[Small/Hard/Challenge] My Loving Hadron Collider

[Talps]

Made for the recent KS Level Competition comes an epic level, My Loving Hadron Collider, in which one brave Knytt battles to complete a series of experiments for the good of the Nation!

There's also some big machines and some cool explosions.


Hopefully less Super Hard than my previous level (how subtle was that!) but with an equally epic (if slightly shorter) plot that was in no way inspired by Portal; it sadly just ended up looking that way.

So download and enjoy!

Click me!

All feedback welcome.

[sergiocornaga]

In no way inspired by Portal (honest!)

Well, I'm convinced!

[Mr. Monkey]

I, too, wish I had a trumpet.

I also wish yellow particles had warning zones and this actually wasn't inspired by Portal.

[egomassive]

One of the better Portal-like games I've seen. Note I said games, not levels. However, the problems with Portal-like games is one can't help comparing them to the real thing. Then, one can't help feeling underwhelmed. Still, this is a decent level in its own right.

[Talps]

I didn't want it to be inspired by Portal. It did it of it's own accord. I think Portal made a small, rarely used on a small scale genre into something huge, so the number of games like Portal hasn't actually changed. It's just that now they all get instantly compared to Portal.

[yohji]

I haven't played Portal so I just thought it was a nice level. The trumpet screen was priceless.

[Talps]

If there's one thing I can learn from this experience it is that I can't draw trumpets. :p

If the Yellow Patented Super Particles did have a warning zone they would just be extra large Red Patented Super Particles (ok, I'm bored of typing that now).
They add some variety to the level because they force you to act differently; you just have to avoid red particles, so it's simply a cse of floating around them. The yellow ones are more dangerous, so you have to stay as far from them as you possibly can; you react to them differently and you have to think about them a little, judge how close you can safely get, so they add a bit of brain work to an otherwise mostly skill-based level.

Also they allowed me to make areas you can't go through without cluttering up the screens with red particles. Like on the screen below the one with the Green Particle, if you rise up on the right side you'd go straight into a laser and die (causing frustration and misery, which are not what I want to evoke in my players). So I put two yellows on the right side to force you to go up the left, without squashing a load of reds into the screen which would look untidy and which a skilled player might try to steer through anyway.

Yellows being so brightly coloured also means you can't float into one without noticing it first.

[Mr. Monkey]

On brain work, it's hardly such when the effect is binary (dead or not) and deterministic (fixed radius, 100% chance of dying); it's just a matter of memorizing the radius and getting really annoyed when you're off by a pixel or two.  A more desirable invisible "keep away" effect would be gradual (such as not to be too punishing) and have a much wider radius (to make the whole keepaway thing more relevant than moving a few pixels; enforcing tight movement is the red particles' job); of course, KS is incapable of this (though an obvious choice would be attractors/repellents, usable for pushing the player towards other particles, and possibly by the player for quick escapes and floating).

On doing reds' job, that's already the case, at least by my principles, and in practice for people with ks superknowledge and crazy good eyes.  If you want uniqueness through charm, you already have the lies about them being safe (that's charming, right?).

On tidiness, I guess that applies, but a visible effect radius wouldn't have to be bright and shiny.

On color, sure, but my issue is more with steering away and undershooting due to my horrible lack of ks superknowledge and crazy eyes.

[GrayFace]

I agree with Talps about yellow particles. Great level.

[egomassive]

No offense intended in comparing your level to Portal. It's no more like Portal, than Portal is like the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, the cards on airplanes showing calm passengers on crashing planes, the novel 1984, the short story The Pit and the Pendulum, or the "door close" buttons on elevators that are not even attached to anything. Portal did not invent an unseen authority watching your moves and telling you lies. It is a recently popular tongue-and-cheek video game example, which is what you have here.

The gameplay itself is nothing like Portal. I liked the yellow particles as they were, and I think they added a necessary variety. I didn't mind dying repeatedly, because the challenges and the overall game were short.

[Talps]

Some challenges were made easier when my one play-tester had to seek psychotherapy.

Maybe I'll re-release it with a super-hard mode one day. If nothing else it'd give me some flag practice.
I used custom objects for the first time in this; admittedly they weren't animated but it still felt like a minor achievement. Also, it was the first level I made where you couldn't collect every single upgrade and most-if-not-all-of-the keys.

On the topic of yellow particles, I guess I can't please everyone; I hope you enjoyed the level despite them, Mr. Monkey.