[Misc.][Normal/Hard][Large] Endless Dream (Beta)

Hello, it's nice to meet you all. This is my first attempt at a Knytt stories level. I have been working on and off (more off) on this level for about a year, so if the beginning areas look a lot more simplistic than the later ones, that's why. I plan on updating them to the best of my ability once I finish up. Constructive criticism and help would be much appreciated. I am always looking for ways to improve.

Plot:Juni is bored one day and decides to go out for a walk. As she wanders around, she picks up a strange glowing stone known as the dream stone. She starts to feel tired so she heads back home. Things start to seem a bit strange and as she goes to sleep, she emerges into various worlds unknown.

Screenshots:
Notes:
-Make sure you don't skip out on the run ability in the beginning, but I'm assuming you wouldn't any how, we all hate a slow Juni, right?
-I have included so far two hidden areas within the game that house secret items. The first is located in the snow caves. It gives you the yellow key which will unlock the detection device.
-The second is located in the underwater segment. Here you will find the hologram device. If you miss out on this, don't worry, it can be picked up later but it can be convenient if picked up earlier I suppose.
- As this is a beta, it is yet unfinished. The beta as of now stops when the machine in the lab is turned off. You can however access the house before turning off the machine to see the bad ending.
-As of yet, I have not made a proper opening cutscene. I plan on doing one upon final release.
-If you see a door or a switch of some sort and you get stuck, press down. 9 times out of 10, you usually gotta do that.
-This is a pretty linear level, so if you like that kind of stuff, then cool for you. =)

Hints:

So anyways, that's about all I can think of to do for now. Once I get a final product done that I am proud of, I'll try to fancy this post up a bit and get some screenshots and all that jazz. Being as I'm the only one who has test played my level multiple times to where I get sick of it and all, I would love to have others try out my level to look for bugs and glitches and errors and to get their input on what is good and what can be improved on. I also want to know if the level is easy enough to figure out, but still presents good enough puzzle elements without being too vague. Knowing my own puzzles really makes it hard for me to judge it well.


Here is the link to my level right here.
http://knyttlevels.com/levels/Dullahan1%20-%20Endless%20Dream%20%28Beta%201%29.knytt.bin

Thanks in advance to those who try out my level and to those who post and give me some feedback. It's nice to meet you all and I hope to get along with you all greatly. =)

I'll try to play it in the next days, and I'll give you my impressions when I'm done!

Thank you very much!

It's wonderful and very inspiring to see such a large project at this time, when KS levels are becoming more and more rare. In part, I enjoyed playing this simply because of the size of the level The concept of an endless dream, and endless versions of the same place, was very interesting. Some of the areas were particularly nice - the desert (but that was over much too quickly...), the transition to the underwater area (brilliant), etc. The gradual development of the plot was also nicely implemented. All in all, I enjoyed playing this, felt like one of those early KS levels from a long time ago

There are no game-breaking problems here, I think, but still a lot of stuff needs attention. Mostly the visuals: a lot of times they're just too basic to be enjoyable, and I saw many, many SGEs. There's also the question of consistency within an area: e.g. in the snowy caves, ice spikes are solid everywhere except at the screen with the key, presumably because one wouldn't be able to get the key from the narrow passage otherwise. That's understandable from the point of view of the level designer, but not from the player's point of view; things have to be consistent. Some of the challenges could really use more savepoints - don't make the player go through the same hard challenge over and over again! Finally, watch the lasers (some of the screens begin with the closest laser turned off, leading to the player assuming safety and jumping right into the laser. Lasers come in two varieties - one that is turned on when the player enters the screen, and only turns off later, and one that is the opposite of that) and the traps (some of them, e.g. while descending from the volcano, are a bit too close to the edge of the screen, leading to quick unexpected death).

All in all, a very impressive amount of work went into this and the level is enjoyable and interesting regardless of those little problems I outlined. Keep up the good work! Oh, and you might want to add screenshots to your post, since most people don't particularly want to download a level without knowing at least what it looks like...

Thank you so much for your criticism. It's really great to see how others are perceiving my level and I will totally take to heart your advice to improve it to make a better game. I hate saying it will take me a while to fix things up, but having such a busy life nowadays really does seem to take away when I get any free time to work on this, which is why it has taken me so long to create what has been done so far. I'm glad you enjoyed the underwater area as well, I personally feel it's the best part of the level I have done so far, sometimes while editing, I end up finding myself goofing off in that section.

But yeah, I'll work on making things not so brutal and try to fix up the visuals and placements of objects and whatnot when I can as well as put up some screenshots when I get the time. Thank you so much for reviewing my level though. I really appreciate it.

Sorry for the double post, remove it if it isn't necessary, but I updated my first post with screenshots from my level.

This was pretty enjoyable. The graphics aren't great, but the story really drew me in. You should definitely finish making this.