[Challenge/Playground] [Normal] [Large] Forgotten Realms

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Forgotten Realms is a sort-of-open-world playground level with a big focus on exploration. This project was mostly an attempt to string together many of my discarded/abandoned KS levels as I could, although it also features a pretty big number of brand new tilesets and assets.

It is a rather big world composed of several areas, each of them with its own distinct theme and gameplay mechanics. Some of them are merely for you to roam while you enjoy the scenery and music, whereas others will present you with classic KS challenges (traps and enemies), light mazes and even puzzles involving hidden passages and collectibles. There's a little bit of everything here!

• A total of 25 distinct areas to explore! 10 of them can be accessed simply by collecting powers. You can unlock another 7 areas by collecting keys and finding hidden passages, and 8 more by finding special collectibles and codes (see below)
• Tons of custom graphics by yours truly and many other authors (Fubaka, Purple Ink, Brian Lehmann and all the cool people who contributed to the Community Tileset Project).
• 20 tracks of ambient music by Fubaka (mostly from his albums Deparct, Proturian EP and Nihilurian EP), as well as many custom ambiance tracks.
• 9 hidden energy crystals (custom collectible). Find all of them and use them at a certain place to get access to a set of bonus areas!
• A secret glyph code divided into 5 pieces scattered through the entire world. This can be entered at a special room to unlock yet another set of bonus areas.
• Four easter egg mini-areas referencing some of my other works.

Knytt Stories + is supported but not required. This level runs in vanilla KS without any mods. However, playing it in KS+ will enable the following extra features:

• Bonus collectibles: 100 coins and 50 golden creatures. NOTE: golden creatures are generally much harder to find and/or collect than the coins and crystals. They don't unlock any new areas/features and are simply intended for players than want an added challenge.
• Extra graphical effects (custom character sprites, fog...) in some areas.
• Limited support for KS+'s map function (you need to enable the "Force Map" menu option manually, though)
• Single pass rendering enabled by default (minimizes flickering during animations and transitions)

As usual, feel free to post here asking for hints or just sharing your thoughts on the level. Hope you enjoy this adventure through these once forgotten lands! Also... happy new year!

PLEASE NOTE: This will be the final version of the level and it contains all the stuff I originally planned to make for it. Unfortunately, due to circumstances that forced my hand, I wasn't able to spend as much time as I'd have wanted on testing and polishing this final release. Hopefully this only means you might spot very minor graphical issues here and there, but if you run into any serious game-breaking problems, please let me know and I'll try to address them and release a fixed version when I can.

Thanks so much for your work. It is a real pleasure to play a new good level.

VG surprise release?! Already downloaded!

So far this is amazing... though getting every powerup and and then finding that I don't have enough crystals to progress is kind of frustrating, so I might stop there. Still: extremely good level.

I'm happy to hear you guys are enjoying the level!   I've uploaded a new version with a couple fixes (thanks for the bug report, canteven!) and a few very minor additions. Feel free to update your copy if you want, although you won't be missing anything important if you don't.

@canteven: There are some (quite vague) hints for the location of each crystal in the area where you're supposed to use them, in the form of...


Also:

Lovely level. I'm playing through it and enjoying myself a lot. Was the intro cutscene inspired by The Waiting Room in any way?
The golden jumpy creature hidden in the spike floor... was an insane idea. I love it.

Thanks! Since the golden creatures are intended to be harder to find/collect than the other stuff (they're just a bonus challenge and not required to unlock anything), I got a bit creative/sadistic with some of them 

Was the intro cutscene inspired by The Waiting Room in any way?

No, but now that you mention it, I can see why you're asking. Still, as they usually say in movies, all resemblance is purely coincidental 

Incredible level! I did look in the editor to find one code I missed and 2 crystals.
On 1st playthrough I ran short of 3 creatures and 1 coin, on 2nd I missed 4 creatures and 2 coins. After I release the new KS Ex version I'll upload a modification of the level with added KS Ex support for golden creatures, coins and tint+attach (all done via a Lua script). My 2nd playthrough was in KS Ex with a ball with a few switches back to Juni in places inaccessible to the ball due to its bigger width.

Really enjoying this so far. The "open world" vibe works quite well, and I think I will play this a little bit each day, exploring semi-aimlessly, rather than powering through to the end.

I want to play this so bad. But I told myself that I wouldn't play any levels until Reditus is finished. Kind of an extra incentive to get it done sooner.

Hello Vegetal! Thanks for releasing this level! I am playing it (and jumping back into KS) and it's really helping Quarantine go by smoother. Looks like I've got a lot to look forward to.

Thanks a lot for the kind words, everyone!

Incredible level! I did look in the editor to find one code I missed and 2 crystals.
After I release the new KS Ex version I'll upload a modification of the level with added KS Ex support for golden creatures, coins and tint+attach (all done via a Lua script). My 2nd playthrough was in KS Ex with a ball with a few switches back to Juni in places inaccessible to the ball due to its bigger width.

Let me know if I can assist somehow so we can make it an official release   I imagine this would have to be a separate release since this probably involves changing the layout in quite a few screens so you can navigate the entire level as a ball.

Really enjoying this so far. The "open world" vibe works quite well, and I think I will play this a little bit each day, exploring semi-aimlessly, rather than powering through to the end.

That's actually how I usually play this kind of level, so it's great to hear that it's working out fine for you

I want to play this so bad. But I told myself that I wouldn't play any levels until Reditus is finished. Kind of an extra incentive to get it done sooner.

Well... it seems to have worked as a motivation tool

Hello Vegetal! Thanks for releasing this level! I am playing it (and jumping back into KS) and it's really helping Quarantine go by smoother. Looks like I've got a lot to look forward to.

Hey man, it's been a while! It's great to see you again here in the forums   Glad you're enjoying the level!

I'd like to make one last update to this level before I upload it to the level archive. I might or might not be adding one new extra area and one new small secret. If I do, I'll post a hint here so people that have already completed the level can access the new area directly if they want to.

Okay, I was going to save this level until after I streamed it, but considering I postponed that stream months ago and I'm currently at a place that has... less-than-stellar internet, I just said "oh HECK with it" and decided to play this one for myself. And I gotta say, this is definitely worthy of the Juniverse levels page. What an excellent collection of vignettes and areas!

I got to all the areas (including bonus and hidden ones), and I have about 80% of the coins and 40% of the golden creatures. I think the only major thing I would have added would be some sort of fast-travel system (and maybe an ending cutscene?), but it would probably have taken more effort than it was worth.

Good job, VG! Glad to see you back in action.

I have to agree, this is some really awesome level!
However I would be glad for a hint:
I found everyone important except the moon part.
can some one please give me a hint in which area I have to search, or rather where I ahve to seach for the entrance? :-)

A gorgeous level, but I am stuck. I just can't find high jump or hologram, what am I failing to notice?