[Hard/Challenge/Small] Tomatoes! Gaiden

Tomatoes! Gaiden is a vanilla KS level by me, Vegetal Gibber, and Sergio Cornaga, brought to you after two-and-a-half years in the making. (As in: it was started as an entry for Knytt Swapsies II, then no-one felt like working on it and it was canned for two-and-a-half-years, then we finished up the rest in two months.) Much like the original Tomatoes!, it's as much about the scenery and challenges as it is about the dumb dialogue. It includes:

• Vegetal Gibber's signature design
• Scrapped KS music by Nurykabe
• 64 screens, excluding duplicates
• 5 increasingly obscure and nonsensical endings
• Tilesets by Vegetal Gibber and ncrecc (really!)
• More fluffs
• No voidscreens
• Really, try finding a voidscreen

This post doesn't aesthetically feel complete without some additional words under that list. Here are some words. These are nice words, I'm glad I wrote them. Oh, right; enjoy the level, and feel free to leave feedback/bug reports!

Hope you guys enjoy this one as much as we enjoyed making stuff up as we went designing it! Oh and, if you haven't played the original Tomatoes yet, it's highly recommended that you do so before playing this one since this is a sequel/spinoff-thingy. Otherwise you'll be missing out on all that rich backstory and lore

Is this the greatest level ever made?
Are the challenges better than Ultigonio's Deep Freeze?
Is the story deeper and more meaningful than both Talps' Dragon Myth -AND- the original Tomatoes?
IS THE SECRET POTATO CHIP ENDING AN HONORABLE SUCCESSOR TO THE FIRST??
DOES THIS LEVEL EXPLAIN THE DEEPEST MYSTERIES OF NIFFLAS' KNYTTVERSE AND OUR OWN EXISTENCE??

Is this the greatest level ever made?
Are the challenges better than Ultigonio's Deep Freeze?
Is the story deeper and more meaningful than both Talps' Dragon Myth -AND- the original Tomatoes?
IS THE SECRET POTATO CHIP ENDING AN HONORABLE SUCCESSOR TO THE FIRST??
DOES THIS LEVEL EXPLAIN THE DEEPEST MYSTERIES OF NIFFLAS' KNYTTVERSE AND OUR OWN EXISTENCE??

Spoiler: (click to show/hide)

YES!!!!

One of the above might actually be true! I'm not telling which one though


Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed the level

I completed the level, and it was fun. Thanks to developers. I'm going to eat some tomatoes.

I completed the level, and it was fun. Thanks to developers. I'm going to eat some tomatoes.

Hooray!



Glad you had fun, thanks for playing

I'm looking forward to play this, however it might take some time, since I have to play the original first.

I really enjoyed it. I thought it would be a simple level like the original. I was pleasantly surprised by by how much game there was here. So many memorable moments and good humor. This level gets five tomatoes on a five star scale from me.

@Comhon: The "prequel" is a very short playground level you can fully explore in about 15 minutes. However, playing it is not strictly required, so if you don't mind a few references becoming even more nonsensical than they already are, feel free to jump right in into this one! 

@ego: Thanks for playing and for the glowing tomato-y review! The first Tomatoes was something I cooked up for a GT KS event in just a few hours (and the first hour was spent entirely into hastily making a tileset ). For this one, we had a lot more time to develop it into a more complete KS level... and by that I mean cramming as much stuff as possible during the last 2 months, as ncrecc already explained, so perhaps the spirit of the original is not completely lost here

This was something! I did played the first level before, it was fun and easy. In contrast, this was really a challenge for me, but also much more fun. I liked how the music was really synced with my failing attempts to progress. And I now hate that ant. I really don't know I managed to jump over it. And THAT button! For some time I felt I am missing checkpoints, but later realized everything is placed in order to make me think about each challenge how to overcome it most effectively. Moreover, in this level there is no place for lucky jumping over obstacles not colliding with them. In the last screens I almost lost hope I can make it, but I did! The usage of mostly 'hologram based' enemies is something I have never seen anywhere. And the graphics and music helped me a lot to keep playing and not saving the level 'for another time'. And the ending is indeed satisfying.

And the ending is indeed satisfying.

Since there are five (increasingly obscure and nonsensical) endings, I can only assume you're referring to the only canon one.