Knytt Stories Level: The Alternate Reality Machine (working-title)

@egomassive: done.

Here's my finished take on the Ice Land. I really liked the large waterfalls in the original, though we never got to see any pools of water there... I decided to change that in my rendition, adding some flair to the area. I hope this will be a worthy addition to the project, and I'm curious how it'll look once someone capable remixes the tileset and music. Oh, and by the way, I placed the yellow key in this area. Someone better keep track of that stuff.

Oh, and by the way, I placed the yellow key in this area. Someone better keep track of that stuff.

My thoughts: For simplicity, we should keep item placement and power requirements the same as in the original. Say, if you needed  the high-jump to get into an area before then that's how we should have it. If an area contained the yellow key before, then it should contain the yellow key here. Secrets can require higher abilities, but make sure players can't get stuck.

My thoughts: For simplicity, we should keep item placement and power requirements the same as in the original. Say, if you needed  the high-jump to get into an area before then that's how we should have it. If an area contained the yellow key before, then it should contain the yellow key here. Secrets can require higher abilities, but make sure players can't get stuck.

I very much agree with this, if only because I've been designing my area around needing to get the umbrella to be able to get back out of it. If we were to mix it up then we'd need to agree on, at the very least, power order to know what would be the appropriate design for challenges in each area.

As an example of why this would get complicated or not work at all: If someone designed their area that comes before the yellow zone that needed the umbrella to get through so they put that power in their area, then why would anyone ever even need to go through the yellow zone at all? They could just skip it.

For this reason I think the power order should stay the same and the areas connecting zones should stay the same or very similar (ie the connecting area coming from the yellow zone needs the umbrella to get past it, thus forcing the exploration of the yellow zone. So, that area at least should require the umbrella to get through it even if it's redesigned).

That reminds me, should we bother to have two difficulty levels like the original, or should we just stick to one?

Quote from: ixMarcel on November 24, 2020, 20:08:33

Oh, and by the way, I placed the yellow key in this area. Someone better keep track of that stuff.

My thoughts: For simplicity, we should keep item placement and power requirements the same as in the original. Say, if you needed  the high-jump to get into an area before then that's how we should have it. If an area contained the yellow key before, then it should contain the yellow key here. Secrets can require higher abilities, but make sure players can't get stuck.

But the yellow key was in the Ice Land area in the original 

That reminds me, should we bother to have two difficulty levels like the original, or should we just stick to one?

I think this could be a one-man-job once the level is put together. It'd be best if one person is tasked with balancing the difficulty across the level than to make everyone do it in parts.

I'm fine with both having one difficulty or two, but tasking it to one person, really.

The reason why I would go against it, is: Nifflas created 2 versions because he wanted people to offer the Knytt experience, or give them a bit of a challenge depending on what they wanted. Given that we are so many years ahead now, if people want the knytt experience, there are loads of levels that would do it for them, to which I'd say, we could get away with only the hard difficulty. It being the alternate dimension, it would totally be okay too.

But this thought also came from the moment when this project hadn't yet taken of at the speed it currently is travelling. Designing 2 areas is more work than doing one, which is why I initially thought we should just do one, so the project has a chance to succeed.

Given that the offer is now: one person does it after all areas are completed to balance things out, that would basically mean: we do a 2nd difficulty once the project already is near completion, so if for some reason no one wants to do that part, we still have a functional level.

So, after the yesterday attempt to remember my level editing skills, I have dediced to join and do my part on the Christmas Land.

Eh... based on what you shared on the discord, I thought you already finished it... Unless that is what you meant.

Having multiple difficulties is rarely done anymore so I thought it would be a nice throwback to the early days, but I have to agree with LPChip. Getting one complete area from each participant in a timely manner would be a great community achievement. Also, nerfing a level is a lot easier than making good, hard challenges, so ixMarcel's idea of having one person make the second half is reasonable.

Since we've got 3 adjacent areas now (not sure if Christmas Land is 100% finished, though), i've combined them all into one level. I've also added Fubaka's remix of Song6, and finished x1006y996 of my area. The idea was to have ixMarcel finish that screen, but since he didn't include it in his area (and it's not exactly the most exciting screen in the level anyway) i just decided to do it myself. Hopefully he doesn't mind.

Forgot to post an update here.

The first page now has an edit button so anyone can edit the lists.

The page itself has a bit of a weird syntax, invented by me. Its use is to create text that is very readable, so its easy to edit, but translate to great visuals when submitting the edit. The screen splits in half, the other half shows realtime what your edits will produce, any error is immediately spotted before even submitting the page. Do note, you HAVE TO press update to commit changes, or nothing happens.

Also, if 2 people edit the page at the same time, one can easily overwrite the changes of someone else. Each change is saved so I can undo vandalism easily and also restore massive edits that got overwritten by a second edit as written as above. So if that happens, let me know that it happened and give me a time of when you pressed the update button and a short summary of what your edit was about, so I can manually fix it.

I also built in an option to completely disable the editor in case of abuse or serious bug etc, to give me time to fix things.

If it seems that the editor cannot be publicly available without misuse, I can create a password protected setup and only allow people with the password to make changes. Lets hope it doesn't have to come to that though, but if seach engines find the page and starts messing with it (has happened before) then I will have to.

I played through the original today, and remembered an old myth about the level. In the green land there's a section of ceiling where players can make it across several screens. It seems you could go even further if you tried hard enough. People would do this hoping to find some well hidden secret, but there wasn't one. It would be most satisfying if a secret could be placed there in our update.

Click here to download my area combined with Plural's.

I removed the music from the two rightmost screens of Plural's area so that it would play again on your way back west. Feel free to undo this anyone if you think it was unwise.

Those ghosts really know how to jam.


EDIT: Oh, I should definitely state somewhere that the fire CO was made by Vegetal Gibber.

Here's a remake/remix/remaster/resomething of Tileset #26 I just finished. Feel free to use it in your version of the Ice Land area if you fancy it, ixMarcel.