The Level Designer's Trap

A cutscene triggers a respawn, so if you shift somewhere, take away powers, trigger a cutscene, you'll be ensured that the player respawns without the umbrella.

What does a cutscene you may ask?

* It first kills the player,
* then shows some images/sound,
* then optionally saves the player location to new coordinates,
* then respawns at last save location (previous action can move the player)

Rather, it:

first goes to a different frame in the application without saving Juni's location
then shows some images/sound
then optionally saves the player location to new coordinates
then goes back to the game frame, and reloads from the save position (can be changed by previous action)

Okay, here's one that's just been annoying the heck out of me in Return to the Luminous City: there's the following sequence:

1.) Run across half of screen A.
2.) Run across screen B.
3.) Climb upwards through screen B.
4.) Climb upwards through screen C.
5.) Climb upwards through half of screen D, then jump with the umbrella to -
6.) float halfway through screen D -
7.) and through all of screen B -
8.) and run across screen E -
9.) and then jump across screen F -
10.) and climb up through screen G -
11.) at which point you have to try to get past a nasty combination of several deadly critters that in combination are rather certain to kill you at least 50% of the time, if not more often. Which means: going back to step 1.) and repeating it all. Probably more than once.

It gets old. *Really* old.

A cutscene triggers a respawn

Thanks, that explains a lot.

Okay, here's one that's just been annoying the heck out of me in Return to the Luminous City: there's the following sequence:

1.) Run across half of screen A.
2.) Run across screen B.
3.) Climb upwards through screen B.
4.) Climb upwards through screen C.
5.) Climb upwards through half of screen D, then jump with the umbrella to -
6.) float halfway through screen D -
7.) and through all of screen B -
8.) and run across screen E -
9.) and then jump across screen F -
10.) and climb up through screen G -
11.) at which point you have to try to get past a nasty combination of several deadly critters that in combination are rather certain to kill you at least 50% of the time, if not more often. Which means: going back to step 1.) and repeating it all. Probably more than once.

It gets old. *Really* old.

Ive replayed Luminous city and beat it on Hard. Your right, there is not much savepoints which makes this a pain.

Yeah. I've always thought that if there's a point where you find you're forced to insert a difficult challenge spontaneously, then at least let the player save first, or make the easy but lengthy bits come after.

This has probably been mentioned earlier, but I hate it when level boundaries are enforced with invisible walls or no-climb blocks.  It's cheating, plain and simple.

Another thing that I despise is being unable to backtrack.  I saw this a lot in Core: I'd be exploring a level and suddenly find myself shifted abruptly to a new location, and I couldn't go back and continue exploring because my new position was saved automatically.  It annoyingly breaks the game's flow, and it cheats the player out of the experience of exploring the level fully.

Finally - and this is really more of a presentation flaw than an outright mistake in design - there's the annoyance of stupid grammatical and spelling errors.  Nothing takes the feeling of polish out of an otherwise good level like... well... stupid grammatical and spelling errors.  Again, Core was full of this, and Gaia had a bit of it as well.  If you're going to put time and energy into your level design, at least have the decency to make an effort with you're spelling grammer and, punctuation.    (See how gross that looked?)  Being a non-native speaker is no excuse - this forum is loaded with native English speakers who'd be more than happy to proofread for you.

So, yeah.  There's also stuff like random bullet-spamming plants, spikes that pop out of nowhere, and stupidly hard trick-jumping, but this post would be pages long if I kept on ranting.

$0.02

Right, the non-climbable invisible walls is something I just call Invisible-Wall Syndrome (or IWS).  Does it feel like cheating?  You bet.  And with most levels, it doesn't fit, but is it really cheating?

IWS infects many a game in and outside Knytt related atmospheres, but it IS a legitimate design tool.  If games like God of War have IWS (and it does), then I see no reason Knytt Stories cannot as well.  The thing is in how you use IWS.

IWS should, and usually does, show up at the edge of the playground (so to speak).  The extreme edge is best, but sometimes you're in a situation that just requires IWS and the level cannot be completed anyway else.

Example:  I've been working off and on on a knytt world called Sarah for about a year or so.  There's a point where, if you don't have a certain power up, you can only be ferried across the sea via boat.  As you press down on the captain, the land recedes and you go further out into the water.  The idea is to give a feeling that you are traveling in a 3rd direction that isn't right or left.  The problem is that as the land recedes, there is still land at the edge of the screen that the player can hop on.  I COULD just make a whole other land juni could explore, but there's an awful lot of land, and that would take away from the point of the boat which is to get from point a to point b.

The answer?  Invisible Wall Syndrome.

Now the player can't jump off the side of the screen and I still maintaining the purpose of the ship.

Cheap?  Oh yes.  But effective and I feel, in this case, the correct answer to an age old problem of level design.

/$0.02

Oh yes.  But effective and I feel, in this case, the correct answer to an age old problem of level design.

Slap some no jump tiles on that ship, and maybe curve the solid edges at the sides of it up just a tad so they don't walk right off and into the water. Voilą.

Well, yeah, that's great until you want the player to be able to explore a hidden island on the way over to the other side of the sea.

Sure, invisible walls are fine in a game like God of War where if they didn't exist the player could just go right off the map, but it is completely unnecessary in KS. In KS you can easily place hazards to keep the player out of, or within, certain areas, namely water. Like PYP said, you could use No Jump tiles, and if you want the player to be able to explore an island along the way, well, just use a shift, take away the No Jumps, and then have a screen of water on the side they're not supposed to go. You would be using a shift anyway, if the ship is actually supposed to be moving. There are SOOO many ways of keeping players in bounds that are more elegant and practical than using invisible walls.

There are SOOO many ways of keeping players in bounds that are more elegant and practical than using invisible walls.

Not to mention that neato trick with the custom objects and Juni wallswimming into a shift off to the side.

Nope.  I still defend invisible walls.  I'm not saying it isn't a cheap trick.  It is!  I'm saying, like any spice to a soup, there's a time and a place for it in a level.

Okay, let's break this down.  You're complaint seems to be that IWS breaks the suspension of disbelief in a level.  I can agree to that up to a point, but I don't see the problem in levels where the 4th wall is broken as a habit anyway.  Also, I still have no problem with IWS in my ship sailing away example.


Side note:    You know, we could dedicate a whole thread on Invisible Wall Syndrome.

Okay, let's break this down.  You're complaint seems to be that IWS breaks the suspension of disbelief in a level.  I can agree to that up to a point, but I don't see the problem in levels where the 4th wall is broken as a habit anyway.

Not suspension of disbelief. Immersion. Breaking the 4'th wall intentionally as a joke is all good and well, because it doesn't make the player focus their mind on something else than enjoying the game. Players experience that as "oh hey, that was a clever joke, haha, now where was I..."

However, an invisible wall that is just there to stop the player from moving into a certain area gets a completely different reaction.
Because it makes the players top dead, without providing some sort of way out, the player will experience it more like "What is this? Why cant I go there? Why did he do that? I'm playing a game, and I don't know what is going on. Gamedesign gamedesign gamedesign I'm playing a game."


Basically, the 4'th wall break you get with an invisible wall is different form other kinds of wallbreaking, because it doesn't provide a way back into the game.

I'm saying, like any spice to a soup, there's a time and a place for it in a level.

No it isn't. If breaking immersion can be avoided, then you should avoid breaking immersion.

Invisible walls work just fine for many things. Blocking a layer 2 wall covered with layer 3 grass. Guiding a 50 meter fall through the atmosphere. Straightening uneven tilesets. Blocking off areas.* Etc. So long as you don't make an invisible wall / invisible kill maze they're fine.

*I find you can also couple this with a sign saying something like, "You get a strong feeling you shouldn't go in there." However, the same effect can be achieved with large bodies of liquid, as Gorf mentioned.