I have played a bit of V2, with what I assume 30% of unlocks / definitive changes in the map until the first encounter (Normal).

The scenery is gorgeous and story installation (with a few typos and no ' for some reason) is great as always coming from big man Tiger.
The gimmick is nice and you can figure out some pathing easily in various way, giving an open world feel.
The change of enemy sprites and encounter is interesting and unusual from casual plays in standard KS(+) levels.

Because of the large nature of the level, the evolution of travelling + shortcuts makes it even better to go back to places and progress further.
It's very useful as some of the pathing does not look obvious for how progress can be made at first.

It's also a very technical and challenging achievement to make such a level, which must involve a high degree of testing to make sure each piece goes along well.
In this case, details can matter a lot and can be easily overlooked.
A very hard maze with story elements would assume that clues on what to do next can be given (un)explicitly, which I guess is also done well here... maybe ?



*This will go a bit further in detail and can contain some slight spoiler on gimmicks / story while staying evasive*



At first it's very intuitive to go through and choose different options for progression. If you are lost you can use some help in the pathing.
However, after the first deer encounter, what to do next is highly unclear. I really have no clue even with the different routes.

It may be a bug because even after unlocking areas I only have access to the first area map routes to help out.
Everything was pretty much done in the shown routes, even after backing up my save and doing some extra exploration for 30 minutes - 1 hour.

This is where the maze + story aspect might be conflicting with each other.

Shouldn't there be extra maps, at least after unlocking the fast travels in those areas ? Like an extra map item nearby that point ?
Something that's also bothering are the "?" on them. Yes, they point out requirements for a few routes, but once they have been unlocked, shouldn't they disappear from the map ?

We do have route progression after a few unlocks, but things that are related to past events, mostly the shortcut unlocks, don't need to exist anymore.
Yet there are missing things on the other hand. The story has implications with a few of the locations and should be point of interest for the characters.

Shouldn't there be markings for the (mysterious) points of interest to better remember their locations from a story standpoint ?
Especially when you can't do progress and have to go back later for those ?

It could be done on the KS+ map feature of course.
Even though you usually only have access to part of it and would probably render visibility much more difficult.
I guess it would be confusing if you can't add something to mark what are the colors corresponding to in those cases.

Another point is the difficulty, I go for normal because I like exploring and occasionally get challenged for some tense action.
I disagree with the "Normal" aspect, it should be "Hard" in my opinion.
I do consider everything I have done in that regard, not just platforming or just the maze, but truly everything.

Of course some of the setups for the pathing aren't obvious and you can go back to check that yes, it was actually doable for someone else and it's not difficult.
It's not always the case though, since I only had access to one map, there were setups that would have required some prior knowledge to do those, like in the "Winds" area.
And still, there are precise and difficult setups that require some precise and / or timed jumps, multiple times on a single save.
Despite of course knowing the setup to make things easy(er).

Potential level breaking bug, if you restart inside home after looking at the Fast travel map, it's possible to start with extra tools that should only be accessible to Edward with Randall and Janet.

I might have to give up on this since I feel like I am softlocked without any inside help from the level and exhausted the intuitive thoughts for progression.
Maybe in the future I'll restart a new save, but I feel like that something is missing to make this level another marble in the KS level for the community.

I know all the efforts that have been put in there and how long it took for this project to be born.
But doing things almost all alone is a heavy task, and knowing all the possibilities that can happen is exhausting but have to be considered to be sure that nothing (almost) gets unchecked.
Especially sotflocks, or potential level breaking bugs.

I hope I was not too harsh with this review, but I felt the need to express my concerns on this from my experience with the level.

Well quite the adventure, ~1h30 for completion with a bit of secrets.

I must say the story is very compellingly interesting all the way through with an evolution that has been throughly studied in every aspect.
The platforming was challenging and involved harder bits along the way with uniqueness in the jumps used.

The beginning curves up a little and stays on a similar difficulty pace for the rest of the game.
The setups were also interesting to figure out on how to make a few sections a bit easier.

There were also some puzzly bits in a platforming aspect that were interesting to figure out.

A few detailed notes:
There are a few issues to note though.
The jump described by canteven is extremely precise and requires a fair deep knowledge of hard platforming (that I had forgotten for years now and in a different context) to beat (~20 minutes).
None of the other jumps had such requirement and makes it a big difficulty spike.

One wall can also be passed through with specific V-string (aka vertical subpixel setup depending on the starting position + speed) and skip a whole section as you may have seen.
Although no idea if it comes at a cost of a softlock since you go from darkness to surface ?
Block shifts or a 2 line wall could help to prevent this.

Visibility can be heavily hindered in a few aspects. Darkness 1's first bug blends a bit too well with the background (unless it's my use of night mode on my screen lighting).
A few of the vines in last darkness also blends in with the (green) background, making it a bit difficult to know where walls can be climbed or not.

It also goes with my next point about consistency, there are walls not covered by vines that aren't climbable.
This can be crucial in this hard platforming level, because it's something you learn in the first couple of screens.

Noticing that walls not vined can't be climbed makes it more difficult to figure out the pathing and how to progress.
Keeping consistency in the setups is again important on a high level of platforming because it can render the experience frustrating otherwise.

The bottom wood in Tower is also a bit buggy and need precise placement to be passed through from up top (can't fall through from the right side but only center / center right).

That would be my review on this beautiful work of art and attempt at a complexely difficult level creation.
It is very hard to balance each save correctly in the whole picture because it can matter a lot in a high level of platforming.

I would like to complain that the "30 minute gameplay to look in every nook and cranny" is false advertisement as I spent less than half of what was expected. I guess I slowly am gathering a veggie mind.

Very good as always, there's one issue with one of the secrets because of how the detection works but the entry is clearly made more visible on purpose so kudos to that. 

All these levels have been uploaded on the archive here:

http://knyttlevels.com/

I'm very excited to see how it will turn out and how much bigger this level will get.

I was wondering if there would be a way to go back to the main hub / world from the final stretch as I was unable to travel back. Unless it's another difference between normal and free roam mode.

Also, since you are talking about chapters, will they be triggered by having the required number of collectibles to go to a whole new area ?

I hope the bosses will be implemented as smoothly as you want it to be !

Good luck for the rest of the rework / expansion !

It doesn't seem to be the case though. I tried to look for it in my videos but I can't find anything, oh well more to play anyway ^^ .

I only "participated in the creation of Knytt Stories" insofar as I contributed some default tilesets and pre-release testing. Maybe that counts?

I would beg to differ I am sure there is more to this , I mean who in their mind allows the player to edit the position of Juni on a screen to be able to teleport her thereafter ? 
Especially when you have already gone through 16 pages of levels already x) .
I mean I tried the manipulation in another level and it did not work at all ! Still, I think your levels are the most creative ones I have seen in terms of unique gimmicks present in a few of them like the one I just mentioned. Again I'm sorry I can't recall the name of that level because I lost all the files ^^' .

I'll also mention (just as I mentioned to DonDoli minutes ago) that the level Something with snow which you streamed back in June was eventually completed as Endless Winter, which some mysterious person uploaded to the Level Archive last month (so I'm sure you'll eventually get to it).

Then I guess it is from that Nifforum person. I still have about 3 pages left, however I have taken a long break since november in playing KS (besides drakkan's levels everything else was done in 2018), so yeah I will go back to it eventually ^^.
Although the real question for me would actually be who (re ?)uploaded over 1 page of levels 9 months ago ?
Because in 1 day there was a massive level flood on the archive !

Thanks for providing the most comprehensive video record of custom Knytt Stories levels ever!

No problem, thank you for providing such unique gimmicks and designs in your levels again ! That depends on the language though.
I still have some more levels to do, perhaps in English if I see a few familiar names ^^ .