Nifflas' Support Forum
Released Games => Knytt Underground => Topic started by: MallowyGoodness on March 23, 2013, 16:23:20
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(All of these were done on the PS3 version of the game)
- Flowers don't always respawn properly. Observed in the secret "Fireworks" area of the intermission where several red flowers are on screen at once. Might only effect this one room.
- You can open the inventory and the map (and possibly the pause screen as well, I haven't checked) at the same time, so I might go to close my map, and find that the inventory opens instead, and then flail around on the buttons for a while before I gain the composure to figure out the right order to get back to the game. Would be fixable by making each menu button tell every other menu to close when pressed.
- It is possible to sequence break and get the Night Sphere before doing Malie's second quest, possibly even her first. By activating the switch at 38x19 and going through the secret passage in 40x17, you can get through the intended one-way door and get the item, and also see a huge spoiler. Fixable by swapping the green switch with a white switch that only opens after you pick up the sphere.
- Speaking of white switches, it's not a bug of any kind, but I notice some of them have buttons to open them and others open only by some special trigger (or just walking towards them from the correct side). It would be nice if doors with switches had a different design/color to them so when I see them I know whether or not they have a switch that I have to find and manually press, and if they open from one side it would be cool if they had a design to them to denote which side you have to come from (other than just figuring it out via the level geometry).
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As for my thought about how the game was structured, I honestly think that the "Chapters" method of segmenting the game wasn't the best choice. Chapters 1 and 2 are very much prologues or set-up for the story, and tutorials for the gameplay (though as tutorials they're some of the best I've seen). The problem is that branding them the way they were is it brings a lot of expectations to the player, which are all wrong. These expectations include thinking Ch.1 and 2 make up two thirds of the game (obviously wrong), that there will be tons of fourth-wall breaking throughout the whole game (which a lot of people don't enjoy for the sake of immersion, though it stops really happening in Ch.3) and that the game is just not as awesome as it actually is (let's face it, Mi+Bob allow for much MUCH better control and mobility than either alone). Also, Chapter 3 is the most annoying to climb to from The Hub, despite being the most visited area of the entire menu, that's not too awful, but it's still not great.
Now my concerns and reason for bringing this up is I'm worried that these small things are going to make a huge difference to potential players. I know when I first started playing I took note of how short chapter 1 and 2 were and how "eh" they actually were to play (and at that point was admittedly really thankful that I kinda didn't pay any money for the game since it was bought with a voucher Sony sent me, which before anyone asks DOES count as technically buying the game and is a sale and profit for the developers, I just didn't lose anything for it, which is good because I was broke at the time) and it wasn't until chapter 3 started up that I really began to enjoy everything about the game. Obviously I got to the good part, but I'm afraid that if I had played the demo that came out after I already bought it, I might had not bought it at all (ok that's unlikely because I've been a fan of Knytt Stories for a really long time and generally enjoy all of Nifflas' work, but other people who aren't so familiar might not have the same faith in the Niff, or even know what a Niff is for that matter).
So what I'm trying to say is I'm afraid that the way the "Prologue" is portrayed will make potential buyers/players/fans expect less from the core game and miss out on a great experience.
Also, completely unrelated, while I was proof-reading this the term "Niff Stories" popped into my head and I'm wishing I could give Juni a beard (although I haven't played it yet, it kinda looks like The Great Work might be a kind of Niff Stories, just look at his beard).
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I just finished this today and I'm going to post my own thoughts later, but I do agree with you on the whole confusing Chapter notion. Chapters 1 and 2 were what? 40 minutes for chapter 1, maybe 20 minutes for chapter 2? While i believe Ive spent 15 hours so far on Chapter 3 and I'm sure there's a few hours more. I was gearing up for a disappointly short game that turned into Nifflas' longest, best, most epic game to date.
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Nifflas got the idea for this insane 3rd chapter from another game and wanted to give this surprise to the player.