Haven't finished the level yet, but I found a void screen:
On the screen above the one you get the high jump power-up, go right and you'll hit a void.
Also, this level needs way more save points, if you ask me. Part of the reason I ran into that void was because I wanted to use a save point on the other screen.
More detailed analysis will come when I have finished the level.
Only just started, really, but this level is at least the far end of Hard, more likely Very Hard. I like the look of it, though, and the concept is really good.
Edit: I will say it's really nice to get a new VH level that's so interesting so I wouldn't personally want to see the jumps shortened, or anything otherwise watered down, and though it definitely needs some more saves, possibly not to go too crazy with them; the first area's fine (in my biased opinion) up until the high jump powerup, it just needs one save before (or maybe after) the fireball-spitting enemies. Maybe both if you wanted to try toning it down to Hard but I think that'd be a shame.
The corrupt area is perfect on the save front (and on all other aspects aswell), wouldn't change anything about it. I got a bit lost for a while at one point but that was just me being dull-witted.
This level feels a bit like Going Left, in a funny sort of way, and has the potential to be is, like that, an exceptional level in my opinion.
I've played through to the two normal endings now and I've gotta say, my first impressions were way off, this is a fascinating level and well worth working at.
I assume there's more I have to find since I picked up a single key on my way through and didn't really explore in the two final areas.
Is there any use at all for the purple key? I've looked everywhere I can think of and not found a lock but I can see it being purely a red herring, given where it's found, which would be as nice a touch as a further ending :P
I'll start over now and see how I feel about the first dozen-or-so screens second time round.
Edit: Okay, definitely that one save I mentioned before but I think it's otherwise fine. I'm working round that lack by using the save one screen left of the high-jump at the moment but it's really counter-intuitive.
I could do with a second opinion on the difficulty from someone more experienced at Hard-Very Hard levels than me. I got through a lot more easily second time through but that could just be all the practice :P
If you jump down at x1017y1000 (I know, why would I..? but..) then x1017y1001 - x1018y1001 is a wallswim.
Jumping up or right from x1001y1003 is a void, as is down or right from x1001y1004.
Ugh. Seems like I left lots of voids behind. Will fix that soon.
About the lack of saves on the beginning, sorry about that. What I was going for was this:
I know most Knytt Stories players like to explore, and the first thing they are going to try when given a direct order, is to disobey that order, to see how far the game lets you go. This game is supposed to let you go not far at all if you disobey, so to enforce that, I used few save points in the beginning. This way people would prefer to obey right away than to try different things when they already expect to die. But I guess that didn't work very well, part of me knew that it was unfair on some parts (even I was frustrated while testing), sorry for rushing it :(
To Widget:
About the key... Well there was supposed to be no key at all. There were originally 3 keys throughout the level, but for some reason I decided that I didn't want to waste time making a third ending and instead of adding a 4th key, just removed all the others. The thing is, I forgot there were multiple versions of the screen with the purple key, and only removed one of them.
I will try to make this a more playable level, I really didn't mean it to be a Hard or Very Hard one, because I myself don't like those that much. For now I will change the difficulty on the topic name untill I fix it, maybe it will still be Hard but not as annoying. For those who gave up on the level, sorry if that was because of the misleading difficulty tag, I suggest that you only try again when I update it.
Thanks for the feedback.
Aw, I'm sad to hear you're going to be making it easier though I can see why. I think the format works very well as a difficult level as it reinforces the impression of being someone's pawn. The limited save points also worked really well, it could just use one a couple of tiles left of the high jump; that was the only part that felt a bit excessive. There was that save I ended up using (which worked just as well) but I only found that was still there by accident.
If you don't mind I'm going to keep and treasure this first version as I meant everything I said about it; it's a fantastic level as it is (excusing the voids).
even up to and including the useless key :P
It only really suffered for being mislabelled as Normal, I think; what people got was not what they were expecting.
Great level :)
x1013y1001, x1013y1000 - void to the right.
x999y998 - void if you go up (possible with double jump).
x1013y986 - void if you go right.
x998y1003, x999y1002 - wall-swim if you go up.
x1012y1007 - instead of taking the player back to where he chooses who to side with the door ends the game.
This was fun. Nice tiles and animations. The only part I didn't like was the...
screen where you had to walk on grass. I always try to jump through the corners of those kill zones even though I know they're there.
Anyway, the story was well written. The do-as-you're-told concept seems to be really popular lately. This example is as good as any other I've seen.
Wow there are some voids and wallswims here that I have no idea how they even happened. Thanks for pointing them out, everyone.
Version 1.2 is up with fixed voids and wallswims, most of them from GrayFace's post.
I'm glad that I didn't upload the first version to the level archive, I hate having multiple versions there.
x1012y1007 - instead of taking the player back to where he chooses who to side with the door ends the game.
But that was never what was supposed to happen... Why did you think that was the point? The door says "exit", I put a "win" object there on purpose so the game would end.
But now I'm thinking that could actually be a good idea.
Beware; this is my honest, hard-hearted, unadulterated opinion from immediately after playing once:
The only thing between this and being a great level is the massive shortage of save points.
As it is, it's frustrating, annoying and mean.
The only screen that's overly cruel is the 'walk only on the grass' screen where you constantly skid off and die at the end of difficult jumps, of which there are many in that screen. Fix that, be a lot more generous with save points, and this will be brilliant. Right now, my curiosity at discovering the second ending is foiled by my aversion to playing through the whole level a second time.
On positive:
I only played to the green ending (I actually meant to do the other way but picked the wrong statue without thinking) but in the 'evil area' you do a pretty good job convincing the player that she doesn't mean you harm, even after she's directed you so badly. The way she stops giving you orders when she tries to draw you onto her side, is cleverly done. It might have been more potent if all her directions weren't so immediately fatal, but never mind. If I'd played both endings I'd probably say more, but as I said I just found the level too aggravating.
I must admit I never tried re-entering the door, I just kind of assumed that after choosing a statue you'd be locked out forevermore as happens in heroic fantasy and suchlike. I figured the room with the statues wasn't so much an actual "room" in a defined place, taking up space somewhere as an allegorical tool. As such, though I can see the appeal of getting both endings in one shot, I think it'd lose something if you could pass back through the door and end up in the same place... even moreso if you could end up in the same place before you made the decision and change your mind.
None of the other doorways behave that way so if that one did it'd break the immersion a bit, in my opinion. Still, if it did go in I wouldn't be forced to use it :P
If there's plot fork near the end of a game that gives different endings, I think it's a good Idea to allow the player to go back and take the other path after the credits roll. Sometimes there's more things to see or find once the game's won, but save points near the game's end may not allow backtracking. In these cases it's a good idea to use a shift to play the final scene, then move the player to a room outside of the normal map that allows them to continue playing or exit. Choosing to continue returns the player to a neutral location where free exploration is allowed, like in A Strange Dream. Since there isn't free exploration in this level, you should put the player at or just before the crucial plot fork.
ETA: spoiler tags
I'd agree with Ego; I like how his levels let you pick a new route post-credits (though I say this in the knowledge that I just deliberately made a level where this is impossible, though I hope I can get away with this as making that decision was the whole reason for the level's existence).
In the interest of criticism and mutual support, I'm gonna post my specific ideas about the nastiest sections and screens in this level, using diagrams where appropriate. I hope I don't sound presumptuous, especially after how utterly I've let you down after I said I'd test 'Time Fixes Everything' (sorry :( )
If you or anyone else disagrees with what I say, they're more than welcome to say so.
The rules of each screen tend to apply to only each screen, so when you reach the start of 1013/1001 you're panicking 'cus you don't know how long the invisible blocks are going to allow you to live. Therefore you try and make this jump from as far as possible and land it and skid into the killer grass, or you are busy panicking and mess up the jump over the killer grass. Since you're within sight of the next save but you've had to overcome some excrutiatingly difficult jumps in the screen with the saves that will have killed you several times, killing yourself several times out of sheer instinct in the jump upgrade screen, and terrifying yourself walking over invisible blocks that have no right to be there in this screen; at this stage you're beginning to consider tracking down the person who made this level and making them eat their own ears. If you put a block of land starting in the bottom right corner (above the water of course) of 1012/1001 to make a safe platform into the next screen that'd go a long way to help. But please don't make the jump between this platform and the one that is currently first in 1013/1001 too difficult or players will still skid into the grass on landing, and still want to make you eat your own ears.
I'll put this simply; the 3-across/1-high jumps in this screen are hard, when you don't have the corners of the blocks cut out. Your tileset does have the corners of those blocks cut off, therefore making these jumps not hard but Hard. And when you make a Hard jump, you don't want to let go of the left/right key, which means that when you land you 'skid' at least one block beyond the block you landed on. When that block has a kill-point the jump goes from Hard to AAAAAARRRRRGHHHHH*gurgle*. Please, give us two blocks to land on and, on the second of those jumps, two blocks to run up from. Remake the shape of the level to keep the other evilly hard jumps if you must but give us mercy on these two!
Two things here. Firstly, this screen in GOING to kill the player and you haven't deigned to let them save for five flipping screens! I know they weren't hard screens but FIVE! Sending me back five screens without giving me a chance of survival is adding your nose to your ear sandwich!
Ok, I'm calm. For this screen itself, I think what you were trying to do was create a screen where they player had to react within a split second to survive. A fun idea but very difficult to make and even to test because of course, once you know what's in there you don't need the split second hesitation any more. However, I shall tell you my belief; it is impossible to get through the screen on the first go. If you want it to be a die-and-try-again, please be nicer with saves. Top tip: as a designer your role isn't to compete against the player but to give them a good time. (You can kind of see the shift in my levels as I was working that out.) If it's a fast-reactions screen, make it significantly easier. Put maybe one (or if you insist, one row of) chaser(s) right in the top right corner. You can create a sense of peril without actually sticking a knife in someone's back. Levels that use those chasers well, like 'Monocromattica Grotta', give you a lot of space to avoid them. Test the screen by seeing if you can survive it after waiting a good half-second (we game players are a slow-thinking bunch; staring at a screen all day rots your brain you know) before acting.
(http://nifflas.lpchip.nl/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=5153.0;attach=6195;image)
A: Difficult jump.
B: Very difficult jumps.
C: Surprise death. This area has encouraged the player to take the less obvious route, so I'm assuming this is deliberate murder. Remember the top tip.
D: Very very difficult jump that will kill you again and again and again.
E: A pair of screens containing some ruthlessly hard jumps which will also kill you again and again, and lots of empty spaces that are perfect, just perfect, for the placing of save points that would have made me concede to allow you to keep your nose and maybe one of your ears. There needs to be a save point in the screen after this one. not letting me save between that last jump here and the difficult jumps in screen 999/993 (that took me some searching) is, well... a game should be fun, and not having a save there stops it being fun.
That is my only complaint about the dark area; one lack-of-save. Otherwise, it has a great atmosphere, encourages curiosity like the previous area restricts it, and has a brilliant narrative from the Evil Voice. The jump you orchestrate in screen 1002/1000 is a very, very clever piece of level design.
The mountain-climbing in this screen and the one after it is very tricky; it'd be nice to have a save after the grey bouncers, since they just make a slow challenge where your speed is dependant on dumb luck. Some challenges you just want to throw yourself at again and again unimpeded, and this mountain to climb is one of them. Consider placing moving the save in the grey bouncer screen to the left side, and placing a save in the screen below that as well. Nothing wrong with throwing lots of saves at the player when you're putting them through a lot of hard work.
There are a few other minor things I could point out but for me, those are the big things that drove me to the edge of destroying all humans. I've played to both endings now and I like the story, the contrast between the two possibilities (won't go into detail 'cus I'm sick of spoiler tags by now) is cleverly done. This has the makings of a really good level as I said before, and I'd love to see it achieve that.
Every level we make teaches us a bit more about how to design well. It's one of the great things about designing for KS, that we can watch ourselves getting better and better at it.
First of all, about the ending discussion:I thought about it a bit, and this is what I think: If I ever do any major changes in this level, making it possible to go back to the only choice you have won't be one of those changes. I really don't believe that everyone has to see every ending of a game to have the full experience, when I play games with multiple choices, I go with the path that makes more sense to me, so in the end, I have something slightly more personal. Of course this is a simple level with only two endings, but I think it still applies. I understand the curiosity behind seeing the other alternatives, but I don't see why I should make it easy to go against the purpose of having different endings.
Now, relatively to Talps' post:
I'll start by saying that in no way I get your post in the wrong way, I am really glad that you spend the time to make such an elaborate list of suggestions and opinions, it really shows that at least someone cares even a little :)
Funny, I was kind of expecting someone to complain about thinking the rules still applied on other screens, but as it turns out the opposite happened. Also, I laughed out loud with the ears thing :D
I think I'm gonna make the "don't touch the floor here" jump easier by putting two invisible blocks on the sides. Still, I have to consider it, I'm really not sure how to act here as I have completely opposite opinions on the difficulty problem.
The truth is, and I've been having this problem since I started on "Time Fixes Everything", making levels as hard as this one kind of makes me a hypocrite. I give up on other people's levels very easily when I'm frustrated, or at least I used to, bur for some reason I keep making these way to hard sections. After succeeding for a first time, it is almost impossible for me to fail a jump again so from then on it seems really easy. I also think Time Fixes Everything made me really good at challenges where everything is static, like the screenshot Talps posted, but I'm really bad with other enemies, so that may be why some parts are way too hard.
I will almost definitely not make any major edits to this level, unless I wake up some day with a sudden urge to do exactly that (wouldn't be the first time), I will instead learn from all this and be sure to make my next level one that people can really enjoy.
The reason why I'm not willing to make any major changes to this level is because the concept I had in mind was actually very different from what I ended up with, so I really don't feel a need to perfect it. Thanks to everyone who gave their opinion, I hope more people can tell me what they think.
Now instead of level design I'd like to talk about the "story" of the level. have a few questions, maybe people aren't supposed to do this with stuff that is meant to be interpreted, but I will anyway:How did you interpret the ending? Did you feel like there was a good ending and a bad ending?
While I didn't have a specific message to transmit with the level, I tried to pass trough a certain idea. What I wanted was for it to seem like there wasn't a good ending, for people to regret making the choice they made. Now that I think about it, maybe that is a bit harsh, but it was my intention. The idea was that the "green" ending felt sort of like a good ending, but I wanted it to be clear that it also meant the end of freedom, while the "purple" ending allowed you to be free but then all that other evil stuff happens as well. But I fear that maybe the "no freedom" message may have not been clear, I never wanted there to be a good and a bad ending, just to endings that were both bad in a way.
both good and bad. One offered you a safer world but at the cost of you losing absolutely all your freedom. The other gave you a dangerous, corrupted world in which you were free to do as you wished and, since you're Juni, probably fix in your own way :p
I liked that it wasn't black and white, and I think your intended story came across well.
I've reconsidered my last post. In this case, I think the player should have to replay the whole level to get the other ending. This is mainly because of the story. Most of the screens tell the story, and to re-read them after making a choice is nearly as interesting as making the other choice. I guess the problem here is that some of the challenges are pretty frustrating. We just don't want to deal with them again.
I got the right meaning to the green end, but not the purple end. With the green end I didn't question that I made the wrong choice, but there was a definite uneasiness. However, with the purple end the pros were too slight compared to the cons. Doing whatever I want in a spike-filled death-trap planet is hardly slightly good.
It's strange that I haven't thought about it before, but here's how the ending should go:
No save-shifts, no room with "Exit" door at all. Instead, just endings merged with credits. Technically, the doors that show cutscenes would instead shift player into a copy of the screen with win tiles over door. This way the game would end and feel complete, but can be continued normally from the last save point.
x1013y1000: instead of 16:2 objects over the ground, I'd suggest putting 16:6 in the ground and moving the ground to layer 2 in these places. You'll need some new not-full tiles on layer 3 too. For KS Ex the attached script, when put into the world folder, would leave only 1-pixel line of these objects.
I did also dislike x1008y1004, but mostly because I've spent quite an amount of time already on that save point, disobeying and looking at lower screens, consequently falling into water. Perhaps removing most of red drones and lowering the grass obstacle would make this screen right, giving the player enough time to react.
x1000y999: Indeed a save point is needed after this screen.
P.S. Here is an interesting thing I've just discovered: if you put an autosave square-shaped shift-on-touch shift and Win on the same tile, you would see the game end, but when you load last save point you would appear where that shift takes you. (this needs checking in KSDS)
I almost got the meaning you seem to have been intending (the corrupt ending as choosing freedom at the cost of safety, the "green" ending as safety at the cost of freedom) but I mistook it for the monotheistic religion black/white choice. Humility and the sacrifice of self to a benevolent power on the green side against self-determination and the pursuit of personal power. I got that they're both shades of grey, I just mention black/white as it's the usual interpretation of the concept :P
I liked this level, the complete dichotomy between the two areas was well done (the music being a big part of that for me). I had a lot of trouble on one screen in particular, 'walk only on grass', because I didn't see that text for the first 5 or so times and thought that you'd carried the 'don't touch the grass' rule over but only selectively. After I saw it, it was just some difficult jumps.
As for the philosophy of the story, I was going to suggest that the line "don't trust her" was unnecessary and that the player should be allowed to learn not to trust the dark entity by themselves (i.e. following her instructions only to be led to death), but then I realised that the light entity would have to say it in order to be consistent.
I did wonder for a time if they might end up to be the same entity, just trying to teach the character not to be so trusting of everybody, but I guess that's not the direction you wanted to take.
I also questioned why the light entity would send you to the dark place at all, but I guess it also wanted to help you become stronger with the powerups, but knew they were in 'her' dominion.
In the end, I felt both parties to be wrong. They each wanted total control over the world, including the destruction of the other entity, it's just that only the dark entity was honest about that. If I could, I'd have left both statues there and used my new powerups to explore both worlds more, leaving the entities to sort it out between themselves (of course, that could come across as me being selfish and ungrateful, so I guess there's no 'right' answer :P)