Nifflas' Support Forum
Temporary => Knytt Stories Level Releases => Topic started by: Raicuparta on January 24, 2011, 15:02:17
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So after months of not caring about this, I finished it. Sort of.
I just wanted to release the level, so I kind of rushed it. Not happy about it, though.
This turned out to be far from what I expected, but I hope someone will give me some feedback on this so I know if I should make a new, longer and better version, because this one just ended up not making any sense.
Here are some screens of the early versions:
http://img339.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=14294628.png
The final version looks quite different.
I created the simple tilesets, and also made some animated objects, check them out.
DOWNLOAD (http://knyttlevels.com/levels/Raicuparta%20-%20Kera.knytt.bin)
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First and foremost, don't advertise your levels like that. People won't be inspired to play your level if they read you are not happy about it and that it doesn't make any sense.
That said, the level shows absolutely terrific potential. Those COs are perfect, the visuals are perfect, all the hard work that must've went into this sure paid off. The dialogue was nice and funny. The settings were very realistic. That night sky you made is just beautiful, and made me want to see more of that strange place. Those homes in sepia colors were very fitting, too, and the entire landscape had a good atmosphere. I really enjoyed this and hope you'll make a sequel, or perhaps an expanded version?
The problems I noticed were:
- somewhat poor balance between exploration and plot/dialogues; but this is definitely due to the unfinished nature of the level
- when you go to Quners' house to learn how to climb, the child's text isn't set
- the blond woman CO; just personal opinion here
- the passages inside rocks - they were intuitive, but not very convincing as passages
All in all, this is a terrific job, and you should most definitely believe in yourself a bit more, and expand this into something bigger :) And I'm pretty sure you'd come up with good results if you just continue adding area after area the way you did here. If you want pointers on how to develop stories and levels, you could check the KS Round Robin thread in Collaborations, and learn from the recent discussions there perhaps. Good luck!
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You have no idea how happy you just made me with that post. Thank you :)
I actually think that one post is enough for me to do a new level, I'll probably extend it isntead of makeing a new one.
EDIT: Also, I don't think I should take credit for that night sky. I'm pretty sure I just took an existing background and changed the colour and added a gradient. But I can't really remember that very well...
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You're welcome :) Also, I do hope my reply won't be the only one, people seriously need to check out those COs.
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Well, I play them all especially since level making has come to a slow crawl.
I agree with Yohji. You're too hard on yourself! As I've said countless times here in the forum, I'm not a level maker but I know what I like. The CO's are really kewl.
You have some really good potential and should continue. I thought what dialogue you had was funny. Made me laugh a couple of times.
I just wanted more!
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In agreement with Yohji and lamar on this, that's a very impressive level. I really like the visual style and the CO work is exemplary, some of the best I've seen.
A few issues (as expected in an unfinished level) but nothing major. I sincerely hope you stick with it, I'm really looking forward to what else you might produce.
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I am working on the level at the moment, thank you for the feedback.
Not only will I be adding new areas (that is, different themed areas), but I'm also extending the existing areas. This is to avoid the game being 50% dialog.
Also, I'll probably rework the story, because there pretty much wasn't any atm.
The reason I was so pessimistic about it was because I started doing the level just for the story, then I got bored and didn't even get the time to work on that, because I put a lot of work into the tilesets and COs. I never thought the visuals would be what people liked the most about this, I'm really happy with everyone's feedback.
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I beat it quite quickly. I can don't have many complaints, but pretty much the only thing that is worth mention is that I see how you tried to put in some humor, but it wasn't great. Anyway, I really can't wait for the sequel, because I think you're great at COs (kind of) and that you have the amazing ability to make stuff.
Good luck, son.
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Beautiful, fun, and witty. The humor was spot-on, the level design was great, and the visuals were stunning.
I'm looking forward to seeing you finish this completely! :^^:
Good luck in your future stories, and may the Nifflas be with you. :P
EDIT:
Forgive me for asking, but I couldn't help but notice a few name references to a certain Kenneth Oppel series. A few, mostly. But it's still alot. Forgive me, just my nerd-o-factor kicking in. Wait, is that a Star Wars reference? How scandalous! *snort*
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Beautiful, fun, and witty. The humor was spot-on, the level design was great, and the visuals were stunning.
I'm looking forward to seeing you finish this completely! :^^:
Good luck in your future stories, and may the Nifflas be with you. :P
EDIT:
Forgive me for asking, but I couldn't help but notice a few name references to a certain Kenneth Oppel series. A few, mostly. But it's still alot. Forgive me, just my nerd-o-factor kicking in. Wait, is that a Star Wars reference? How scandalous! *snort*
Thank you very much, but I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
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I thought this was a great level. I enjoy this silohette style so this level was great visually. The game play wasn't 100% but you made up for it by making every screen really attractive. Looks like you've got a lot of potential with future levels.
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I enjoyed this level, The CO's were very well designed.
I did find a few voids and errors, and I somehow went through the cutscene with Marina again after I talked to the Quners. Might want to check that out.
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Good work. The graphics are pretty. The story is intriguing. I'm looking forward to the rest of it.
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Wow, really nice level their, dude. I personally have to admit, I don't like the style it is done in, because I personally get always so depressed with not-so happy design, but it doesn't change the fact, that it looked pretty good all in all, it is just something personal. Other than that, I don't think there was bad story or something. The story even had potential on which you could've expandd, hope you do... and BTW... sorry for asking, but everybody talks about them, what are COs?
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@ TennyJaden: CO = custom object; an animated image that is not part of the default program. About a third of the people in this level are custom. So are the cows, the mill, and probably more things I can't think of right now.
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Basically, everything that is animated and wasn't in the base game, is a CO :)
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Wow, even despite its flaws that was a seriously beautiful level, very eerie and mysterious... I'd love to see more.
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Again, thank you all for the great feedback.
I'm actually redoing the entire world, from scratch, and I'm going for a less linear aproach now, and a much larger world. In fact, that dark area in the beginning is now probably as big as the entire game was before. It gets pretty confusing but I think I'll manage.
I'm just not sure if I should follow the same storyline, or try something a bit more mysterious, and less dialog. What do you guys think?
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I think you'll probably get almost as many opinions as there are people on the forum :P
I like the sense of mystery and exploration in levels with little or no dialogue, personally, but you should go with whatever sounds more interesting to play or fun to make for you. It's probably possible to make levels for other peoples' tastes but I don't imagine it'd be as much fun.
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Here are my philosophies on lengthy dialogue.
- Start your story with action. The sooner a player can "play the game" the better. When people sit down to play a game they want to play, not read, not watch. On a side note this opening action is where familiarization with the basic controls takes place. If a tutorial is needed then the basics are laid out here.
- Then, hook the player. Before you start expounding on the story, spark the players interest. This will make them want to know what is going on, and they'll read some dialogue that might explain it with interest.
- Once the player is hooked, you can throw some dialogue at them, but the amount of dialogue they'll gladly read is proportional to their interest. Typically, the longer the game has been played the longer the dialogue can get.
- Finally, balance action with non-action. Build the intensity then let it settle down. In many games this takes the form of dangerous dungeons balanced against safe towns with lightly difficult spaces between. In story driven games, the most intense action (e.g. boss battle) is followed by the biggest story chunks. Now the story acts as a reward and a punctuation at the end of player accomplishments as well as much needed breaks in the action.
Last bit of advice, remember you're making a video game, not a book or movie. Think about what the differences are and emphasize the game.
All in all, I think you're doing it right. Start with action, check. Hook player before dialogue, check. Maintain balance, needs work, but it sounds like you're already heading towards a better balance with the extended opener. I'd say save the conversation with Marina until later.
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Wow, egomassive, that's going to be a lot of help :)
I may even not have any cut-scenes at all, keep the dialog as it usually is, with the protagonist being silent, I think it adds to the mystery. I'm just not sure if I'll follow the same storyline, it made sense when I started doing this (which was kind of a long time ago) but now it seems kinda silly. My priority right now will be making larger, better looking areas, and eventually more CO's. I'm also trying better strategies for where I should place the power-ups. But the storytelling, I'm gonna save that for much later.
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I'll be posting info on the new level here:
http://nifflas.lpchip.nl/index.php?topic=4721
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I finally played this today, and it was awesome. I look forward to work you produce in the future very much.
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Basically: what everyone said. What you have here so far is lovely (with some very, *very* minor flaws, negligible, really), esp. atmosphere and graphics - great, original style there. Looking forward to seeing more of this.