The Sunken Castle - Knytt Story

Hi
Me and my girlfriend both study gamedesign and this little Level Editor came up as a software to use for a specific task in school. The task was to deliver a story driven by its narrative without giving hints or description with symbols, text or specific sounds.
So we created this small level and since Knytt Level Editor software was used in a school and especially as a task in gamedesign issues we thought it might be a good idea to contribute back to "Nifflas" and his forum users.

We spent quite a lot of work on this task, about 4 days of work, perhaps less. Long hours and lots of mind rubbing.
Specifics:

Program used; Knytt Level Editor
Remade; textures and tilesets, sounds merged and/or looped with "Audacity software", backgrounds and I bet a lot more. Everything graphical are made in Photoshop CS3 and are digitally painted by us.

Timeline; Textures, backgrounds, photos, sound and tilesets compilation took about 2 days. Mindrubbing and level design about 2 days.

Pipeline; We started off by laying a base story. After we sketched up the base of the story and started blocking out colors and colorschemes. Numerous discussions followed on what objects should be where and why they should be there in the first place. What did these have to do with the story and why? Then we did the same thing on paper. After all the argues we blocked out all the solid objects into the frames we had decided upon(this was made by using whole solid square blocks). And then we started produce all the tilesets and what not. Now all we had to do was to either replace the tilesets or simply just remake the whole level and make the final adjustments.

We thought it might be a good idea to bring up some screenshots so we handpicked one frame as a "before and after" showcase. The before is after we made our design choices and put all the solid blocks roughly or precisely where we wanted them as seen in the screenshot the solid blocks are from our own made tileset(I am way too tired to look up the even earlier version with Knytt's own tilesets.

Frame BEFORE





Frame AFTER



We hope everyone will enjoy the level. We let every and anyone use every content in the packed .rar file, will it be graphics or design choices. Please only use for personal preferences and even if so we would be very happy as to give a link to "Nifflas" webpage and a credit to the real creators/authors of this story namely us; Fredrik Larsson and Sara Pauni.

[mod]topic moved, attachment removed (it's against the rules). you're very welcome to use the level editor to compress the level into a knytt.bin package and link to it from a filehost. [/mod]

First, your name reminds me of one of the most popular KS tileset makers, Frederik Andersson, and your girlfriend's name reminds me of Nifflas' girlfriend/wife/fiance/ex/whatever she is/was. xD

Second, this belongs somewhere else, so it'll probably get moved.

Anyway, it's always a pleasure to see people make KS levels for school projects.

I'm having a hard time understanding why you're posting this, but it looks nice. The second screenshot looks like a background change. Are you actually planning on adding that background to the screen?

@Pumpkinbot
I had no clue of where to post this. I did check around from start and the "development showcase" sounded like the appropriete forum to post this.

@Purple Pineapple
Why we posted this is quite understandable if you take a minute to read. I think its a great way to contribute back to Nifflas and to say "hey thanks, you should be proud to hear that a very respectful school is using your editor software to such a serious course as game design. Secondly it might get some ideas for others still stuck on the tilesets or ideas they may have used since the start. And yes we did use them as background and I really really hope you try the level. Our goal was to achieve a great environment a way to feel the energy put into the level. If you wont try it its ok, but I hope you do.

And to both of you thanks for giving feedback.

well, I hope this person comes back and reposts the level after such a horrible reception. Sheesh the person was trying to do something nice and wham bam no thank you maam....

seriously, no rar or zip files? I think people who use the interwebs could figure out how scan and unpack a rar....

 obviously this person was new to the editor and was not aware of the packing capabilities....

somebody could have done it for them.... I didnt even get a chance.

Yes, I also hope Mr Larsson can upload the .binned level. It looks interesting, I'd really like to play it. Very different from most other levels I've seen.

The second screen is great, is it a giant CO? If so it would be awesome. If not... nice Background anyways and the screen concept look fine.
You said that you`re going to study gamedesign, okay that`s nice but you shoudl think about the communication of your work, especcialy in regard to the colors.
Over all the tileset doesn`t look very eye-candy-like, which should be very important for a designer.

Will there be a release of the level? Otherwise it would not make sense to post it here. It would be like eating a hot pot of soup in front of an Hobo in wintertime 

I downloaded the file before it was deleted. The idea is very nice and original! But the level had so many wallswims, it was almost painful. There were also some problems with columns, i.e. some were solid, some were not, and it was impossible to distinguish... contributing to the painful aspect. Sorry 

Also, the screen you posted wasn't included in the level. As a matter of fact, neither of the screens you posted were included; there was one screen that looked much like the "before" screen, but that's it. Perhaps you accidentally uploaded an early version?

Still, good to hear KS used in schools and such, and thanks for letting us know and try the level

Over all the tileset doesn`t look very eye-candy-like, which should be very important for a designer.

I dunno, I think the second screenshot looks quite nice. The tileset may be a bit too blurry for my taste, but I like the muddy underwater colour scheme.

Also, yeah, like everyone else here I'd like to see the actual level! ;-)

I'd love to see a link to the level. this looks really good

I would also love to see a link but if one isn't supplied shouldn't this be moved?

He attached it to the post and a mod took it down. The guy apparently hasn't visited the forum since, or else he would've seen all our posts asking for a direct link.

Has anybody tried to PM him/them? AFAIK PMs cause an e-mail notification to be sent to the forum user...