egomassive's Knytt Stories Plus mod

I've also noticed that the 1-way and 2-way platforms don't seem to work as expected when they're layered over certain solid tiles. If said solid tile/object is 18 pixels high or less, the player will be able to walk over the platform and drop down when pressing Down+Jump, as usual. However, if the solid tile has any non-transparent pixels on the top 6 rows, the character will always fall through the platform when they step on it (see attached pic), as if the 1-way/2-way object wasn't placed there. Not sure if this is a bug or a way to prevent unwanted wallswim issues, though.

Bug: Ctrl+M doesn't always work. Here's an example:
Level: GBoots - Red Flower
Savegame

I've also noticed that the 1-way and 2-way platforms

What are 2-way platforms?

What are 2-way platforms?

Those are platforms that allow the player to drop down from them by pressing Down+Jump (Bank16 Obj30 in KS+). Deep Freeze uses them in some areas.

Bug: Ctrl+M doesn't always work.

I think this might not really be a bug. That level has a bunch of music in the Ambiance folder, and Ctrl+M will only mute what's in the Music folder, and it's up to the level designer to try and make that work.

I've just added an almost transparent (transparency 121/128) white overlay to KS Plus, because my monitor doesn't display shades of near-black with settings I use for everyday browsing. It would be great to have it as an option officially for people like me.

I think this might not really be a bug. That level has a bunch of music in the Ambiance folder, and Ctrl+M will only mute what's in the Music folder, and it's up to the level designer to try and make that work.

Ugh, that's a strange decision to not mute the ambience, it's often used for looping music.

Those are platforms that allow the player to drop down from them by pressing Down+Jump (Bank16 Obj30 in KS+). Deep Freeze uses them in some areas.

Thanks, I then figured what they are, but wasn't able to find them in the bank, because I read them as "1wav" and "2wav". KS Plus definitely needs a list of objects and features with brief descriptions. Just like KS Ex

Thanks, I then figured what they are, but wasn't able to find them in the bank, because I read them as "1wav" and "2wav". KS Plus definitely needs a list of objects and features with brief descriptions. Just like KS Ex

While I don't believe KS+ has a list of objects laid out neatly, each object comes with a description that you can view in the editor by hovering over the object and pressing F1 (in the selection part of the UI, not the screen editor; the screen editor has its own description that shows useful key+click combinations when you hover over it and press F1).

Wow, that's a huge hidden feature! That's what I meant by brief descriptions, although some objects are also hard to find because they have numbers 255 and so on. I wonder why the descriptions aren't displayed when you select the object or hover mouse over it, pressing F1 is an unnecessary burden.

Does anyone know if there's a way to navigate the KS+ main menu / level selection screen using only the keyboard?

It's not a major issue and it might not have an easy solution, but I noticed that recolored OCOs based on the "LEAF" objects (Bank 7 / Nature FX) tend to produce unexpected results when two or more different types are used in the same screen. For example, if you define two separate Bank7Obj10 OCOs with different colors and place both of them in the same screen, the leaves will be constantly switching colors until they touch the ground and disappear (may be useful for making a confetti effect ). Other combinations (e.g. a Bank7Obj6 OCO and a Bank7Obj10 one) and may result in one of the OCOs working correctly and the other one spawning leaves of unexpected colors every now and then.

@Purple Pineapple: As far as I know, there aren't any keyboard shortcuts for the KS menus, although I can't say for certain. I tried every key combination I could think of and wasn't able to navigate those screens without the mouse. The most I could do was to de-activate the search field after using it by pressing TAB, which doesn't have any practical use.

Here's an issue with the editor itself: the KS-compatibility mode (format=2) should remind you that shift positions with decimals in them aren't supported in vanilla KS.

Wow, I've been absent longer than I realized. Let's see here...

Q: Merge KS+ with KS Ex?
A: I'm not against it, but I don't see it happening. Since the two mods were developed at the same time they already share many key features. However the design philosophies of the 2 projects are very different. KS+ is all about ease of use. KS Ex is all about unlimited possibilities. (It's still easy to use, just not as easy.)

Q: Why do I have to press F1 to get a description in the editor?
A: Constantly checking the mouse position might set your computer on fire. That was the original implementation, but the processor load it created was insane.

Q: Hi, my name is Vegetal Gibber and I'm using objects in new and exciting ways?
A: Only one color change per nature object per screen. The nature objects change colors by doing something akin to a pallet-swap. You actually change the colors defined for that object type and you change every instance of it. In fact, the default objects swap them back. You can probably get some of them to turn into boxes by first making them color zero.
A: Jump through objects can fail when combined with collision tiles. It's out of my hands --internal functionality of the software KS was written on. It is recommended that transitions between the two are flat and square. Everything else should be thoroughly tested. I personally get foiled by rounded corners on a regular basis when level designing.

Q: Why not mute ambiance?
A: I didn't feel like enough levels were made with overly loud music in the ambiance channels to warrant the added complexity. For the combination of screen enlarging methods to work, the game actually plays in a child window, while the menu is on the parent window. I did some crazy and overly complex stuff to get the windows to communicate with each other. Then consider that all music plays in 1 channel, while ambiance has 4 to facilitate cross-fades.

Q: Shouldn't the editor prevent designers from using non-integer shift values when making original KS levels?
A: I didn't know that worked in KS+. I'm just going to advise you to never do that. However, if it helps you do something neat then don't let me stop you.

Q: Keyboard shortcuts on the main menu?
A: Nope.

Q: Can we have a built-in gamma adjustment.
A: I have actually considered this before. There have been massive debates about too-dark KS levels. And when I adjust my computer screen to match the settings of my phone/television the majority of professional games I play appear too dark. Conclusion, we live in a world where there is no one true gamma setting. So, maybe I should do this.

Q: What's with redo?
A: I didn't make the map editor undo function, and I never really figured out how it works. The redo you see in the menu only works in the script pad portion of the level editor.

Get Knytt Stories Plus 1.3.1

All I added was the gamma adjuster GrayFace suggested. Once I had it working I could see that it will be really useful for the dark screen crowd. So, I've gone ahead and made a release just for this change. I used the intentionally too dark screens in the Features Demonstration level as reference, and I had no idea that those screen were completely unplayable with adjusted-for-printing monitor settings. Oops.

To use it simply select "Increase Brightness" in the options menu during gameplay or cutscenes. Whether or not it should be on is saved in levels' save files. You can fine tune the level of brightness for your monitor by opening up the Settings.ini in your Knytt Stories Plus directory and changing the "GammaIncrease" value. I've chosen 16 as the default. This is out of 255, so GrayFace's suggested setting would translate to 14.

I gave the new gamma adjusting feature a try. It's pretty useful for very dark levels such as Harlow and the Tarandus Queen and my old level Dark Alleys, especially when you have to play in windowed mode or when the light level in your room is not optimal. I found 10 to be the best overall value for me, increasing visibility enough for the darkest areas to become visible without reducing the picture contrast too much, although this depends heavily on the level I'm playing.

Editor bug report: If coordinates are capitalised in World.ini (e.g. [X999Y999]) the game will still treat them normally, but the script editor won't jump to that portion of World.ini when navigating to that room, which gives the mistaken impression that it's not in World.ini.