[Normal] [Misc] - The Sound of Snow

Hellos

I just finished my first map. It was mostly an exercise in getting acquainted with the editing software so it's not particularly clever or fancy. I realise it's stylistically all over the place and lacks a plot, but I've uploaded it for critique and I'd welcome any criticism at all. 

I was unsure of whether using the default tilesets is considered acceptable, or a form of plagerism. I did so, and hope this is ok, but only because I didn't want to bite off more than I could chew on my first go. So, thanks to those that made the ones I used.

Apologies for the relatively colossal filesize of 5.5mb, the music/ambiance is my own and accounts for that.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?0ztmzm3uydh

Hope you enjoy it.

gunpowdertea

For a first level, this is just wonderful! Interesting ideas, like that critter running away from you, the garden... I had a problem with getting the umbrella - I think you wanted the player to get it from above, but it is also possible to get it from underneath - at least there's a passage that leads to it... except that it leads to the shift, not the umbrella, and you end up having to walk the entire path to the umbrella again.

That and the overuse of those pesky critters that eat you up. They're really annoying!

On a completely unrelated note, I started a level yesterday which looks almost exactly the same as the first area of your level  Only the moon is different, and the tileset.. but the background and the music revolving around a single note... eh. 

Well done for a first level! I'll keep this one in hopes some day it will be a part of a larger body of work you'll produce. hehehe  I liked the one tone music. Nice for snow. 

A couple of things I noticed. If you don't heed your advice about the long jump and slow decent for the last key, you end up in a void. Also, in the black area where you use the yellow key, the flies are all stationary. Normally when you run or walk past them they become animated. These don't. Was that intentional?

Please continue with making more levels. I think your potential is excellent. I'm not a level maker and as of late there seems to be a lot less folks out there doing it. Just a few seem to be keeping Knytt alive such as Yohji, Kennysheep,  Vhalkyria, etc (forgive me to those people I have not listed) with new levels. There have been new levels and folks posting only at the archive but if they don't post  here to announce it there is no way to give them feedback. Older levels are constantly bumped here and that's good but it's new blood that keeps Juni adventuring!

Thank you both for the nice words. I'm glad you enjoyed it. 

Yohji - thank you. I totally overlooked that umbrella issue. and i definately agree about overuse of the nyom noms, i put all that gumpfh in hastily at the end as filler to flesh it out a bit. i didn't plan and just made it up as i went along, so ended up feeling like i'd painted myself into a corner towards the end and began being unnecessary. good lesson learned there.

lamarblake - thanks. the drone music i thought fit well with the upper level winter theme, glad you liked it. could you be more specific about the voidscreen you mentioned? I tried to make sure nowhere would lead to that purple fiend when leaping around the map, especially that part of it! 

Oh, and i think the flies you're referring to are actually tileset flowers!  My bad for using such a light background that the stems aren't visable I guess.

I'm definately going to continue making more. I'm hooked  I've just learned how to make my own tilesets so I'm gonna make something about colossal broken robots.

I'm definately going to continue making more. I'm hooked  I've just learned how to make my own tilesets so I'm gonna make something about colossal broken robots.

Yay, custom tilesets! I'll be looking forward to playing it

"lamarblake - thanks. the drone music i thought fit well with the upper level winter theme, glad you liked it. could you be more specific about the voidscreen you mentioned?"

Gunpowdertea...at

Thanks lamar. Fixed.

wonderful ambiance, graphics and music! 

Generally, I thought it was okay but not great. You had a few mistakes but it was pretty okay. I found the beginning and a lot of the rest of it plain. Especially in the beginning which had several screens of flat. Some detail, in general, would be nice.



Two screens to the left of the area where you get the yellow key has two small floating square platforms. If you fall down and to the right of that, you get a void and wallswim. Also, if you choose to take the long way with the double jump and high jump powerups, the whole level sort of falls apart. There are voids in several places. (That is, with those power ups go through the level again.) Also, the grass in the purple key room was mis-assembled. In lots of places, I couldn't tell what was solid or not, so that could be fixed as well.

But don't get me wrong; for a first try it was well done. I did have fun, and you have potential. Keep experimenting.

Aesthetically, this is a very interesting level. You did some interesting things with some difficult-to-use tilesets, and used some well-known ones in combinations that made them feel fresh. (For some reason I particularly enjoyed the red flowers from "That White Place" combined with the yellow/light brown-ish background - yes, it made the stems of the flowers nearly invisible, but the overall look was really nice.)

I don't think every single screen of every single area worked brilliantly (again, aesthetically speaking), and there were some SGEs, plus that void already mentioned up thread, but on the whole, this is very promising. Looking forward to what you'll come up with next! :-)