[Environmental] Falling Water

Why cant you just call it waterfall...or rain? 

Well, a) because it's not about either of these, but about a world in which there is a lot of falling water of different kinds (both waterfalls and rain are falling water, after all), and b) in this world, the distinction between the two, and the idea that one of the two is 'weather' whereas the other is a geographical feature, has - historically speaking - not seemed very obvious to the people who live there. For the partial reason that 'weather' in our sense does not exist in their world.

'Rain' only becomes worthy of a word of its own if it's a type of weather that needs to be distinguished from other types of weather, after all. In a world where rain is constant, there is no need for such a conceptual distinction. The people who live there do note that it's water, and that's it's falling, of course, and possibly they even have a special word for it - but that word would not be analogous in meaning to *our* concept of 'rain', because it would be completely unassociated to the idea of weather. So I chose not to use our word 'rain' for it in the level.

There may be something just slightly disturbing about how excited I am about building a whole tunnel system full of prison cells.

Oh, not at all. If you can make a history for your world that goes deeper than the player will ever be (explicitly) told, then you're doing a great job.

As for the four screens you posted, I like all of them but the second; it looks much too bland.

Yeah, I know the last in particular is not exactly original.

Originality can hang, that's my favorite one. That better be going in there or I might throw a fit.

As for the four screens you posted, I like all of them but the second; it looks much too bland.

You, sir, lack an appreciation of minimalism. ;-)

Originality can hang, that's my favorite one. That better be going in there or I might throw a fit.

Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure it will be. So will be screen 2, though. ;-)

(Or rather, in both cases, these exact screens may or may not end up in the level, but the looks I experimented with in them most definitely will.)

You, sir, lack an appreciation of minimalism. ;-)

There's a fine line between minimalistic and really, really ugly.

Just saying.

Quote from: Hmpf on February 25, 2010, 00:43:30

You, sir, lack an appreciation of minimalism. ;-)

There's a fine line between minimalistic and really, really ugly.

Just saying.

Minimalism, as anything else in the realm of aesthetics, can be done competently as well as badly. Yes. Even if there's little else I seem to be able to agree with you on ;-), I think we can agree on that.

We can probably also agree that there is *some* amount of individual leeway in judging questions of aesthetics. I wouldn't go so far as to say that aesthetics is entirely relative - there are some fairly fundamental 'rules' for what human beings tend to find attractive, in terms of proportions, colour combinations and whatnot - but there's definitely some flexibility there. (Although you may disagree with me there, I dunno. You seem very strict in your judgements, so maybe you believe that your aesthetics is the One True Aesthetics, and everybody else is just Wrong?)

Me, I happen to be rather flexible in my aesthetic preferences. I like Bauhaus architecture; I like medieval book illumination - just to give two examples. I like some very different, in fact: diametrically opposed, aesthetic styles. And part of the joy of KS for me is being able to play around with some very different looks/styles.

Anyway, to get back to my beloved screen 2 ;-): for me, that screen works extremely well, meaning, it makes the aesthetics synapses in my brain fire in all the right ways - and I even have a fairly good idea why it works so well:

- The colours - the dark red background, the brighter red foreground, and the white-and-red highlights provided by the flowers - go well together.
- The screen has a good amount of contrast between the background and the foreground, the background and the flowers, and the foreground and the flowers, while still preserving a monochrome general impression. This means that the overall impression is harmonic, with the contrast saving it from becoming dull. Also, the contrast makes the flowers stand out nicely.
- The proportions and placement of elements, both in terms of colour and shape, are pretty good. Just enough symmetry - in the vague diagonal described by the tunnel - to orient the eye, but enough asymmetry to keep things interesting; etc.

Everybody's free to disagree, of course. As I said - there's definitely some amount of individual taste involved in judging things like this.

Oops, I really should have clarified!  I wasn't actually trying to say the screen was ugly (although I confess that, like PYP, I consider it a bit bland).
Rather, my post was intended as a moderately humorous, albeit fairly obvious, statement; that if you go too far with minimalism, you'll almost instantaneously cross over into blandness/ugliness.  And how far is too far differs from person to person.

Sorry about the disruption!

Sorry about the disruption!

Oh, don't worry! I'm just easy to set off on tangents like that - art school does that to you. ;-)

I'm glad you appreciate the second screen! I'd originally built it with the grey version of the tileset and only discovered how well the red version went with the 'flowers' by accident; I'm always delighted when something like that happens... it's part of what makes KS level building such tremendous fun, this serendipity effect.

I could tell because the tile layout is almost identical.

Quote from: Pick Yer Poison on February 25, 2010, 00:25:48

As for the four screens you posted, I like all of them but the second; it looks much too bland.

You, sir, lack an appreciation of minimalism. ;-)

The reason the second looks bland to me isn't so much of a minimalism issue as the way the tileset contrasts with the background. If you look at the tileset itself, it's rather vibrant; it has distinct patterns that draw the eye. On the other hand, the background is just a gradient, and it partially blends into the tileset near the bottom.

Compare this to the first screenshot: in that one, the tileset doesn't have any patterns that stand out on their own and distract from the rest of the screen. And the rest of the screen does have things to look at as well, which draws your attention more to the space around the tilesets where you can walk than to the tilesets themselves.

The third screenshot makes use of a tileset similar to that in the second screenshot; however, the background is interesting to look at, and contrasts nicely (color-wise) against the tileset itself. The area that the player is intended to focus on is brightly colored and stands out against the beige tileset.

In retrospect, maybe "bland" wasn't the best term to use to convey all of this, but it was what struck me first.

Ah, poor second screenshot, nobody but its mommy really loves it.

I still do love it rather a lot, though, so it will be in the level. But it will probably be a fairly small area anyway - there's not that much you can do with that look, and I usually only make bigger areas when I have a tileset combination that allows for a lot of variation.

Falling water seems great! Can't find it in the levels archive though, maybe it's not finished?
I'm working on something similar right now, about 150 screens so far. here's some screenshots 

Ops here's the rest..

Hey, cheesecakeFTW. That looks pretty cool, especially the first screenshot. But you usually open a new thread for a level preview, and I think your project definitely deserves a thread of its own. So, why don't you make a thread for it?

Oh, and for the download of the first part of Falling Water, check my sig. ;-)

Thanks! just wanted to mention it, maybe iŽll start a new thread.. Anyway, now i'm gonna play falling water