[Hard/Challenge] Eurydice

It's great to hear that the story was so powerful and meaningful to you, and even the parts that others see as negatives actually contribute to your immersion. :)

Actually I was playing through this myself a week or two ago and for the first time I, too, noticed that void you found. I remember I was originally planning not to include the hi-jump before you reached the Underworld which is probably why the earlier areas didn't take it into account.

I love the Earthsea books through I didn't read them until after making this, I think. Actually for the Underworld I drew inspiration from the underground sections of The Silver Chair - one of my favourite childhood books. I was very proud of the boat ride, which logically relates more to Greek myth. Though one of the ghost women is wince-provokingly cheesy.

I'm also glad you like the ending, though it's possibly the part I'm least happy with (barring that stupid crashed spaceship). I was inspired to make this level after playing the flash game Don't Look Back which has a very tragic ending. I wanted to make my ending less sad but also didn't want to deviate too much from the myth - two objectives so incompatible as to create an ending ambiguous to the point of meaninglessness.

Anyway, I shouldn't be so critical of myself I guess; 'Eurydice', if nothing else, was the second step on a journey that has brought me to levels like 'The Greying Tower', 'I Chased the Moon' and (happy thought) 'Dragon Myth'. But I'm also really glad to hear that you're finding so much good in it as it is. :)

During part 2, I got the jump upgrade after the lighthouse and proceeded to get back to the clouds, however I fell into the lighthouse and inadvertently saved my position. I could not get back up because of slippery walls, so I proceeded to go down the lighthouse one more time. But I can't get past the third room from the top (the first one with two levers). After pulling the lever in the top-right corner I'm unable to get out because even my smallest jumps reach the spiked ceiling. 
I'm still rather new to KS so there might be some techniques I haven't heard about. Am I missing something?

I think this is the first time I ever got to the secret room in the crashed space ship. Now, ten years later, can you answer some questions for us loyal fans?

The "grey world" that you access from the underworld: it mirrors the "real world," but why?
Did you just re-use the screens for no other reason, and it's supposed to be an alien planet?
Is it death's "shadow realm" version of the real world, where everything is the same but shadowy and different? Like this is what -any- ghost would see, trying to access the real world. But that doesn't explain the space ship.
So is it an "upside-down" version of the real world, maybe an alternate timeline where the aliens crashed and things went south?
Or is it the far future or past, where in the far future an alien ship lands on a grey, dying world, and you can access it from Hades because death is timeless?

I never saw the grey area and the UFO as really being connected. The UFO is on the very first non-digital plan I made for Eurydice (I have maps of the Overworld and the Land of the Dead drawn in pencil in a massive sketchbook which has since been scribbled all over by my nieces and nephews) and I think I initially decided to put it in there because I wanted to include a technological environment - my first level, The Coming Dark, had by its concept let me blend mechanical and natural areas with abandon, and I wanted a little of that in this. I also wanted a high-tech area to introduce the hologram, since as a machine it was out of place with the fantasy setting.

I look back and consider it to have been a bad decision; it doesn't fit with the rest of the level and I hate the backstory I had for it being there.

...it's supposed to be an alien planet?
So is it an "upside-down" version of the real world, maybe an alternate timeline where the aliens crashed and things went south?
Or is it the far future or past, where in the far future an alien ship lands on a grey, dying world, and you can access it from Hades because death is timeless?

These are all great ideas and better than the one I had! Take your pick; I vote for the last one!
After all, all the world lies beneath the Grey River.

The grey area wasn't on the original plan and as I recall, I decided to include it at about the same time I put it in. I needed to fill the gap between the King's Hall and the UFO. But I saw it as a shadowy illusion of the world the mother came from; I liked the effect though it's too hard to work out how to progress and I think it caused a lot of frustration for people. I felt very vindicated when you posted in this thread and said how much you loved that bit, how it tricked you into thinking, briefly, that you had made it home. To be honest, I was more worried that people would be annoyed that I'd duplicated screens and think I'd just been lazy, so I'm really glad it became such a significant part of the story for you.

So there you go; the thing that was in the plan from the start is the only bit of the level I strongly regret, and the spur-of-the-moment addition worked out really well.

This is a story men once told.

There was a young maiden whose name is no longer remembered. She lived in a village below a mountain pass, and the road that ran over the mountains, through the village and to a city on the coast was travelled by all kinds of folk. One such traveller was a lone merchant whose wife lived many days’ journey inland; he passed there from time to time and he desired the girl. Each time he stayed in the village he courted her with pretty, worthless gifts and charming complements and she was besotted by him. When she was fourteen he took what he wanted from her, making her feel more valuable than gold, and then did so again each time he visited until she told him she was pregnant, after which he never travelled that way again. In the following summer she gave birth to a son.

The shame of her affair isolated her from the other villagers and her family. Her child became the centre of her world. For seven years she fed him, clothed him, taught and loved him. Then in the autumn he caught a fever and, two weeks later, died like a spring flower.

There are cool stone tunnels under that village where ancient people had painted men and animals on the walls, and where the villagers laid out their dead. For three days the heart-broken mother stayed awake in the cave beside the body of her child as the skies wept more tears than mortal eyes ever could.

The mother’s story began with the touch of a pale, cold hand and the gentle song of falling rain.

Wow that is great, Talps. I really do appreciate it! I've never been one to avoid peeking "behind the curtain," I think it's always interesting to see the thought-process that goes into creative design.

Apparently I've been pronouncing it wrong this whole time, also. I always pronounced it "Yuri-Dise.", like "Paradise" but with the name "Yuri" in front. Google says its "Yuh-Rid-ih-See,"