[Environmental] Falling Water

You've already got the reputation for screen shot over-posting. You might as well revel in it.

Heh. Well, I'll have to ponder that. I don't really want to spoil people's fun. It's difficult for me to judge because I'm a total spoiler addict, as well as a compulsive replayer/rewatcher/rereader, i.e. being surprised is the least of my motivations for enjoying something. I'm mainly playing environmentals for the aesthetic experience, and that doesn't change when you know the look of an area. In fact, knowing a particularly pretty area will be in a forthcoming level only heightens my anticipation. (Also, a single screenshot rarely spoils an entire area - I try to build most areas with a fair bit of internal variety, so a screenshot won't tell you how *everything* looks in that area.)

I'm planning a very tall city in my big project, and I haven't quite figured out how to make it realistic, attractive, and interesting to play. I was curious to see the difficulties you' were describing with your city, and then actually surprised to find no pictures.

Well, you can check out the Lower Lower City in the published first part of Falling Water for an example of me building multi-layer cities... I'm afraid I only party succeeded, there. It's pretty, for sure, but it's not particularly interesting to play. (It's not huge enough to become boring, mind you; but it essentially only offers the player one predetermined path.)

The newer cities/villages I've been building... well, with one of them I eventually opted for making it all background/foreground (i.e.: none of it is really 'playable'), because there just wasn't any way I could make it possible for the player to interact with it in an interesting way. With the other, I'm trying to do something with ladders, but of course, that approach is constrained by KS's inability to allow diagonal solid ground in screen transitions.

I actually wouldn't want to 'spoil' either of those two cities for the 'general public' here, but we could talk about this via PM, with screenshots, if you like.

A good rule of thumb for when to post screenshots is that if you want to, then do so.

I'd keep it to 4-8 screenshots per two pages of quality posts, though.

Didn't I post a screencount earlier today, when I hit 350? Hmm.

Anyway, turns out I miscounted (probably). And I've added another five or so screens. Hence, the count is now... 363.

I'd love to see another screenshot! And you post screenshots under "spoiler" tags, that way you'd both keep posting screenshots and avoid spoiling stuff for people who don't want spoilers.

I'd love to see another screenshot! And you post screenshots under "spoiler" tags, that way you'd both keep posting screenshots and avoid spoiling stuff for people who don't want spoilers.

Okay...

Those are quite good. I like second and third.

Thanks. Glad to hear that, especially as both of them are among those that, in their respective areas, I *don't* consider the most successful screens. :-)

I've been very irresponsible in the last few days. I've spent a lot of time working on my level, when really there was a lot of important work waiting. I'm afraid I have to go back to doing that work now.

I *have* reached the 370 screens mark today, though. :-)

Okay. 373 screens, and I think I'm just about knytted out, for now. Mind you, this is addictive, so I keep returning to it when really I shouldn't. But I can see that my designs are getting less inspired, which is usually a sign that I should give level building a rest, again. I've been very productive, and built some pretty nice stuff, in the last... three quarters of a week or so, so obviously, it was good for my creative energies that I took a few months' break from level building. Let's see what I come up with when I come back to it in a couple months' time again.

Oh, and I gave this a play-through recently. It has about an hour's worth of playing time, now (if you sort of rush through it, not really taking much time to take in the sights.)

Hmm, I thought I had commented on this, but I can't find my comment.. So here it is:

I played through part 1 and I absolutely loved it and looking at the screenshots the level seems to get more and more beautiful. I'm definately looking forward to this.

I can totally relate to KS taking up too much time, I failed 2 courses this year due to working on levels. Once you get started it's so addictive

Anyway, best of luck!

373 screens

It has about an hour's worth of playing time, now (if you sort of rush through it, not really taking much time to take in the sights.)

...

Wow.

I just played the demo, and I was sad when I reached the end. :<

It was really fun and the environments were beautiful. I especially liked the Lower City and the underground museum, and the cliffs to the left of the upper city looked like something out of Braid... Anyway, I can't wait.

I can totally relate to KS taking up too much time, I failed 2 courses this year due to working on levels.

Whoah. Okay, *that* hasn't happened to me yet. Let's hope it doesn't...

@ Pick Yer Poison:

Keep in mind that's the screencount and playing time for the entire level, including the already published part. So there's only around 270 'new' screens so far. Also, when I say "rushing" I of course mean "rushing, insofar as a Crap Player can rush", i.e. the rushing does include some silly drowning-in-ponds. And I wasn't trying to do a speedrun; just playing normally and not really pausing to take in the sights. I'm sure you could play the level in much shorter time. (Then again, why would you want to? It's an environmental... ;-))

@ munchybot:

Thanks!

Played it again and I found a couple problems or things I just generally didn't enjoy.

-The bottom step outside the powerup emporium is too high to walk up, and you actually have to jump. This isn't really a real problem but it ticks me off for some reason >_<

-The sewers that you enter from the emporium are very, very boring. I mean, the gameplay is fine, it's an environmental level, but it actually needs an interesting environment for that, and the sewers are almost completely just the same monotonous brick and black background. Some other backgrounds and different tiles here and there would really fix that up. The only place where I found the gameplay to actually be annoying is that climbing bit near the beginning of the sewers, where you just have to jump back and forth and back and forth to get up the tunnel, and missing by a pixel will send you falling back down again.

-Going through the aforementioned jumping bit a second time.

-Jumping through this room can be frustrating due to the ceiling being right above the floor where you're supposed to land. There's also a way to die one block after the screen change, which is hard to avoid if you don't see it coming (which no one would the first time).

-Falling down into this room. When you're in the room above, you're moving quickly to the right and you can't see that hole coming because the waterfall is covering it. Still moving to the right, you fall straight into the water and die.

-When going from left to right between these rooms, if you jump right before the screen changes you can get inside the walls (though this was handy for getting up to the Lower City without walking all the way back ). I'm not sure how this is possible since the tiles match up; I think you might have put the mossy stuff hanging from the ceiling on layer 3.

-The gameplay up at the top of the buildings in the Lower City felt very limiting. It could have made some great platforming but instead you just walk while holding the down arrow.

And so concludes my list of things that I didn't like about it. Keep in mind I'm completely new to this (joined the forum last night) and I'm not a very good player, so I don't think my opinion counts for much

Oh, also, is there anything in the labyrinth house? I walked around for a bit and hit a dead end in there.

Nah, you're right about all of those. I was new to level building, too, hence there are some beginner's problems, obviously. :-)

I wish, especially, that I could have made the Lower City more interesting to play (I actually discussed this problem a bit at the top of this page of this thread!) - it's just that it's very, very difficult, if not impossible, to create a multi-tiered screen that works. Or rather, multi-tiered *can* be made to work, but the problem with the Lower City is that it's not just multi-tiered but, theoretically, would also need plenty of vertical solid surfaces. Well, let's just say, I tried all kinds of things, but in the end I had to face the fact that none of those ideas really worked and I had to go for the linear approach. It still makes me sad.

The Labyrinth House has a 'secret' exit to the left, but other than that, there's nothing hidden in it, no. It was just an experiment in turning tiles into objects.