[Hard/Challenge] Eurydice

Still my favorite KS level! The story and environments are still just as poignant as I remember it. The challenges were a little more difficult than I remembered them being (especially the mushroom area), and there were a few things a little clunkier than I remember them being (a few places where you can run into a screen and be killed immediately) but otherwise still just... well... epic.

I actually found a void screen, believe or not, at x998y1033, you can get up to it from below if you return to the well after getting the high-jump from the shoreline.

Focusing on what I think makes this level so great are the story, the environments, and the knytts you interact with: the subject really is the most serious and ambitious topic anyone can address: a single parent grieving for the loss of their only child. Here it is executed with the appropriate respect and tone... the environments are dark and bleak and gray, the NPCs are respectful, the challenges are difficult, and the journey feels long and arduous. Even though this is a pixelated video game, we still get a glimpse of the mother's loss and despair. This gives the player real motivation here... unlike someone trying to find a key or explore a new world, we're trying to save this widow's only child. And yet despite this, it never ceases being fun, the player is always looking for the next step.

The environments again, are executed perfectly, especially the underworld. I loved the difficulty in getting there, the boat ride was excellent. It reminds of the land of the dead in Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea series. The mushroom area, while difficult, was the right level of "alien" to make the underworld seem organic and real. The quotes of the dead, mostly mourning their lost lives, were appropriately, respectfully gloomy. The alien, grey, dead, circular "surface world" I remember being extremely impressed with the first time I played this level. I thought I'd gotten home! Only to realize... this... isn't home. No, we're still trapped! I had less of that feeling on playthrough number 4, knowing now to expect it.

[The one little piece that I think it out of place is the laboratory. You're in a dead underworld, what's with the laboratory with lasers and holograms and robots? Is this to imply that the land of the dead is artificial? Some advanced civilization set it up hoping for quasi-immortality? If that's the case, it might be a tiny bit more explicit.]

The ending was also extremely poignant. The ambiguity leaves the player feeling both loss and hope.

The secret ending was funny, and on-point, and gave the real ending a tiny little bit more hope.  :)