Ooh, I've been looking forward to your first level since you joined the LoCP and mentioned you were working on one, and this exceeded my expectations.
A couple of technical issues:
Holding down the left arrow key at the very beginning of the level results in Juni not falling down the well at all, and being able to "win" without seeing more than the first screen. (It's
not possible to do this by holding down the
right arrow key, so the best way to fix it is probably just widening the tunnel mouth by one tile. Just don't forget to adjust the next screen down accordingly, so you don't wind up with a wallswim.)
Also, it's possible to stand on top of the tree-house on the screen with the sitting man. Or did you put that tile on level 3 intentionally?
I think you used a flag warp to send Juni to the version of the third-gate screen where the gate is open? (This is the screen above the eye I'm talking about.) When entering the screen from the left -- though not, oddly, when entering from below -- I can see the closed gate for a split second before the warp kicks in.
The pale-red diagonal background tiles on the right side of the cavern (but not the ones on the left side) are on layer 3.
I really enjoyed this level. The flower/gate puzzle is clever in both concept and execution; leaving the default shift visual and sound effects on was a nice way of letting the player know they'd found the right flower. Plus, the locations of the various power-ups, along with the order they have to be acquired in, definitely met Bulbapuck's "you have to think about" description of what qualifies as a puzzle as well. Like most KS players, I've seen all the tilesets you chose used in countless other levels, but the way you combined them nevertheless felt "fresh" in addition to seeming to tie in thematically with other of Juni's adventures. Exploring the scenery was really fun, and the fact that there are areas that can't be accessed immediately really added to the feeling of discovery.
I think lamarblake was referring to the way lots of levels made since the current build of KS (1.21) was released take advantage of custom object support and... hm, what else didn't KS v1 support, actually? (I wasn't around that long ago.) Older, or shall we say "classic," levels necessarily focussed on creating the kind of game experiences Nifflas inspired with his KS levels like The Machine and A Strange Dream. Like Hmpf, I found the glowing effect on the waterfall below the first save point very attractive... so much that I was drawn to jump down to see if there was anything there.
Transition areas, where the different-coloured parts of the level met, didn't seem too busy to me. (The MyskglurgiskGrottglufs tileset always seems to clash
within itself to my eye, but I've grown used to it.) Screens with just one colour scheme didn't feel overly busy to me, either; just lush and richly-decorated. As the level subtitle says, it's a well
full of life. I'm a sucker for levels full of flowers... and,
nice use of the shoot-y kind! Often those seem arbitrary, but somehow they fit here, along with the shoot-y fliers.
All the caverns that were visible on different screens, but couldn't be reached, left me longing for a sequel where Juni re-visits the Well of White Waters and gets to explore those, too. Which is a very cool feeling to have upon finishing a level.
