Knytt stories Round Robin

Ok, Im up!
I'll take a look through it tomorrow. got a programming confrency thing with some americans today. after that, i got all the time in the world 

OMAIFUKKINGGAWDITOTALLYFORGOTABOUTTHIS!!!!
whoops, got carried away doing something else, that i forgot completely about this 
i'm just booting up KS now, so i'll get the update out ASAP

I would love to join Ladys

Great! I'll add you to the list

Current list
1. Headgrinder [done]
2. Firecat [done]
3. Sergiocornaga [done]
4. StraightFlame [done]
5. AClockworkLemon
6. Bulbapuck
7. Pick Yer Poison
8. Vinterrun

oh dear. i've played through the level, and its realy awesome, to the point i dont know that i can add to it without subtracting from it (if you get what i mean) that said, if someone can post/pm me the basic plotline, i'll see if i can make some opening/ending cuscenes and whatever.

sowwee 

Best PM Headgrinder if you have plot questions. I think he has the best understanding of the story.

I'm working on this right now, and will try to have a good plot summery plus further plot and level suggestions up shortly.

Phew!        This was about 3 hours worth of work, so I hope this helps.  Mr. Bulbapuck!  Would you care to include some of this information in the first page of this thread so it is easily referenced?  I was thinking plot (in spoilers) at the very least, though it would be nice to have quick reference to the todo lists as well.

So, I've gone through the WHOLE thread and have written a loose summery based off of almost all the plot suggestion we've had thus far.  I've also traced all the flags and found a problem with them.  The todo list is also updated.    So here we go:
______________________________

Plot:

SOOOOoooooo, this is where we are so far.  
______________________________

Endings:

We need to decide on an ending or endings, and how best to achieve them.  Greencookie suggested these 3 endings and I've edited them to what I think would fit the story thus far best:

Bad ending:  Juni simply finds firewood somewhere and returns to her cabin.  The end, eternal winter rules.
*  Needs a location for the wood, and an inside to her cabin.
*  May need more of a reason, like she discovers her friend and leave with him/her, or she simply decides she's had enough of cold.

Balanced ending:  Juni is able to reestablish a balance between the Summer and Winter gods and the region returns to its former cycle before the ancient people messed up the balance.
*  Needs a location for the Summer goddess' power to be reestablished, perhaps by bringing to it an invention of Dr. Woods, or an ancient object.

Summer rules/end of odd weather for a tropical region:  Juni is able to not only reestablish the Summer goddess (balanced ending) but goes on to lock the Winter god away from this region, returning it to a tropical region.
*  Needs everything for the balanced ending.
*  Needs a location for locking the winter god away.  I might suggest Juni must go into the black tunnel with an object that protects her and doubles as the lock.  The black tunnel will probably be an "it wait's below" like area.

SOOOOooooo, how much work do we want to keep putting into this?  What is the interest level?  Basically, if someone is willing to take on an ending or part of an ending, I think we should keep going until they are all done.  But if we get to a point where no one want to contribute, than let's at least do just the balanced ending.  
________________________________

Additional issues:

    * Decide on an opening sequence.  I feel we can leave this in the hands of any one person who wants to make the opening cut scene.
    * A scene with Dr. Wood, furthering the plot, and perhaps receiving an object that helps disable the winter.
    * Fix messages like, "I don't have a sound card." and, "I ran out of time."  Also, fix bad spelling and grammar.
    * A place where the underwater section exits (not into the sky)
    * Add lab 1... maybe.
    * Voids/SGEs
    * Redevelop the room(s) at the end of the lab 3 radiation area to be person free and more key to the plot.
    * Flag3 is broken.  Do we want to fix this with something in lab 2 or 3, or just remove the whole flag 2 and 3 issue?
________________________________

Further plot and level suggestions:

* I'd like to see the insides of the village to the right of Juni's cabin and have that area tied into the plot.  I like the idea of these being the descendants of the ancient culture.  Perhaps the reason it doesn't snow in the village is someone there has an object we will need to get the balanced and tropic endings.  Maybe we need to get their trust by doing something like investigating the labs, the cave, or something from Dr. Wood.
* I feel kind of bad for the way I've handled streightflames and his area.  I think I tried to sweep it under the rug because I couldn't figure out how it could fit.  Then someone said "perhaps it doesn't need to."  Right.  So, any suggestion on this?  If not, I'm done trying to manipulate this area.
* The summer goddess area could be a cave (perhaps full of lush life, or maybe dead trees and such) with an alter/statue/thing that is somehow broken or blocked causing the influence of the summer to be blocked.  
* The under water section MIGHT be an interesting place for the summer goddesses cave, as in you come up out of water and into the cave.  Or, perhaps more fitting, maybe a flooded lab 1 is down here, though that might need some plot tie in.  Maybe Dr. Wood needs something from there and can't swim!  That would fit with the mechanical background.  Either way, the "no climbs" would need to be removed so you can get back out of the original entrance, or else there needs to be a second exit from the water area.  Would Evil like to be involved in finishing this area???  It is his after all.
* The "failed experiments" area in lab 4 might be a good place for the Black Tunnel.  Either that, or Dr. Woods helps you unlock the Lab 3 lockdown.  Hmm...
* Some thoughts on the conversation with Dr. Wood:  "I don't believe it!  You've been able to get all the cards so far?  I soooo need your help!"  He's trying to figure out how to end the eternal winter, and asks your help.  There perhaps needs to be 2 visits to him, one for the compromise ending, and one for the tropical ending.  Or perhaps it is the indigenous people who want the tropical ending because it means an end of the whole sources of power thing, something Dr. Wood would probably not want.

Soooooooo... lots of stuff to do still.  
_____________________________

Last of all, I was as confused as heck about the flag business and how to get into the ice cave.  I'm pretty sure the reason is that I broke flag3.    At any rate, since I took the time to put together a walkthrough, here it is too:

_____________________________

I'd like to ALSO point out that this topic is 7 months old.  I like that we have been dedicated enough to keep this going for that long.

I have an idea for the cause of the decline of the warm god, the purpose for Dr. Woods machine, and a tie in for "Linear Greenfire Road" or whatever it's called.

The Decline: The ruins are all alters that draw in extra warm power from another space. Many years of easy living caused the people to become lax in their maintenance of the alters. As alters failed the climate began to cool attracting the curious scientists. In their study of the remaining functioning artifacts they inadvertently cut the connection to the warm space. This allowed the cold god to assume complete domain.

Dr. Wood: When the cold god nearly destroyed lab 3, most of the scientists ran. Dr. Wood, however, stayed to fix the climate change he feels responsible for. With his machine he is trying to open a window to the warm space, to set things in balance.

Linear Greenfire Road: If portals exist to other spaces, then this is just another space. The alter must be misaligned. The character there could explain this and even hint that the darkness in lab 3 is due to a door to a cold space.

I also have a proposal for the opening. Juni is visiting an elderly friend who asks Juni to fetch some wood before his fire dies. The winter was longer than expected, so he ran out. It ties into the bigger plot. It explains why Juni is there and why she can't just leave. Also, all the endings described by Headgrinder would satisfy the old man's need for warmth.

Ok, nice.  Good, simple opening.

So then the research would be only a research of portals and two important locations that the alters tie to, not so much a research of a new type of energy and its positive and negative polls?  (I should have had a description of that in the plot summer I guess.)  I think for my addition of the tree in lab 3 to be consistent with that, the "warm" location would have to be more than merely warm, or else the tree would not have grown so quick.   

I really like the idea of the Greenfire road being another space, rather than the future.  That seems to fit better with the story line.

In my proposal, I was just using warm and cold as place holders for the more complex concepts of what was flowing in from the other realms. The ancients thought the blessing or the curses of the gods were flowing through, and built extra summer god altars causing the realm to become tropical. The scientists can interpret it as an energy flow, with the altars acting as anodes and cathodes. An imbalance one way or the other causes a build up of charge like a capacitor. (I forgot about the energy theory. Guess I should take a fresh run through the level before I make any more suggestions.)

Very nice.  

Yeah, like I said, I should have included the energy theories in the plot summery.

Edit:  Just did a quick, one sentence edit to more fully illustrate the energy theory. 

I REALLY like your use of electrical terms, which I confess I'm mostly ignorant of.  The idea of the energy building up a charge is a nice one.  I wonder if that would mean that the charge must be "grounded" or dissipated before a balance could be struck...

This scenario is DC, the winter energy is already grounded to the world causing winter. The only way the winter energy could discharge is through a summer portal. Also, Dr. Wood's experiment will have to allow a current equal to the winter portal to balance the energy. A greater flow, would return the realm to tropical.

I think I meant that there might be a build up within the closed off summer portal that would be released in a burst of over abundant life if released too quickly.  I'm picturing water that has been dammed up, which may not work for an electrical current, I don't know.  So the trick would be how to keep the energy release from being so great, like dammed waters shoving a door open, that there is a destructive amount of growth.  Perhaps a junction has to be made between the two portals so that the excess build up can be harmlessly drained? 

Or perhaps I'm thinking of this too much. 

I think one point of clarity would be that whatever these energies are, they are not incompatible with our world but rather directly interact with it.  This means the negative poll is still drawing life, just not from the positive poll.  If the negative poll is completely closed, and the positive poll opened fully, well, that might be just as disastrous as the winter.

What if the water section (which doesn't currently have a purpose) were to become the area for locking the Winter God away for the third ending? The surface could be frozen over at first, and only become accessible after re-establishing the power of the Summer Goddess.

This is a little against Headgrinder's suggestions, but I believe it would involve less work, and thus finishing this level faster.