; ---Level Categories---
;
; Tutorial A tutorial that teaches you to play Knytt
; Stories and contains tips and tricks.
;
; Challenge A Challenge level - make sure your skills
; are sharp!
;
; Puzzle In a Puzzle level, you need some serious
; thinking.
;
; Maze A Maze Level - Can you find where you're
; going?
;
; Environmental An environmental level - No puzzles, no
; monsters, no challenge, just beautiful
; landscape.
;
; Playground A Playground doesn't have an ending or a
; goal - a good place to practice.
;
; Misc A level that doesn't fit into any of the
; other categories.
@LPChip: It would be nice if the new archive had some feature that allowed users to search for levels that 'look nice', though. I think I'm not the only one here who's mainly interested in KS as an aesthetic experience, and thus will prefer environmentals in most cases, but will tackle a challenge level if it's a really good-looking one. It would be nice to be able to separate, via some search term, maybe, challenge levels with a strong aesthetic focus from those that just focus on presenting the player with, well, a challenge.
I'd like to second that. Perhaps this could be discussed in a separate topic somewhere on the forum? Because I remember there were other challenge vs. environmental debates before, with different participants, and it doesn't seem like most people would be happy if the categories were made completely separate, with no means of searching for good-looking levels.from a couple of months before I found the forums.
(I admit I'm biased, though, because my levels kind of fall into the challenge+environmental thing too.. I think.. only the environments are really weird :crazy: and the challenges kind of basic :oops:)
I think 'nice-looking' is a bit too subjective for a category. Since the new level archive should display the first screen of a level, you could make a nice-looking first screen.
@Pumpkinbot:*slams fist on desk* Got it! A level can be environmental and challenge only if the challenge is relatively easy, or you don't have to focus on the challenge at hand all the time, like in a harder level.
The perceived focus on environment is precisely why people have been using the term to refer to the levels they do, despite those levels containing mild to difficult challenges as well. We can't change the categories Nifflas established; that's been discussed repeatedly, and always been shot down. So the obvious alternative is to pick a new word for the levels we shouldn't have been calling Environmental in the first place.
It was my impression that LPChip was opposed to changing the meaning of the existing categories, and to allowing levels to be tagged both Environmental and Challenge (with the good reason that Nifflas Said So); if someone else has already suggested picking a new term for these levels that wouldn't conflict with the level categories Nifflas laid down, and LPChip shot that down, I haven't seen it...
People cannot be trusted to...
- rate their own works man I've seen too many people proclaim their terrible works great.
tolerate negative ratings or criticism man I've seen too many people complain about even the most friendly and constructive criticism they just aaaaa.
Props for making a thread about this.Thanks!
the pure description of the Environmental category makes it sound like you'll be raged at if you put a pool in your level that people can jump in. XD
An author could choose a genre for their work, but the system could also have a player genre rating. It's not offensive, because it wouldn't be like a 5 star system, but the players choose if it's "Environmental", "Scenic", "Challenge", etc.I like that idea. It should tally the votes people make for each category, so you would be seeing what the majority thinks instead of what everyone thinks at once.
After all, one author's "Challenge" is another player's "Very Easy".
How would that work?
An author could choose a genre for their work, but the system could also have a player genre rating. It's not offensive, because it wouldn't be like a 5 star system, but the players choose if it's "Environmental", "Scenic", "Challenge", etc.
After all, one author's "Challenge" is another player's "Very Easy".
It should tally the votes people make for each category, so you would be seeing what the majority thinks instead of what everyone thinks at once.
Encouragement of incorrectly labeled levels? Pass.No, this would solve the problem of that, because then they would automatically be sorted to where they should be.
Really, guys, this won't be a problem in the archive if anyone actually bothers to rate levels (good KS levels also look good).
The category field in the archive is presumably currently read from the level itself
Environmental means: focus lies primarily on the environment where the difficulty of the level will be easy. The hardest challenge will be the fact that there's water. The entire idea is that you wander around in it. Having tops one enemy on the screen and enough power-ups to get past it (or an alternate route) is no problem. That doesn't suddenly make a level challenging thus challenge.
; Environmental An environmental level - No puzzles, no
; monsters, no challenge, just beautiful
; landscape.
Basically;Well, closer to:
Environmental = No challenges
No challenges =/= No enemies
PickYerPoison, so you're adding an additional equals sign to the first thing (really I don't see how this is necessary if you don't need some other definition for single equals (you don't) but whatever), and saying that no challenges is a superset of no enemies (or should I take the > literally to mean "greater than")? Please explain your notation.The extra equals sign is only semantics. However, the greater than sign says that having no challenges "means more than just having no enemies," as opposed to "not meaning having no enemies."
Environmental means:The definition of the Environmental tag has been discussed to the ground. By this point, I don't think anybody in this topic is having trouble understanding its definition. The problem is that we don't like the definition of the environmental tag. Nifflas made this tag with a specific type of level in mind. But for some of the community, when we see this tag, we yearn for something more versatile.
[. . .]
I still don't get it why people need to put Environmental and Challenge in the same level. Either its environmental or its a challenge.I feel like say the question is more like "why wouldn't people", but I'll explain one mindset that I think is common: The mindset of "calling your level Environmental is how you say you focused on visuals."
If I don't know why people favor this, isn't it my job to ask about it?
If I am accurate, then how does Scenic convey E/C? Scenic feels like it's simply referring to the visuals. Despite what meaning Scenic is given in this discussion, I think it would be used as a Scenic/Challenge meaning nice-to-look-at/Challenge. Nice-to-look-at doesn't describe the style of gameplay. The purpose of categories is to describe the style of gameplay.
I can't think of a word for E/C, but I'm not the one to ask anyhow. To me a good Environmental level is an amazing accomplishment, a level that can convey a feeling through its sights and sounds alone, a level I'll replay again and again just so I can experience that mood again. I don't think I could author such a level. Now, to add challenges to a level without distracting players from the environment, without dropping the mood, is near impossible I say. None of the so called E/Cs I've played have accomplished this in my opinion.
; Environmental An environmental level - No puzzles, no
; monsters, no challenge, just beautiful
; landscape.
Also, have you considered that already released levels as E/C will need to be changed, to make it conform a new custom name?
AA has it right: this is about making it easier for people who really care a lot about spending time in attractive virtual environments to find such.Yes! That. Though, again, in my personal view there are levels I consider Scenic which don't exactly qualify as pretty. "Pestilence" by yohji would be another example of how a level's design can be strongly environment-focused without being pretty (with "Moonlight" serving as the counter-example for "Pestilence") and without meeting the other standards for Environmental, such as lack of challenge. Of course, since this thread's purpose is to establish a community-consensus term and definition, if others interested in a Scenic category feel it should be limited to aesthetically-pleasing, environment-focussed levels, I will go along with the consensus.
again, in my personal view there are levels I consider Scenic which don't exactly qualify as pretty.
Hmpf wins at succinctly stating what I've been trying to say.
[...]I don't think it wouldn't be a good idea to 'legalize' the Environmental/Challenge tag, because players searching for purely Environmental levels would find Challenge levels along with them; being able to search Environmental but not Challenge or Puzzle levels would need negative filters, and would make the filtering options too complicated.
Because LPChip would have to code a system that allows custom tags? :huh:Obviously. One of the Jack's major points is that such a thing would be unnecessary.
I have no idea, as I haven't read the topic.
^ It's not that simple. To quote myself:I suggested to implement a way of searching for levels that are environmental and not challenge but I don't think that will happen.Quote from: AA[...]I don't think it wouldn't be a good idea to 'legalize' the Environmental/Challenge tag, because players searching for purely Environmental levels would find Challenge levels along with them; being able to search Environmental but not Challenge or Puzzle levels would need negative filters, and would make the filtering options too complicated.
Besides, the filters in the game don't distinguish between primary and secondary tags, and even if the new archive implemented these additional tag semantics, there would still be the issue of older levels.
^ It's not that simple. To quote myself:I suggested to implement a way of searching for levels that are environmental and not challenge but I don't think that will happen.Quote from: AA[...]I don't think it wouldn't be a good idea to 'legalize' the Environmental/Challenge tag, because players searching for purely Environmental levels would find Challenge levels along with them; being able to search Environmental but not Challenge or Puzzle levels would need negative filters, and would make the filtering options too complicated.
Besides, the filters in the game don't distinguish between primary and secondary tags, and even if the new archive implemented these additional tag semantics, there would still be the issue of older levels.