I started work on this level about a week after I posted my last level. I began with the idea of making a level that only used tilesets, gradients and (mostly) custom objects that I created because I felt so uncreative at points using so many other people's art.
Some stuff about making the level:
A month or so ago I also played the Sputzna beta and finding out that it wasn't going to be finished was kind of depressing to me. Now what I'm making isn't meant to be anything like that but I did take some ideas and there is a spaceship and a planet.... so I guess you could say that the idea for this level wouldn't exist without this level. But the thing about Sputzna that fascinated me most was actually the way that Farik made it so you could actually operate the computer to look at your mission briefing or whatever and I decided that it was a wonderful idea and way to convey a lot of information at once in a game where dialogue needs to be very short to fit well and cutscenes that convey information may end up being jarring or ignored because you end up feeling so impotent about the way they convey information.
So throughout this level there are many computer terminals that will shift to a separate screen that uses a custom object overlayed over Juni and to simulate the screen flickering, it's basically text on a monitor that it switches to when you press down on a computer terminal but the fact that an object can also be animated gave me the idea to make it look more realistic or at least more visually interesting, I make each terminal custom object two images that loop between slightly brighter and greener text to a text and background that is duller simulating screen flicker.
Anyway, down to the guts of the idea and I won't go into too much detail about the story itself but rather how the story will unfold, or how it can unfold. On my last level I had to use different areas or endings to recontextualize the journey to mean something different by having different endings but this time I'd rather it be a linear story with different endings and different locations based upon what paths you take or what things you find. So the level will have branching paths that lead to different endings and different areas depending on what you find or where you go.
Also, for a while I was doing different things to try to understand how to implement an animated intro sequence/title screen. First I created an animated background as a custom object that scrolled through stars and looped that and put a custom object that was the game title slowly fading in over that, and both of those worked surprisingly well. To get around the fact that Juni is invisible I made a third custom object also on the top layer that would wait until after the title loaded then a little blinking down arrow would appear and blink until you went to the next screen, sort of like a press start type deal. Well, long story short I opened up Shipwrecked and looked at how cutscenes were managed in that and my brain kind of exploded in a moment of dawning "duh".
I'd say I'm about 15 to 20% done now and hopefully I can keep up the same speed when working on it. I decided to wait to post this thread until I felt my productivity lull so I could create some kind of expectation to force myself not to give up on it. I'm already invested with over ten tilesets (albeit with repeating content in quite a few) and 64 custom objects so I feel as if I have to keep going...
Info Screen:
(http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k274/Fplusone/knytt/Info.png)
Screenshots:
(http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k274/Fplusone/knytt/1235.png)
(http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k274/Fplusone/knytt/12235.png)
(http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k274/Fplusone/knytt/1245.png)
(http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k274/Fplusone/knytt/12w46.png)
(http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k274/Fplusone/knytt/23512.png)
I'm still working on it, not nearly as much as I should, I've had pneumonia recently so I've been ignoring things like this but I'm feeling much better and I'd hope to finish this soon. The truth is that most of the level is done but certain sequences that might be called cutscenes have represented large roadblocks because of the work involved that I just don't want to do. Though I've said to myself that when I reach the limit of custom objects then I simply have to finish the level because I'll be far too limited by that point anyway and as of now I'm up to 249 custom objects, so I've stopped adding anything but trying to finish the cutscene portions, though, admittedly, I've been resorting to playing up the glitch aspect of the level to just lazy my way around actually having to do things.
Here's a screen:
(https://i.imgur.com/ZuK6X3e.png)
Also, this is the intro to the level that's done. So you wouldn't really be spoiling anything since it's exactly how it starts. Half the screens are things I made but I didn't find a way to include in the level or were made for a different level or you fall through the screen so you don't really get to see it, so I thought they'd be easy to include here. Youtube playback doesn't seem to work that well for me but I'm not sure how to fix it or what's wrong or if it's just me, hope it works though.
https://youtu.be/yVacxKtby8U (thanks to ixMarcel for uploading this)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4Gwi_c_wE8 (this video is broken, leaving it here for posterity)
Also, I don't know if this qualifies as scope creep but there's going to be a level hidden inside of this level (or at least a way to find a link for it) because I made it and wasn't really happy with my writing on it but instead of throwing it away I thought I'd use it as an easter egg. It's a sequel to the most recent level I posted. Here's the first screen of that level, though it may be spoiler-y.
(https://i.imgur.com/oza7xXN.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/fXQwwdv.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/CXt4Jca.gif)
My scope creep secret:
(https://i.imgur.com/Eq7RA0A.gif)