[Strange][Puzzle]I can hear you (working title)

Beta Testing
The level is now in the beta testing stage.  As a beta tester, you can do anything you can to help, but what I need most from you is to find glitches, identify malpractices in my level ("malpractices" meaning not enough save points, overuse of Bank 16 when alternatives exist, and... anything in this topic), and tell me which rooms are in most desperate need of improvement.

Current version: BETA 1:
Here is the file for the first version of the level released to beta testers.  It is missing music/ambiance and the intro cutscene is incomplete. Also, the icon and info pics have not yet been finished.
Regardless, the level itself is complete and fully playable from start to finish.
http://www.2shared.com/file/10858015/152662d7/Exp_HP_-_I_can_hear_you_BETA_1.html

You need a password to download the file.  PM me for the password and I'll add you to the list of beta testers.

Current Beta Testers:

• OSad

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I'm taking a class called Writing in Multimedia.  The class focuses on various types of media that integrate writing with image, video, and/or music.  We did stuff like making advertisements, wikis, NaNoWriMo, blogs, Animoto videos, Post Secret cards, etc.

Our final project is really open in what we can make. I proposed making a Knytt Stories level for mine. So it began.


This level is constantly evolving in production.  The title alone has gone through 4 changes in the 5 days I've worked on it thus far.  But all those bouncing ideas are beginning to settle down, and so here's what I can tell with certainty:

• It will feature foreground tiles. (using COs)
• There aren't a lot of enemies.
• It has screens that are confusing and take some experimentation to figure out.
• There is text that explains each screen, but... well...
• It will feel kinda like playing La-Mulana without the Glyph Reader. (just not nearly as unforgiving)
• There is a moral to the story.

My standards weren't set as high for this one as my other two KS projects (one is Bit Knytt (currently on hiatus), and the other is a secret (unless I already spilled the beans by accident, which I easily do)).  I have to meet a very close deadline (which is either this Friday or the Monday after; I'm not sure), and so any custom tilesets/music is out of the question.  I think we're expected to get our work submitted by the due date, so you can expect it to be released soon.

Enjoy these rough draft screenshots.

This looks pretty good. The screenshot with the cat looks spooky with the whole "TURN BACK OR YOU'LL DIE!" message, and the black and white screen looks almost serene, though I couldn't decipher the message on that one.

The open field looks awkward, though. I though the dude on the left was floating, but then I realized that the tileset that looks like a background WASN'T a background! Craaaaazy.

This looks pretty good. The screenshot with the cat looks spooky with the whole "TURN BACK OR YOU'LL DIE!" message

Haha, I guess people can see right through my early-and-not-very-elaborate message-scrambling scheme (or, at least, when the message mostly consists of 3-letter and 4-letter words).  I tried to pick something simple for now so that I can still read the messages well enough to know exactly what they say; otherwise, once I finish formulating my final scrambler, then when I'm updating the messages to use it, I would have to decipher them first.
My goal is that in the end it will be scrambled with a system that is in terms of ingenuity nothing short of Juni's native tongue in Teenhmifnoeafgil.  I'm probably biting off more than I can chew, though.

]Haha, I guess people can see right through my early-and-not-very-elaborate message-scrambling scheme (or, at least, when the message mostly consists of 3-letter and 4-letter words).

Well, you know. If I can't read them frontwards, maybe if I read them BACKWARDS it'll work. Didn't worked for the second message, though. "The sooner you get the better", maybe? 

It's a little more complicated than that.  Word order has been modified differently from letter order.

Since I'm not going to be using this pathetic scrambling scheme in the final version, I might as well let you try to figure it out.

Current progress:

• I would say only about 1/3 of the rooms I want are done.
• One cutscene has been made, but needs a little work.  At least 2 more are planned.
• My text-obscuring algorithm is finished.

Here's a sample of encoded text:

T_CTHTE
HIHEITUN_TCAPPS.
_TSWH_ILE__AAR

This might not be the final algorithm, though.  Part of the problem with this one is that it resembles the text in Teenhmifnoeafgil a bit too much... but don't get the impression that the encoding scheme is at all similar. Maybe it is. Or maybe it isn't. That's for me to know and you to never find out.

• To protect my sanity, I also took the time today to write command line utilities in VB.NET that encode and decode the messages. They're for my personal use only.

Most of the rooms are pretty much done.  The ending is also finished.  However, the level's beginning is still just in the conceptual phase; all I have for it is notes I scrawled in my PDA on the morning school bus.

It appears that this is due Friday, by the way.  But from the way the teacher was talking, I'm not so sure that I have to actually release it (or at least not by that date).  I will anyways, though.  If I know myself (and I like to think I do) then I know that if I choose not to release it now, I probably never will.
If you want to play a polished level, you may have to wait until the "vastly improved v2.0", which - if I know myself - may or may not be a possibility. It all depends on my reaction to the criticism I'm sure to receive on the v1...

So I got another look at those messages and the first one says "The first chance you get, enter", and the other one says "Go back the way you came, death awaits you if you go left".

Spooky.

By the way, I can beta test. I provide awesome critisizm and am great in improving your level design! Do consider that sometime.

So I got another look at those messages and the first one says "The first chance you get, enter", and the other one says "Go back the way you came, death awaits you if you go left".

Spooky.

By the way, I can beta test. I provide awesome critisizm and am great in improving your level design! Do consider that sometime.

This is a small enough project, so I've yet to enlist any beta testers since it's easy enough to spot the kinks and work them out.

However, when I spot 4-5 issues at a time, then when I address them, I could end up forgetting about one. So there probably are a few bugs in it.

Once it's done (probably tomorrow), if I find that beta testing is possible (which would only be the case if it didn't have to be submitted until next week), you'll be the first to hear about it, assuming the offer will still be up.  After all, even if I can't make it a top-quality level, whatever I do make should at least be playable (as in, bug free).

Added stuff to the first post about Beta testing. The download link is there, but it's password protected.

Beta testing is semi-open.  That is to say: Anyone can beta test, but you have to PM me first so I can give you the password and add you to the list.

Ohh... this code is incredibly hard... I'll literally have to get pen and paper to solve these messages.

By the way, any specific, fast way to communicate with you?

By the way, any specific, fast way to communicate with you?

I prefer PM, but e-mail's okay too (my email is public).  Neither is really fast, but that's all I got.

Alas, you won't find me on social networking sites.  I'm not on Facebook/Twitter, and I have long since lost the password to my MySpace account (which is registered with an old email address on a dead POP3).

EDIT: There are now also three IM services you can reach me by.
I already had accounts for each of these, it's just that I wasn't using them for messaging until today.
1. Gmail chat. I stopped being Invisible, so you are now able to chat with me if you have Gmail.
2. AIM. I haven't installed AIM on this computer (and I have no desire to), but fortunately Gmail doubles as an AIM client, and I was able to set it up with an old AIM account I once had.  I added it to my contact information here.
3. Windows Live Messenger (a.k.a MSN).  I found the old Windows Live ID that I had used years ago to post on the MSDN forums.  I updated the ID to use my current email, and so I'll add MSN to my contact information as well.

How's that?

As much as I'd like to test this level throughly, I seem to be unable to decypher those messages. The code is too much complicated for me, and I have to do a bunch of them.

If you could give me the whole thing already ready, I'd appreciate.

Sweet.

As much as I'd like to test this level throughly, I seem to be unable to decypher those messages. The code is too much complicated for me, and I have to do a bunch of them.

If you could give me the whole thing already ready, I'd appreciate.

Decoding the messages really isn't necessary.  While it is possible, doing it kinda defeats the purpose.  But if you can tell me what you need the original text for, I can send you all the translations.  Don't bother checking the scrambled text in the beta for typing errors, though; while a good deal of it was manually scrambled (and is thus prone to mistakes), I will at some point run everything through the descrambler to double check it.

As much as I'd like to give you the finished product, I haven't worked on this at all since sending you the beta.
  Call me lazy.