Wow! This level began development sometime around August 2010. And now, at last, it's here! My second epic-length level:
When I was a Child
I Dreamed of the Sky
Download me! (http://www.mediafire.com/?8ofdevdk8xw20tm)
Mirror! (http://www.sendspace.com/file/mhw56c)
Mirror! (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32397399/Talps-IDreamedoftheSky.knytt.bin)
Juni has lived all her life in a tiny, underground village, told stories of monsters that dwell in the tunnels above, and yet her dreams are full of bright lights, open spaces and myriad other wonders that her reality lacks, and perhaps it's better to die seeking a mythical light than to dwell your whole life in shadow. On her journey towards the unknown world above, she will begin to uncover the mystery of why her people live in hiding, squalor and fear, as her actions disturb a long-sleeping danger.
I Dreamed of the Sky features a complex plot, bucket-loads of custom graphics, flags, cutscenes and my first attempt at a large puzzle. It's many screens long with over an hour's worth of gameplay.
Turn down the lights and turn up the volume. Explore, discover, awaken and dream...
(For anyone who plays and likes this and fancies a bit more of a challenge, you can check out the original, harder versions of the upper levels (http://nifflas.lpchip.nl/index.php?topic=5399.0).)
Being used as a defence against the robots
I like what LPchip said about Level 4. I was trying to make it a little bit Zelda-ish, and it's fairly straight forward when you know how it's done. You've seen one or two things in the level that you know you want before you turned the console on. Just focus on working out how to reach them.
It is pretty text-heavy. There's a lot of story to tell and sadly that's the easiest way to tell it, especially in the context of the setting. But there aren't many bits of story you actually need to read - mostly they're just telling the story, and I can only think of three that contain particularly important information for the player.
Still, I did say I wanted to use KS as a medium for strong storytelling, and that isn't everyone's cup of tea.
But thanks everyone for your positive comments; it's really great to hear what's being liked. :D Hopefully I can learn from the positive and negative criticism as I go on.
Man, now I want tea.
Just finished it, and and it was really enjoyable, just a great level. I just got a little confused by something:
There was a final twist where Juni turns out to have the same DNA as the general. I didn't really understand what this meant, the only way this could happen is if they were clones or identical twins. Did I miss some of the backstory? I understand if this is something we're supposed to interpret for ourselves and you prefer to let me think about it, but maybe I'm just seeing it all wrong.
By the way, you really managed to make the player feel the connection to the character Micah without actually ever seeing him/her, I found myself looking forward to finally meeting that character by the end, which is a nice motivation. Not saying I was disappointed by not meeting Micah though, I get a feeling part of your concept from the start was that we would come across no other characters :)
She's actually her descendant. has enough of Baccarin's DNA for a not-very-imaginative machine to get confused. And, you know, it's a small population with a not very diverse gene-pool.
Glad you like that aspect of the story. And yeah, it's a lonely world Juni's climbing into. It's an odd duality, how she's seeking companionship but also very definitely leaving it behind. Depending on what remains of the world above, she might be heading into a very empty world, encouraging her commitment to rescue the people below as soon as she can.
In other news, I can't fit any more levels in my signature and I'm at a loss as to how to solve this dilemma.
Just finished the level. Pretty fun! The challenges were fairly varied and enjoyable for the most part, particularly a few instances involving shifts that suddenly presented Juni with immediate danger with juuusssst enough time to react. That's much more fun than having an impossibly short time to react and passing on the second attempt, so kudos there. :)
A few things that could stand addressing, though...
#1: Towards the beginning (level eight I think) after you get the high jump powerup, you need to jump up from a certain screen to continue. One of the "false" openings in the ceiling has Juni jumping up and hitting her head on an insta-death laser trap, sending the player back a few screens to contend with the laser traps again. That was very annoying and the level would be better off without it in my opinion.
#2: Not sure if this is intended as part of the challenge, but climbing the pipes in the water tanks section is awkward due to the cross-sections; Juni keeps bumping her head! If this isn't intended, you may want to put invisible blocks over the pipes to smooth out the surfaces for easier climbing.
Other than that, the level was pretty fun! Looking forward to future installments to get a bit more closure on the story. :)
In other news, I can't fit any more levels in my signature and I'm at a loss as to how to solve this dilemma.
Just show the newest levels?
Brilliant level. Although...
That part with the water tanks made me go >(, because I had the exact same idea a couple of years ago and never did anything with it. Curse you, Talps!
Not only does the level have a very intresting graphical style, but the design of the challenges is amazing.
The parts where you were chased always effected me in the same way
"Oh god no, not these guys" :shocked:
"Gah! he's catching up" :whoa: "How long is this segment?!"
"Oh my god, I did it. YES!" :D
That's a good feeling :)
The only complaint I got is that it wasn't very clear what I had to go after solving the pumping station puzzle, and as a result I got stuck there for a while. It took me some time to realize I could go over the broken elevator cage (at first, I didn't think you could fit through there). Then again, it's been a long time since I last played KS, so I'm not exactly the sharpest player out there :P