[KS+][Challenge][Lunatic/Hard/Easy] The Ruins of EGA-Lana

The Ruins of EGA-Lana is a small KS+ challenge level heavily inspired by the famous freeware game La-Mulana (except this one is made with an old-school DOS PC game look, very much like my previous level The Dithered Temple, rather than mimicking the aesthetics of a MSX game). It features bonus collectible artifacts, hidden secrets, challenges involving several KS+'s exclusive mechanics and a total of three (?) difficulty modes: Easy, Hard and Lunatic.

Despite being a very short adventure, this level was designed to have a rather high replay value by means of providing players with a different experience in each of the mentioned modes beyond the expected differences in the overall difficulty. For example, Easy mode is more of a mix of platforming and simple puzzles, whereas Lunatic mode is almost exclusively focused on the challenge aspect even with regards to the collectibles. Be sure to give each mode a try! (well, at least a couple of them... I understand Lunatic is not exactly everyone's cup of tea )

And, for those of you who are always looking for a bigger challenge... you're in luck! This level is also the setting for the first ever Play Knytt Stories contest, which is being graciously hosted by pfrangip and officially starts today!   There are 3 different categories (plus a bonus challenge) in which you can participate and have a chance to win various prizes! Be sure to have a look at the contest's thread here to learn the details and/or ask any questions you may have about it.

Hope you have fun with this level, and please feel free to post your comments/feedback/screams of frustration (depending on which version you play) here. And, if you're taking part in the contest... good luck!

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: After watching some of the streamed playthroughs and then spending the morning doing a new round of thorough testing, I've concluded that a certain screen in the highest difficulty mode...


...is either impossible or way too close to being so (possibly the latter). I suspect this is due to me using a version of the screen that was just a test draft and not what should have used here. To address this issue, I've uploaded a new version of the level which replaces the previous copy. You can get it using the link on the OP or this one:

[ The Ruins of EGA-Lana v1.01 ]

Please install this new version overwriting the previous one to get a slightly different version (still disgustingly hard, but not outright impossible) of that particular challenge. Your existing save files should carry over without any issues.

Apologies to everyone, especially those who were trying for the bonus challenge in the contest and got hopelessly stuck there

Because I will probably not compete, because I'm too crap player for the categories 1 and 2 and don't have any idea for category 3, I'll comment on this level here. I already played it several times on easy mode and once or twice on hard mode (I wasn't able to get all the artifacts in hard without cheating) and I watched Purple pineapple's run of lunatic mode.

Tileset and graphics were great as usual. I simply love your retro levels. The challenges were all well-thought and unusual, especialy the code-lock screens. 10/10 for the easy mode and 8/10 for the hard one because I felt some of the lasers are too much.

Thanks! I'm glad to hear you enjoyed Easy mode even more than the others. Although the higher difficulty modes are usually the ones that get the spotlight, my original goal with this level was to create something that could be enjoyed by almost everyone in the KS community, so I'm very happy to see my efforts paid off!

It's true that the overall difficulty level is a bit higher than the KS "standards" for the first two modes (not sure about the others though... I'm actually not a Lunatic-level player at all, so I'm not a good judge for that category). "Easy" mode actually plays more like your standard KS "Normal" level, and some screens in "Hard" mode are bordering on "Very Hard". In the end, and even though these modes ended up not being "exactly as advertised", I opted for leaving them as they are now to compensate for practically everyone here in this community being already very familiar with KS' (and even KS+'s) mechanics.

As for the "Creative run" contest, there's still a lot of time since the whole thing basically just started and it'll be running for about two months, so feel free to jump in at any time if you come up with something and change your mind