egomassive's Knytt Stories Plus mod

I have a few levels in the making that I'm interested in optimizing for KS+ while still keeping them compatible with the original KS. By "optimizing" I mean enabling the single-pass render mode by default, as these levels contain a lot of COs and could benefit a lot from the flicker-free screen transitions. Can this be accomplished by setting something in the World.ini file, or do I need to release a KS+ version separately?

Sorry, that's not an option. It must say "Format=2" in the World.ini to play in original KS 1.2.1. KS+ will then use double-pass rendering by default. You can recommend using KS+ with single-pass rendering in your level's release topic or put it in your level's info image. Making a separate release for each platform isn't a bad idea either. I think it's best to assume that part of your audience will not follow such instructions. Also, making it a KS+ exclusive level when it doesn't need to be would be a bad choice. It would limit your audience only to KS+ adopters and the Knytt audience is full of players who aren't. I expect Dragon Myth will change that to a degree.

I see, I think I'll go with the dual release plan then. I'm not using any KS+ exclusive features in these levels yet, but since it handles COs much better than the original, it's going to be the recommended version (mainly for the single-pass render mode and the memory leak fix). I may also take this opportunity to experiment with the bonus features and see what else could I add to the KS+ extended versions of these levels.

Thanks for the answer!

I don't know if you need this advice or not, but to deal with pop in of COs that are static and simply foreground objects, I try to always create a redundant layer 0-2 tile or even gradient image to help stop the pop-in. Also, I never use water blocks for the bottom of water, I always use a tileset block of the same color because those blocks are not necessary and create more CO pop-in. You can use this with even animated COs if the way they animate is from a static object. So a fan, you might animate the blades of the fan but actually use a tile for the base of the fan that doesn't appear to move. The pop-in there would only be the blades of the fan which is a much less jarring pop-in than the entirety of a fan.

Also, you can stop all pop-in with completely filled animated blocks. This isn't something I've done but something I've thought about doing because it would work for anything that's not randomly animated from the start. You can have the 0-3 tiles or the gradient have the image that is the start of the animation and simply have the background within the CO as its animated, so the starting position where a CO might start walking already has the CO's image placed as a tile or onto the gradient and you can put the background of that screen behind the CO, as long as it's on layer 4-5, you can have no pop-in for animated objects, aside from things like water/waterfalls that have random start points or animation routines.

The only way to beat the pop-in, though, in my opinion, is to stop caring about it. It's a perfectionist ideal that could probably lead to madness.

(Semi-OT)

Thank you for the advice, I appreciate it I hadn't thought of that trick for water objects, that may come in handy.

Normally the pop-in issue doesn't bother me that much, but this time I'm using fullscreen translucent COs for lighting effects, so the problem becomes more noticeable than usual (especially when combined with fast screen transitions). I've been using the duplicate tile trick to avoid the flickering in some cases, but this is not an option with most of these COs. KS+ makes the experience a lot better thanks to its improved rendering engine.

This is a big update for KS+.

Get KS+ 1.2.1

Updates:

• SinglePass=True is a legacy instruction which I've allowed to work with original KS levels.
• AltDie=True is now documented in the instructions text.
• Reset does soft start now.*
• Collectibles can't be collected from oposite side of screen when scrolling.
• Water Area object effects no longer bleed into the next screen.
• Zooming to the 3rd level should scale to the highest multiple of 600x240 your screen can hold.*
• Includes CO icons for the level editor for your convenience.

*These were overly complex changes and I expect there to be bugs. Please let me know if you experience any problems.

Collectibles can't be collected from oposite side of screen when scrolling.

Hahaha, I'd totally forgotten about that one.  By the way, I'm noticing that the shift/item collect animation (the white circle that slowly fades out) is playing extremely quickly for me - has been since the beta of the last version came out.  Could that just be something on my end?

By the way - is there any possible method for changing the color of a screen as it appears on the map?  I remember something about save-file modification being mentioned somewhere, and it seems maybe like the color of a screen at any time is sort of decided by the save file (since changing the color of a screen and then loading up an old save file leaves you with the screen staying the color it was)?

Thanks for the feedback, Ultigonio. I had to rework several effects because something changed in Windows that broke them, at least that is the assumption I made since they were broken in original KS too. I really need to compare how they appear now to some old Let's Play vids.

For mini-maps there are several options. You can choose a room's color, hide rooms from the map, make rooms appear to be in a different location. There are detailed instructions in "KS+ Instructions.txt" and there are controls on the Misc. tab in Level Editor Plus. Also, in the editor there is a number above the top-right corner of the tileset that gives the color value of the current gradient.

Map save data is stored in a separate file. I never thought about overwriting that file along with the normal save file. Since it's a binary array, I'm afraid it would be difficult for level designers to work with.

Ah, sorry, I should have been a bit more clear - I was referring specifically to changing the color of a screen in the middle of a level.  For example, having a screen's mini-map color be yellow while a collectible is inside it, and then changing it (possibly with a shift) so a player doesn't think there's something still there.  It's a shame if I can't reasonably pull that off, but I think I may have just come up with a strong alternative plan to make it so the player will be totally able to see which golden creatures they've missed.

(I didn't know the bit about the color value of the current gradient, that's neat!)

• SinglePass=True is a legacy instruction which I've allowed to work with original KS levels.
• Reset does soft start now.*

Thank you for both of these! The new features will be very helpful to me


I also tried the new 3x zoom feature. Seems to be working well on my system.

Thanks VG. *gives star* I updated to 1.2.1b. Get it at the link above. I've addressed the reset and rendering options issues. The translucent tile issue is a bug that will have to remain though.

Get KS+ 1.2.1b

Changing the death sequence changes the applications background color. Unless you use a translucent gradient you'll never see the application background, so I used it for the gray color in the alternate death sequence. Apparently, a side effect of this is it upsets the delicate balance that makes tiles layered over themselves appear correctly. It's a bug in the underlying engine, so I can't fix it. If players are changing the death sequence then they've already lost immersion. A momentary graphical glitch shouldn't hurt anything.

I can confirm both the soft reset and the single-pass render preference option now work as intended. Neat!

As for the alt-death thing I mentioned, it's a very minor and obscure glitch, and I discovered it purely by chance. Most levels shouldn't have this issue at all. I just have this nasty habit of ruining everything good by doing strange things

I just downloaded 1.2.1 and i found a strange bug. If you put a white fly thing (Bank 2, Obj 8) inside a solid the rest of the flies on the screen will start to cluster on the bottom left. I know there's no reason to put a fly inside a block in the first place and this is something i don't really need fixed but this behavior doesn't occour on regular KS or KS+ 1.1.2.

Also, the Override Objects for the golden creature locks (Bank 15, Obj 31-36) are shown offset by 1 pixel and mirrored for some reason.

@Firecat: Thanks for the bug reports. *gives star* I have no idea what went wrong with those flys, but I must have done something.

Custom golden creature block pose an unexpected problem I had never forseen until now. OCOs all use the same logic to follow the behavior of the standard object they are imitating. One of those behaviors is that when an object looks to the left it moves over a pixel. I lumped the gold blocks into the same object as the key blocks but I used left facing animation slots. Therefore your custom animation looks to the left and slides over a pixel. Oops. It'll be easy to fix.

The flashes (pick-ups, teleports, saves, and springs) have been changed because they stopped working for many people. I'd be interested to know what version of Windows you are using if the flashes were still functioning. I intend to lengthen the fade out using old Let's Play videos for reference.

Hey Ego!
I'm always hesitant to download mods to things, I don't know why. So I recently tried this mod for the first time, and oh my god is it good.
I love the small changes to how you play the game, the zoom feature in particular. The window being too small was for the longest time my only gripe with KS. That and all the new features for level creation has made me want to get back in it and create some levels.
 
So I just wanted to say thank you for creating this, it has really improved the KS playing experience.

Get KS+ 1.2.2

This version fixes the 3 issues recently discovered:

• The cave fly issue was created when I tried to fix a problem where they ignored the fish/bird blocker. Apparently you can't check for 2 types of collision in the same same statement.
• Customized Golden Blocks face the correct direction now.
• Flashes for saves, teleports, pick-ups, and springs all fade at about the right speed. I was way off in my understanding of how the rate given to an animation relates to seconds. I still don't know what the correlation is, but after viewing old videos and testing this version against them I think I've found a good solution.

@Bulbapuck: Glad you like it.