[Challenge] [Normal/Hard] [Medium] The Bluebird of Happiness

"The Bluebird of Happiness" is a knytt story inspired in one of Maeterlinck's works which you may be already familiar with. It's your classic "collect all powers/keys and find your way to the exit" KS adventure, spiced up with some light challenges and puzzles along the way. This level started as an attempt to make a more "Nifflas-style" classic KS level, both visually and gameplay-wise. There aren't any special themes nor distinct game mechanics / gimmicks at work here, but the story is a tad more elaborate compared to my other levels. It's also a bit longer than my usual stuff (if you aim for 100% completion).

There are a total of three endings here. The first two you can get by exploring the main area and overcoming medium/normal challenges, and the third one requires you to unlock a separate area (via a hidden code) and beat a much more challenging section (hard difficulty).


This level should run in vanilla KS without any mods. It doesn't use any of KS+'s exclusive features, although I've included map spoofs that will make it easier to use KS+'s map function if you choose to enable the "Force Map" menu option.

Hope you enjoy this adventure! Feel free to post here to share your opinion and/or report any problems you might run into.

I feel blessed by another well crafted VG level. I could feel Nifflas' influence in the fable-like quality of the story enhanced by the innocent humor of VG's characters. A few OCOs were neat to see. Especially a certain vain, insecure, lovestruck knytt, as well as a useful cracked open door I hadn't seen before. I especially enjoyed the purple key challenge and some of the air pocket challenges toward the end of the third ending. Something about how you changed the bird's sprite on the cutscene to the 'romantic' ending had me laughing out loud.
Not really a criticism of this level, but I feel the urge to ask for a future level to include a bit more difficult precision challenges. I know it can be difficult to find a good balance and not frustrate players too much. But sometimes I find it satisfying to sweat a bit more.

This came to me as a really refreshing reminder that not all KS levels have to be impersonal, silly stuff. (Though I also enjoyed the bits of humor here and there, like the romantic ending.)

An excellent world overall! Good visuals, good challenges and level structure, good story, and even the music choices intrigued me - I don't see Niff's jazzy stuff being used often.

I got all three endings (though I admit I... ), and really only noticed one issue progression-wise:


Personally I thought the challenges in the post-yellow key area were at just the right difficulty, and some I found really clever - like the air pocket rooms helvetzia mentioned, and the room with the green button and the ghost drip. I also particularly liked the short puzzle with the spike pillar and the orange block in the purple key area.

It's great to see you're back in the level-making spirit!

Really charming level. I loved the extent to which it tied into the lore built up through all of Juni's other adventures.

Thanks a lot for the feedback and the kind words, guys   I genuinely didn't expect much from this level myself, since I started working on it simply as a way to get back into KS level making. It was a really pleasant surprise to see that it became something I can be proud of!

@helvetzia: I'm happy you liked those COs! I made two of these a long time ago but never used them until now (although I did post them on my "custom content" thread back in the day).

Some of the challenges in the special area were actually a bit harder and more precise in the first RC version, but since I didn't want this level to go beyond the "Hard" difficulty level, I took Talps' advice and made some slight adjustments to the screens that could potentially be way too frustrating to some players, which I believe was the right decision here. I seem to be in the mood for making harder levels these days though, so expect more challenging stories in the near future

@canteven: It's good to be back I wanted this level to feature a story a bit more elaborate than my usual for a change. Funny thing is, I didn't make this decision until I had built about 40% of the main area. Believe it or not, when I first created the level in the editor, I set the title to "Who took my cheese"... so there's that


@Sergio: Thanks! I intended for this level to be a homage to KS itself and all the stories that both Nifflas and the community have created since the game was released. Not that this is exactly something never done before... but I wanted to do it anyway

I've updated the level with some minor fixes. This will probably be the final version, so I'll be uploading this one to the level archive shortly unless someone reports a game-breaking planet-destroying bug and/or the changes I made end up breaking other stuff somehow

I really liked this level. Not much more to add. Everything seems to have been said.

Great level! At first it felt too linear, but I loved the endings.

@Purple Ink: Thanks for playing! Glad you enjoyed it

@GrayFace: Thanks! I put a bigger focus on the story and the endings here than I did in most of my past levels, so it's great to hear they stuck out to you