[Environmental/Maze][Easy] 9 days

9 days is my entry for the current KS level competition. Excluding obvious stuff like Juni's sprite and water animations, the graphics are entirely original. Since the soundtrack isn't assessed, I also created that myself even though I'm a fairly incompetent musician... hopefully some of you will enjoy it, though.

'Plot' is as follows: Juni has 9 days to locate a flower that is said to bloom only once a century. On day 10, the flower will be dead.

Every time you move off the edge of the screen into a new area, 12 hours will pass. After 204 hours it's game over. Be careful near the screen edges as time progresses even if you are backtracking, jumping upwards or falling.

Visit exotic locations like the Jetio Foreshore!


Attempt to climb Mt. Talps!


Or explore the depths of Cave Johnson!


Download version 2!


This level is fairly technically ambitious for the timeframe it was made in, so please report any bugs you find and I will attempt to squash them.

I'm not one to like environmental or maze or easy levels, but the implementation of that time gimmick was polished enough to make this level very intriguing and entertaining for me. Good work.

I would go as far as to say I'd like to see a longer level of this nature, but I'm sure that would take way too much time and effort.

I'm not one to like environmental or maze or easy levels.

Typical... Difficulty interests you...

Anyways, i kind of liked this level because of the gimmick...
It is good that you...

Or explore the depths of Cave Johnson!

You win!

Downloading now, but I won't play 'til I'm sure there are no other entries. Still, sounds like it could be good.

Whad did you use to create the soundtrack?

I would go as far as to say I'd like to see a longer level of this nature, but I'm sure that would take way too much time and effort.

I'd have to agree, so you probably won't see such a level from me. If anyone else wants to make a level in this style, they should feel free. I might do another level with a day/night cycle, but it would probably be implemented quite differently.

EDIT: Whoa, just noticed that the last word of every sentence I wrote there rhymes...

I wonder what your next level will be like...

In the works is a collection of about ten very short levels which I plan to lump together in a single thread.

Quote

Or explore the depths of Cave Johnson!

You win!

Full disclosure: I have never played Portal 2.

Whad did you use to create the soundtrack?

Ambi253 (Nesish Loop) was made using KORG DS-10, mostly with simple waveforms and manually gated white noise for percussion.

Ambi254 (Drums 1) and Ambi255 (Drums 2) are live recordings of me playing some kind of drum I own. I have no idea what this type of drum is called, but I think it's of African origin. I have very little experience with it so the rhythm is off at times. Side note: during development I made the mistake of checking to see if my World.ini file had surpassed the size of the one in Shipwrecked (it has) and while looking through the folder I noticed egomassive had already put original tribal drum music into a Knytt Stories level! Made me feel far less original...

Song254 (Bad Piany) and Song255 (Piany) are both based on recordings of a tune I thought up (or more likely, unintentionally plagiarised) and transcribed into another DS music application called Korg M01 (which is why it sounds so quantized). Both tracks have been detuned and altered using LOFI, and Song255 has me whistling in it briefly.

I recorded all the tracks in Audacity where I did minor additional processing on most of them. The sound quality came out much better than I expecting, considering every track was recorded with a terrible microphone that looks like a two inch long plastic tube.

^: Although I did make the tribal drums track in Shipwrecked, I didn't make the sample of tribal drums that was used to make it. The guy who made the sample had terrible rhythm so I had to splice, loop, and layer it in Audacity until it did have rhythm. So in that sense, your track is the first entirely original tribal drum track for a Knytt story, afaik.

I'm impressed that 9 Days rivals Shipwrecked in World.ini size. Especially considering the copious amounts of citations and white space I added. But, it depends on how you measure as to which is larger. Below I compare bytes and lines for the largest ini files I know of. As you can see 9 Days wins by a wide margin for lines, but A Knytt in Time is the byte champ.
Gaia: 59,012 bytes - 2,246 lines
9 Days: 67,402 bytes - 5,618 lines
Shipwrecked: 67,714 bytes - 3,565 lines
A Knytt in Time: 74,451 bytes - 3,617 lines

Ok, since Jetio's called an official end to this, and I imagine I'll be distracted by Siara for the rest of the weekend, I gave this a play (after trawling twice through my levels list before realising I'd forgotten to install it).

I'll put this in spoilers 'cus I don't want to influence Jetio.

I'm impressed that 9 Days rivals Shipwrecked in World.ini size. Especially considering the copious amounts of citations and white space I added. But, it depends on how you measure as to which is larger. Below I compare bytes and lines for the largest ini files I know of. As you can see 9 Days wins by a wide margin for lines, but A Knytt in Time is the byte champ.

There's a lot of white space in my World.ini too, so lines may not be a fair comparison. I was going by bytes, but I must have taken out a comment that pushed mine above Shipwrecked at some point. I'm pretty sure I could never hope to beat A Knytt in Time.

At first I thought, hey, somebody's plagiarized tilsets from that terrific old level, what was its name... Then I found it and it turned out to be yours    Anyway, I enjoyed the visuals a lot, particularly the areas with trees and tree stuff seen through the cracks, and the night screens. But I got most of my enjoyment out of the , not from the level itself, which was a bit frustrating to play because of the gameplay. Mazes are one thing, but having to watch out every time I cross the edge of the screen, eh... Still, it was interesting and fun. I have an unfinished level that has the same idea of time implemented, but its more subtle, and time changes only when you pass from one area to another, not from one screen to another. Then again, I don't think I'll ever complete it.

At first I thought, hey, somebody's plagiarized tilsets from that terrific old level, what was its name... Then I found it and it turned out to be yours   

It was fun to revisit my four year old tileset. I think I used it fairly differently in this level.

Mazes are one thing, but having to watch out every time I cross the edge of the screen, eh...

It was a pain not really knowing how fun my mechanic would be until it had been painstakingly implemented. I probably could have designed a few of the rooms to better suit avoiding the screen edges. Unfortunately, that problem didn't really show up until I had duplicated every room about 20 times... There's a small chance I'll change a certain room in an update, though.

I totally recognized the tile from your old environment level chasm. Which is still among my favorite environment levels.
The concept is nice but could have worked better. I went into some secret area, resetting the time limit and beat the level that way.
Level could have looked better. no background or critters or corner tiles. But nice shift work and parachute.
Good original level.

Added a slightly updated version.

Nice.
The secret area is a good thing. I beat the level without it, but it helped me explore it before the final run.
It wouldn't be hard to make a similar level using scripts in KS Ex.