That was very beautiful. The story was compelling and the art, beautiful and strange. I think this is a great example of what KS is so good at; creating an outlet for the thoughts and images in your head and letting you share something very significant to yourself with other people. Like Silas, I could only wish it was longer and deeper. I'd love to understand more of what I was reading. Your writing was beautiful. The, umm...
The background when you first emerge from the underground, with the castle in the mountains, was breathtaking.
A couple of minor issues:
The windows in your second screenshot are on layer three (unless I'm misunderstanding them and they're meant to be foreground.)
I was using the map a lot; I'm not sure if this is something you intended me to do or not. Some of the substitute screens, like when you return to the screen with the large-antlered guy, were not hidden. Also initially each area was colour-coordinated between cutscenes. This stopped happening at the ascent which made me wonder if I'd missed a cutscene, especially as I'd just been told that the tower couldn't be climbed and now here I was climbing it. Well, unless I did miss a cutscene which would be another issue entirely.
I was so excited to see a new level by you, especially one so unexpected!
It was a tremendous surprise. I'm not sure what meaning it adds to the level, but it made me smile just like this --> :D
The idea to me was that it's what happened to ego sector after a long enough time. They started using their god as an energy source... and also they all became vampires and started growing horns and became dark instead of light... Honestly, having already made that I just used it because it was easily importable, though that doesn't change that they're still sucking that massive ego dry to power their level.
I freaking LOVED this level. The lore, custom characters, animations, aesthetics, everything. Seems like a tale from an old 20th century dark fantasy novel. Well done.
Also, what language other than English was used in this level? Was it some conlang I didn't know about?
Also, what language other than English was used in this level? Was it some conlang I didn't know about?
It's Welsh. I had to look up what conlang was.
Not much to add to what has already been said, but I still wanted to say that I enjoyed this short level a lot :) I especially liked the narration, the custom graphics (including the lovely intro screen) and music and the overall atmosphere. The lightning effects and the use of attachments/overlays were just superb.
I do agree with ego that some screens were a tad too dark, though. This made it rather hard for me to spot the custom character in some areas, which confused me a bit sometimes. One way to mitigate this problem would be adding a subtle "glowing" border to the sprite, just enough so the silhouette can be seen when passing through those almost pitch-black areas:
(http://vegetal.eb-creativos.com/ksstuff/other/Silhouette_glow.png)
Still, I don't think it's a major issue and I didn't have any trouble completing the level, so it's probably not worth editing the sprite sheet or making a separate version just for a few screens.