Knytt Stories Level Previews => Topic started by: Sendy on January 03, 2010, 17:04:20
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Hi, I'm Sendy, a long while ago I posted some screenshots and a bit of blurb for my KS level "Non Serviam", a story of enslavement, escape, and conveniently placed powerups spanning a ridiculously vast playing area with fully polished screen design, sound effects, custom puzzles and unique little tricks.
This could be considered a cautionary tale; the game (and it is really more of a game than a level) became so vast, and so logistically complex, that after working solidly on it for several months, I just couldn't bring myself to look at it.
I don't know if it's been 2 years now, but I'm feeling like I MAY be able to finish this. Most of the map is done, and recently, I added sound FX to about half of the map, which was a huge undertaking as I had left the ambience settings till later.
I MAY need help getting this playtested and off the ground. Cutscenes and loose ends need tying up. Not impossible by a long shot, but it will take a fair bit of work. I have no inclination to add music; I am a musician, but I simply don't posess the psychic energy to go on to soundtrack this project after the insane amount of time I already have put in. Which really is ridiculous by the way. XD
So anyway... I doubt anyone here really remembers me or my game, but a few people seemed very interested a while ago, when I had a false start in trying to get back into this. Part of me just wants to get on and make a new Story, something smaller and more controlled than this sprawling nightmare/dreamscape! Screenshots to be added later if there's interest.
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So anyway... I doubt anyone here really remembers me or my game, but a few people seemed very interested a while ago, when I had a false start in trying to get back into this. Part of me just wants to get on and make a new Story, something smaller and more controlled than this sprawling nightmare/dreamscape! Screenshots to be added later if there's interest.
I remember this level and the screens, but I don't know why. Maybe cause the level name is nice. I hope you will finnish it. Sounds good.
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Good luck man. I would really like to see this level.
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Sounds cool. I recently started a thread in the main KS forum for talking about the joys and woes of longterm projects. Feel free to come there to share and vent. :-)
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Glad at least someone remembers :). I remember one stage Nifflas played a bit of it, and gave his approval for using some of his tilesets, he did suggest I remove some of the spike traps, which I've done... A few other people were fans, but I'm not sure if they're regular here anymore.
I've made a screenshot map of the editor minimap, there are well over 500 screens I'd say, though some areas are copied with different switch settings.
Since I don't have any screenies on my laptop, however, I'll list some of the features that may make this level unique.
- Screens are designed such that there's complete continuity of terrain, edges and background/gradients, if you were to build a screenshot map of the game. This was a real pain to pull off and in a couple of areas I cheated a teeny bit, but I had a vision of this huge screenshot map of awesomeness and doom.
- Environmental yet challenging. I may have to make an easy edition. I am however ironing out difficulty spikes.
- You can lose powerups, though not often. At one point you have to start over with no powers, and reclaim new ones in a strange land.
- You're forced to play a familiar area late in the game, with reduced powers.
- Side quests and areas such as find the kitty in the sewer, and exploring the library.
- Completely superfluous areas and beautiful dead-ends, and many places with hardly any enemies.
- It's own training area that you find in the city, teaching you about special trick jumps, laser timing, etc. Also a labyrinth (a maze with no junctions) that you can walk for relaxation.
- NPC's which give you hints and say different things, sometimes not always the same thing, and often humerous.
- Three toggle-able switch blocks, a la Super Mario World, which are mainly found in the desert area.
- Nifflas complimented on my use of sound effects when he played a very early demo, I really think this adds to the immersion.
- All of the graphics are either from the tilesets that come with the game, or ones from A Strange Dream, though I did quite a bit of editing and touching up here and there for my specific needs. (Incidentally my next level will be the opposite, all drawn by me)
- A demonic evil minecart who demands your respect and can vapourise you on a whim.
Screenshots to come probably tomorrow!
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Woooo, this sounds AWESOME.
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Sounds like this is going to be an awesome level, good luck!
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I remember it since when you first announced you were making it on the old Metanet forums! :)
Really hope you finish this!
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I joined the community much later than this was announced, I guess, but all the same, it would be great to see another large and complex level. Good luck if you decide to finish it :)
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Yay, someone else remembers :)
Thanks all for the encouragement!
Anyway, I have the minimap montage, and 10 screenshots, but it seems the filesize is too big, and I can only post 5 things at once, so for now, 5 screenshots...
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You're using tilesets from A Strange Dream, something that you are most definitely prohibited from doing, unless you specifically got permission from Nifflas first - which I doubt.
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You're using tilesets from A Strange Dream, something that you are most definitely prohibited from doing, unless you specifically got permission from Nifflas first - which I doubt.
I remember one stage Nifflas played a bit of it, and gave his approval for using some of his tilesets
:huh:
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I remember one stage Nifflas played a bit of it, and gave his approval for using some of his tilesets
(http://www.lonestarstangs.com/forum/attachments/the-lounge/9284d1132784378t-orly-orly.jpg)
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So what is it about me that you doubt? That my level would be good enough for permission, or that I'm lacking the moral fibre to ask for it in the first place?
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Thse screens look wonderful. This looks like it will be a good level.
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So what is it about me that you doubt? That my level would be good enough for permission, or that I'm lacking the moral fibre to ask for it in the first place?
He missed a sentence, and if that sentence hadn't been there his response would have been perfectly valid. There's no reason to take offense at it. :huh:
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Also it's very rare that Nifflas would give permission to use those restricted tilesets, so it's natural to be doubtful.
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So what is it about me that you doubt? That my level would be good enough for permission, or that I'm lacking the moral fibre to ask for it in the first place?
He missed a sentence, and if that sentence hadn't been there his response would have been perfectly valid. There's no reason to take offense at it. :huh:
Sendy has every reason to take offense at it. I didn't read carefully, which I really should have done given the circumstances.
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Well, there is a lot of text in my posts, so I suppose it's easy to miss... I wasn't offended, I just wondered what I'd done to cause the aforementioned doubt. I suppose I was also slightly annoyed, as it took me a while to get these onto this computer, into the right format, and uploaded. I probably overreacted a bit.
Anyway, here's the rest of the screenies. I really have a hard time picking which screens to show.
Also, hopefully the screen montage will upload as well! The red hatched area is basically a bunch of screens I've since deleted, they were 'anti void' sky screens which I realized were superfluous. I'm pleased to say that work on the level is going very well - much better than when I tried to get into it last time. A lot of the old areas have been given an extra layer of gloss, some small areas have been added, and most of the areas have SFX now :)
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at 4th screenshot :whoa:
my levels are never more then 50 screens!
good work!
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oh my, I got quite strongly reminded of the feeling I got when I played Knytt when looking at those screens. Yay!
also I as well remember you/your preview thread. Just didn't feel like posting just that. :P
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oh my, I got quite strongly reminded of the feeling I got when I played Knytt when looking at those screens. Yay!
also I as well remember you/your preview thread. Just didn't feel like posting just that. :P
Thanks! That made me smile. Currently adding new areas at the moment, and debating whether to use a few CO's in this level, or wait until the next one. I suppose a few won't hurt. I need a bit more foliage in a couple of places.
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Are you sure this isn't Knytt? The graphics are making my head spin! :nuts:
Seriously, finish this! I had lost my interest in Knytt Stories lately, but this brought it back.
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What the pfargtl! That last screenshot...
I never realised how much 500 screens really was. And I can't believe you made all those screens, probably as high quality as those screenshots!
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I was thinking of not playing any knytt stories level anymore after releasing KSDS (too tired of beta testing...), but your level is making me change my opinion... so, I jump the "I want you to finish this level!!!!!" wagon X-P
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Oh wow. That map makes me itch to start exploring right away! It's so huge... it must be larger than 500 screens by quite a bit, I think. Mine's currently around 255 screens, and definitely looks less than half as big as yours.
Love the screenshots, especially the third.
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<3 the third screenshot. There's just something about it that I really like.
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I did have a long reply here about the evolution of this level and the comparisons to Knytt, but I pressed a key that my browser decided to interpret as a desire to go back a page and forget everything I typed, which is splendid!
Anyway, I had no idea I'd get this level of acclaim for my work thus far, so I'm really happy about that! I do want to say, some of the qualities of this level stem from the fact that I often get more time to work on it than most do. Also, this level is actually called 'mess around' in my file system, and evolved from what was almost the first rooms I ever created when trying out the editor and learning about it. Those rooms have been touched up a bit presentation-wise since then, and have had half of the spikes removed from them, but even so, it's kinda weird to think about it. Nothing in this game was planned out beforehand, the entire thing evolved stream-of-consciousness-ly.
EDIT: I have a couple of screenshots left over from the last batch, may as well upload them, although one of them is already out of date.
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Nurykabe tileset win. Hard to do. Kudos.
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Well, I appear to have hit some kind of a snag... As previously stated, I have made minor edits to several of the preset tilesets, adding extra detail and creating objects I needed that weren't included. I didn't think twice about this, because I didn't see any difference between layering a preset tileset with one you made yourself, and I couldn't imagine a reason why people would object provided they were credited.
I've also started making CO's out of, for example, the trees, so that I can have them move in the breeze, and I mixed a few tilesets together, to make ample use of the tileset space available for certain rooms. On a couple of tilesets I replaced tiles I didn't need with spikes, so I didn't have to use the pop-out spike objects.
So anyway, I've just read on this forum that you aren't allowed to modify tilesets at all, unless you made them yourself, which has genuinely shocked me, so I suppose it's a case of trying to track down loads of people before I continue with this :/
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Indeed. I'm sure if you mention that you just want to merge tilesets, and you credit the originators in the tileset as well as the level itself, most if not all will allow it.
But you really do need permission.
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I'm really looking forward to this. Your level looks like a great answer to the question of quality versus quantity. You've somehow managed to do both. Who would've thought that was possible? ;)
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I'm a firm believer in.. levels are much better seperated into episodes. Expecially since I have recently discovered Knytt Stories loads all of the stage before hand, so larger stages can go up to 200 or more megabytes of memory.
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Most of the tilesets and gradients are presets, and I haven't noticed any performance issues either on my desk- or laptop. I do think that this level won't be *everyone's* cup of tea, though, because it is so huge, and 'grew' in a very unplanned way. Though of course I've applied a lot of modifications to the level to make it more obvious what to do at any stage, I doubt it's flawless and without problems.
It's also very tricky in places but I aim to remedy that with two difficulty settings - 'casual' and 'challenging'.,,
Actually, I need to see if the Knytt Composer thingie will be able to copy the ENTIRE level - shifts, cutscenes, ambience, the lot, because I'd love to have both difficulties in the same file. Would doubling the room number push things over the edge performance wise? Who knows.... :)
Let's do some science!
EDIT: Typographical unplanned consequence of button pushing accuracy failiure corrected.
EDIT 4390853094853 = added 5th screenshot to this post
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Pardon the bump, but I have 5 new screenshots, mostly showing off ideas and bells/whistles I've made.
Firstly, a big minimap of most of the game, but with place names and rough borders drawn in. This is a semi spoiler, sort of, but the map will be available in the game, at key civilized places. Note, you'll probably need a zoom facility to read any of the text, and my mouse handwriting is dire, I know...
Secondly, the temple has... wait for it.... *fanfare* SLIDING BLOCK PUZZLES! ZOMG. It's totally not a shift-gimmick with little depth, and I'm totally not being sarcastic when I say this. Actually, some of the 'puzzles' are mainly for show, but a few of them have multiple orders of doing things, and you can mess up and die, which is nice.
Also, you may have noticed in the forest village screenshot, I have the shiny blue water but without the blue glow. I made this by filling the screen up with the shiny water object, waiting a few seconds, and took a screencap. This guaranteed every frame of animation was onscreen and piecing them together wasn't as difficult as it might seem.
One other screenshot shows how lighting (or darking) made with CO's can affect Juni and other sprites, making it more creepy/cool.
I've been having SO much fun making this, KS is such an amazing engine! I've also made CO's which are custom snails (I love snails), rails for the spikey blocks, ghostly writing pointing the way to the nearest save (used sparingly) and various other details.
Sorry my posts are so long and rambly, I just have so many ideas, and this place is the only outlet for talking about them :) So have at you!
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Firstly, a big minimap of most of the game, but with place names and rough borders drawn in.
And big it is. O_o The outline brings to mind a spaceship.
Oh, and please release that CO when you're done with the level; I have a feeling there'd be plenty of people who wouldn't mind being saved the trouble. :D
Also,
you can mess up and die, which is nice.
;)
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All my stuff (CO's I created begin with "my") will be freely usable when I release the
level game. I might release the non-glow blue water now if there's call for it, if that's what you meant. I've heard a few people complain that they didn't want the glow.
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Nice.
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I am in awe. The map looks amazing!
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Very interesting :D
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Looks great :D
You're not allowed to use that tileset from A Strange Dream though, are you?
Also, I'll definitely create an actual 1:1 map of this once it's released!
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You're using tilesets from A Strange Dream, something that you are most definitely prohibited from doing, unless you specifically got permission from Nifflas first - which I doubt.
I remember one stage Nifflas played a bit of it, and gave his approval for using some of his tilesets
:huh:
Maybe Sendy should put that in bold in every one of her posts. :P2
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Whoops, I apologize. I scanned through the thread before posting, but didn't read every single post. :oops:
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Well this looks great! Will it be playable soon :^^:??
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Well this looks great! Will it be playable soon :^^:??
No, sorry. Work on it is sporadic as I have several other projects. This game is certainly not dead, and is nearing completion (say 70% done), but it won't be released this year. I'm guessing summer next year.
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So, I'm curious.
How large is this level intended to eventually be?
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Well originally, it was just supposed to be a test level for getting to grips with the editor... so if I were to come up with a size, I certainly wouldn't trust it!
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Neva heard of this level but now i have and i am intrigued :awsum:
hope all goes well! C)p