Nifflas' Support Forum
Level Editing Support => Knytt Stories Level Previews => Topic started by: Headgrinder on July 29, 2010, 14:04:28
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I've been working on this project for approximately 6 months now with what little time I have (aprox 2 hours a week :sick:) and have been putting off a preview, mainly because I didn't want to spend the time to make a cool preview page like Elevator beneath the Valve (http://nifflas.lpchip.nl/index.php?topic=2781.0).
Then I realized, I can write!
Prologue:
The dream was so real, I was certain I would never wake up.
In it, I climbed the Dream Stones. Why do I call them the Dream Stones? I don't know, that is just what they are, hanging in the air like huge strings of liquid stone; the stuff of dreams. I climbed them upwards to reach a point of healing, and rest.
Then, to my shock, I awoke to my familiar, mundane room. The drapes hung placidly and stirred in the AC while my alarm blared the latest in purchased air time. But it didn't feel right. Something, like the sound of the world or the counting of the clock was wrong. When I finally looked out the window, I found out why. I hadn't awoke after all, and the Dream Stones floated everywhere in a bottomless, endless sky.
Details:
- Episodic level releases (at my current rate, probably only 1 episode each quarter)
- mini-endings at the end of each episode
- dreamlike atmosphere, with non-linear order, and locations changing randomly
- new areas will appear with each episode
- Almost all new tilesets (with minor mods to my Smooth Stones tileset)
- Plot, exploration, and scenery driven with minor puzzles and challenges
- Some puzzles will depend on supporting character development
- Each episode will expand into a small to medium sized area.
- End result will be a fairly large level of around 8-10 episodes.
-------Progress-------
Tilesets:
Smooth Stones tileset: png 90-100% done
Floating Homes tileset: sketch and development 100% done, png 60% done
White City tileset: png 80% done
Forest Tileset: png 70% done
Grey fortress: sketch and development 30% done, png not started yet.
Rusting industry tileset: png 55% done
Wastelands tileset: png 35% done
Dirtlands and furnace tileset: sketches 100% done, png 60% done.
Big Pipes inside: development 60% done
Big Pipes outside: development 60% done
Map development: 30% done
Plot development: 50% done
First episode map and plot: development 60% done, level not started
I'm focusing on finishing the tilesets first as a lot of the plot is embedded in their design. The plot is inherently fairly loose, more based on exploration and discovery than tight and precise progressions.
If anyone would like to help with any of the development, I would appreciate it. It would help get things rolling a lot quicker than I can alone, particularly tilesets. Though I'm pretty picky about what I'm wanting over all, there are details and whole areas.
One last comment, is that the tilesets I'm developing for this project are also exactly what I need for a future project. These are kind of my quintessential tilesets; the realms I'm most wanting to illustrate.
I wasn't going to add a screenshot because I'm really unsatisfied with them, but here ya go, early screen shots.
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wow nice :D
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Just a quick update, because I'll probably be obsessive about updates. Hey, they keep the thread alive. Hmmm... this thread is almost still born. Resurrect it then? ANNNNNYWAY...
I've decided to revamp my white city tileset. I had the trees and stuff as a part of that tileset, so I kept running out of room. Now I've removed the trees and will make that into a separate jungle tileset, which is as yet undeveloped. The revamp makes white city much much more versatile, though as always, more complex to use. I think all my tilesets are complex yet versatile.
I'm going to take a break from this again for about a week and try to force myself to do some of the writing I've been putting off for months.
I'll repeat my Q: How do you put pics in a spoiler quote?
Peace out y'all.
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This looks awesome cheering you on!
and i dont know how to put pis in spoiler so sorry :(
i swear the FAQ should have the answer thou....
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I liked the story a lot, very intriguing, especially for a KS level. As for the screens, well, frankly I liked them much less than your work in Thin Falls and Great Art. The cliffs you built in those levels had volume, they were arranged in interesting shapes, and so on. I can say the same about the plants in all screenshots you posted here, but not about the structures. The industrial screen mixes strictly 2D materials (land) with semi-3D materials (the pipes, the buildings...) and so the 3D looks unconvincing; it's even worse because both structures are simple rectangles. One could have a more interesting, convincing shape because of the hole, but the hole is right in the middle, very symmetrical, and again, very unconvincing. The first and third screens have a similar problem with shapes: just too simlistic, even the designs are just a single line twisted in symmetrical ways. The third screen is particularly odd, since the tileset looks like it was meant to represent an actual material, but the shapes suggest it's not (e.g. thin blocks of marble don't float).
That said, I'm still very interested in what you come up with! The story and the list of areas are both very promising.
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The story sounds very good. And as you said, they're early tilesets so I imagine they'll change. Though for a dream, a certain level of mixing of styles might be ok.
To put images in spoilers, you have to upload them to another site such as imageshack, then post them in the thread using image tags, inside of spoiler tags.
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Wow, those are some really cool screens! looking forward to this :)
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Thanks for all the comments and encouragement guys. And thanks for the strong critique yohji.
As for the screen shots, they are all tile development screens, not actual locations, and yes, as I said, I'm not happy with the layouts, just wanting to demo the tileset.
The main problem with the wasteland + rusting industrial is, I think, that the wasteland doesn't have texture added yet, and the rusting industrial has too much, ie not simplified yet. It was easier to make them look really real to start with and simplify them later than figure out how to make them simple to start with.
As for the white city shots, one of the themes of the whole level will be a sense of things floating in "an endless sky," similar to what I did for Great Art. So, I'm not necessarily working towards an accurate feel of gravity and sustainable structure, at least not where an area encounters the dream stones.
Anyhow, I feel I'm trying too hard to dissuade your criticism, when I should know full well that I'm best off learning form criticism, not trying to douse it. So, thanks again, I'll keep your thoughts in mind.
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These screens may not be perfect yet, but they do look promising, and, having seen some of your finished levels, they're quite enough to get me excited for this level! :)
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On putting attachments in spoilers, if the picture is attached in one post then it can be put in spoiler tags in another. Not very useful unless you have a preview thread and a release thread for the same level. Then, you could hide the pictures in the release thread without relying on 3rd party hosting.
By the way, the level graphics look promising.
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Rawr!
How's it going? Are things working out for you?
Hope for all the best!
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Slow but steady, I am a faithful plodder.
The forest tileset is close to done, and the white city is pretty much done. White city ts has lots of open space in it now, so I'm sure that will change. I'm also starting the Floating homes tileset. I'll update the %s on the first post.
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Slow but steady, I am a faithful plodder.
The forest tileset is close to done, and the white city is pretty much done. White city ts has lots of open space in it now, so I'm sure that will change. I'm also starting the Floating homes tileset. I'll update the %s on the first post.
Yey :D (yes i just posted one word, now 8 )
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quick update... in bold.
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An update! ... For those who care. And yes, this is painfully long, but it is thereputic for me to write it.
Ahh....
I'm still stuck in tileset development. I'm pretty handicapped in this area in that I'm a perfectionist on one hand, and very slow. I have to make a tileset about 200 ways that don't work before I find the one way that works right. As such, I may soon be posting all my tilesets on a development help thread to get input and suggestions. This will, of course, be a huge spoiler, but I would really like to move on, and that may not happen for a long time without extra help.
The main thing of note about the tilesets is that I'm abandoning the typical black outline to signify collisions. I know this is unpopular, but most of my tilesets rely on curved or rough terrain, also unpopular I know... bite me. XD I made that decision because... well, I had to! My envisioned aesthetic for this game was not compatible with the block style of traditional Knytt Stories, and anyway, this is not strictly a Knytt Story. I'm just using the game engine to tell my own story, as I know many others do.
So, the only good news coming from the tileset development delays is that I'm always working on the plot line, and I feel like it is shaping up nicely.
Now, a bit of a teaser, the ideas behind this game are actually based on a series of vivid and complex dreams I've had over the past 6 years. I've tried twice to write them into a story, but the stories always felt like video games, where various characters are solving puzzles which symbolize the psychological junk that has accumulated in their lives, and help them, symbolically to become free of that junk. But do I have the time, contacts and resources to make a game from the ground up? Nay dear friends, nay! An, but then comes the wondermous and fantastical Knytt Stories, like a knytt in shining armor riding in to the rescue!
I may have long delays in the future, but this game will continue. My heart is too dedicated to seeing it become a reality. The only way I will stop development as a knytt game is if the few game design buds I have decide they want to make it an actual for profit game which does not rely on the knytt stories engine. I'm not holding my breath for that though.
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Apparently you dream in color. I've never believed in that we dream in monochrome as studies have supposedly shown. Knytt Stories could lend itself to dream telling very well. I hadn't thought of it before, but the structure of my dreams would fit the KS framework quite well. Only issue is my dreams are about myself, not a dark-haired girl.
Good luck in this endeavor. As for putting your tilesets up for scrutiny. I would post screen shots made to show how they're meant to be used and the problems you're having with them. That way some things can be kept secret. However, to anyone reading this: The Nifforum will demand perfection. Non-perfectionist and those who can't take criticism be warned.
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Perfectionism is sometimes a good thing, as when all things are said and done, the end result will be premium quality. These tilesets already impress me, and I can't wait to see how the project will turn out.
Also, if you're going to forfeit the black outlines, at least make solids have something to make them stand out from the background objects. (Darkened colors on the edge of the ground tiles perhaps?) It's VERY detracting to a level in my opinion when it's hard to establish foreground objects from background objects.
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Yeah... updates... kinda. I haven't been working on this hardly at all; I've been sick and that has robbed me of my ambitions. However, I'm also stuck in tileset development land, and I hope you will join the discussion of that here:
http://nifflas.lpchip.nl/index.php?topic=4227.msg47143#msg47143
Oh, and thanks Ego and Glitch for the comments. I agree, I'm just taking a lot longer than I would like. :/ And yeah Ego, it would be nice to be able to make "Stories" instead of "Juni the Knytt Stories," but hey, don't look a gift horse in the mouth and all that stuff, right? And I'm more or less expanding on the plot of various dreams rather than telling the story of the dream itself. Yes, I've definitely always dreamed in color. Some people, I think, do dream in color simply because they've told me they have. But that is not my experience.
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Yeah... updates... kinda. I haven't been working on this hardly at all; I've been sick and that has robbed me of my ambitions.
I hope you're feeling better now! I wish I could help with tileset advice, but my tileset skills are horrible. Anyway, the new screenshots look very good, not just the forest but the rest too; I like where this level is going visually. Much more inspiring to me than the earlier screens!
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Still totally stuck on tilesets. (Please check the tileset thread I link above if you don't mind giving me some suggestions)
I'm starting a small-medium sized level using a few tilesets I made for this level, but which I was never sure would totally fit. I'll make a preview thread for that soon. Point of me bringing it up here, is that is yet another delay, plus the trend may be to go ahead and break this MASSIVE project up into its various parts. Almost every part of this project is based off of dreams i've had, and I do think they can all be stand alone. I just thought it would be amazing to have them all under one plot. I'm beginning to think that even my hard core self has not the ability to put up with so little head way (and player comments) for so long.
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Wait...
"I'm beginning to think that even my hard core self has not the ability to put up with so little head way (and player comments) for so long."
is that a comment that is saying.. that this might not get done, that you could give up?
so what if you have little headway... as long as something is happening is a-okay.. just keep working and stuff! (yeah im not that great at being an optimist or supporter)
anyway the morale of the story is that there will be people cheering you on, that will be patiently waiting and etc.. (as i said, not great at this thing)
you'll eventually get past this tileset creation block and be back on your feet. (i pressume you have two feet and have not lost one in a fishing accident)
and yeah... X-P thats my ..umm ..yeah ... im gonna stop typing... :crazy:
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I can understand the frustration of working without too much reaction from the public, I've worked on countless projects in similar circumstances. For one thing, like Strange Darkness said, there are people here who're waiting for this. And furthermore, there are many more people who will check out the level. Look at the releases board, even for levels that received one or two comments there are dozens of views. Not a lot of people commented on most of my levels, but from my website stats I know dozens have downloaded them and played them. It's just the way people are, most are too lazy to give any sort of feedback, even if they like the level very much.
My point is, even with little reaction from the public you can still work on your projects and finish them. Doing something you enjoy and feeling the sense of accomplishment once its done is terrific by itself, no? As for players, like I outlined in the above paragraph, don't doubt for a second that a lot of people are going to check the level out. And I'm sure your level will get reactions once its finished, since people tend to like larger levels with interesting storylines ;)
upd: Also, look at the current KS competition! Right now there are some really ridiculous, difficult rules to comply with, and yet there already are four entries... some of which are quite original in concept. I don't think a dying community would've produced something like that, hmm? :)
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yohji is exactly right here. I keep tabs on a lot of projects around here, though I seldom make posts -- though not because I am lazy, just because I'm afraid I'll start posting too much and it will take up too much of my increasingly limited time. This level is very beautiful, and I am fascinated by its origins in dream, which is quite a fascinating subject in itself. I am highly anticipating its completion, as I am sure many of us less vocal people are. I hope you find the motivation and inspiration to finish it, as it will likely find itself welcomed among the great classics if you do. Best of luck! :)
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Thank you both for your responses. (Edit: 3 of you... yeah pie_sniper, I can relate to posting too much. I probably in fact do that.) I can't disagree with anything you guys said, but it has been a weird several weeks on the forums and I've been getting discouraged. I'm here because I love the interaction, the mutual feedback system of give and take, encourage and return encouragement. I find that environment very invigorating. And it was like that for quite a while, but lately every comment I leave and every thread I start just lies around dead. :sick:
At any rate, I haven't decided to abandon anything yet, but if the trend of dead threads continues i just might give up on a project of this size and complexity. It would be much easier and rewarding to do the various stories individually... unless of course I've got people who encourage and help me when I'm stuck. Perhaps, after I make my next level, and perhaps after a few others from stories that don't fit as well into the whole, I'll pick this back up.
One thing is for certain, I will be needing help getting my tilesets in order. Egomassive gave me some insight, but it was not enough to get the ball rolling again. So here is that link again! :crazy:
http://nifflas.lpchip.nl/index.php?topic=4227.msg47143#msg47143
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At any rate, I haven't decided to abandon anything yet, but if the trend of dead threads continues i just might give up on a project of this size and complexity. It would be much easier and rewarding to do the various stories individually... unless of course I've got people who encourage and help me when I'm stuck.
It would be understandable if you gave up because of that; it would be neither the first, nor the last case. Not everyone can keep working on a huge project while public feedback and encouragement is lacking. But for those who persist, the effort always pays off at the end.
I hope you too can find inspiration outside public feedback, get through the drought and finish your project, so we can all enjoy another epic story. :)
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One thing you have to take into consideration about preview threads, is a lot of them never lead to finished levels. The community knows this. I for one try not to get excited about prospective releases, but I do try to encourage promising previews.
Personally, I don't want to create hype for my levels. I do enjoy the encouragement I get from preview threads, but I make levels because I like to. My greatest motivation comes from within. When I'm in a slump, I re-read the old comments people have left me. Even if the posters are not around anymore their impressions are still valid.
If you want to generate some buzz, I suggest releasing some screen shots. Just restrain yourself from revealing what you want to keep hidden.
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So Sergio recently reminded me of this thread, so I thought I would update it. This particular version of this idea died when my old lap top died. I am working on a similar project now in a similar world but a different story. I DID re-discover all the lost work though, which is basically just tileset work.