[Challenge - Normal] Realms of the Pharaoh

A really brilliant looking level! I especially liked the hall with all the forward-facing statues. I really felt the grandeur of the area.

It was really good; the puzzles were well balanced with nothing standing out as being overly frustrating.

My only gripe would be the cutscenes were all rather lacklustre; they were nothing special. They could really have built up the level and made it brilliant, but they just flopped. What with the quality of the rest of the level, the cutscenes detracted a lot from the otherwise very slick design.

@Ozz: Now that I think about it, Bligglenuber's Deserted Rustyard used a similar transparency effect on certain passages, but it wasn't coupled with the ghost wall. The way you used it gives the impression that Juni is semi-transparent rather than the wall.

And thanks. Strengthening the KS community was part of the reason I made Shipwrecked. Glad to hear it helped bring about a quality level like Realms of the Pharaoh.

Wow, these are mighty impressive tiles. Great job!

It is just awesome!

(envies and doesn't understand, how the first level can be good like this!)

The tilesets are just amazing (I think that it is something with pixel-art), they look like real walls and the Pharaohs and Beast-Gods look like they're alive.

The story is very interesting, that there are two worlds of ancient Egypt, including pyramids, and Juni will join the Pharaoh. (the player have got "feeling of mystic mystery")

Dividing the level in two parts (I mean this world and afterworld, of course) is something special in KS level creation, I think. Now, and the after-future, hmm...

VERY GOOD WORK!!!

Talps: Thanks. I'm with you on the cutscenes comment - they were a last minute addition. I had originally planned to hand draw the opening and ending scenes, but in the end decided that I wanted to keep the cutscenes in the graphical style of the level. I would have preferred to actually incorporate them into the level - ie, you get to play through the endings - but that seemed like a bit too much of an effort at the time! In my next level I'm experimenting with this 'no cut scene' idea though.

green.cookie: Thanks very much. Funnily enough, my original idea for the level was to add a third 'realm' - the 'before-life' (to contrast the after-life), where you'd get to wander through the pyramid when it was inhabited thousands of years ago. But I couldn't think of a way to make this section interesting or add to the level! So I kept it to two realms.

And once again, thanks everyone for your comments. Keep em coming!

Just a quick question:
May i use your tileset a base to mine? I'm not saying i will use yours, i just need a good brick texture to start with.

Sure thing, use away.

Just beaten this level and I enjoyed it a lot. It's really nice to find such well-polished levels. At first I got the "easy" end but for the style of the cutscene I figured there would have to be another one, and I kept on searching even though I did not have the detector. I ended up getting to the other end, though, even without the green light cues.

Again, nicely done. One of my favourites.

Amazing level, liked every second of it.
There's a wallswim x1019y1005 -> x1019y1004 and you can climb behind the ice on x1009y996.

Excellent level, from the beginning to the end!
Great graphics (the statues of the crocodile-god Sebek are very well done).

(there is another playthrough http://youtu.be/5XhTp5Xj_a4)

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I know ozz (the level's designer) hasn't been around in years, and probably everyone else who is still around already played this level years ago. But I just found it, and just finished playing it, and wow, it is awesome. I thought for awhile it would be too hard for me, but only the more difficult ending was beyond my abilities. Satisfying, creative, visually stunning, mostly fair in its challenges... well, if nothing else, I suspect this level is worth a replay, if I am the only one who didn't play it back when it was released.

Seems like a shame ozz didn't stick around / come back, too, if this was a first-level example of what he(?) could do!

Thanks for inspiring me to play this again . Great level. Though I did find a massive wallswim this time round.

I like Necro posts like this because they show me more levels to play. (someone who didn't start playing KS until at least 2011 or so).

I've gone through every "Favorite levels?" "Best Level Ever?" thread and I still don't come across half of the gems like this still out there.

My four-year-later review is that this level is gorgeous, and I love the atmosphere. The fact that the baddies and the music are included only in the Afterlife was a nice touch... makes it seem more surreal, and makes the "real" world seem more "real."

This level did show up one of ortoslon's lists, which are worth a read if you've never encountered them.

One of the best !