[KS+][Challenge][Very Hard/Hard/Lunatic] The Dithered Temple

  • 14 Replies
  • 6828 Views
*

Offline Vegetal Gibber

  • 780
  • 176
  • Sorry excuse for a game designer
    • View Profile
    • VG's Games Portfolio
[KS+][Challenge][Very Hard/Hard/Lunatic] The Dithered Temple
« on: February 24, 2018, 17:13:41 »






[ Click here to download the level ] (file size: ~6MB)

[ Mirror link (Knyttlevels.com) ]

"The Dithered Temple" is a rather short, retro-styled (complete with fake 16-color EGA graphics and AdLib-like music, emulating old-school DOS games) and quite hard challenge level that will put your KS (and KS+) skills to the test. It's tough, but mostly fair... or at least that was my intention :P

Two versions of the game, "Original" and "Light" (Very Hard and Hard modes, respectively) are available right at the start. A word of warning, though! The "Very Hard" difficulty tag on the Original version is there for a reason, so if you prefer a less stressful (but still reasonably challenging) experience, playing the Light version is recommended.


Main features:

  • Retro-style visuals and music, complete with 16 color fake EGA graphics (for the most part) and fake FM synth AdLib/SoundBlaster music.
  • A lot of traps and tricky jumps, combined with some KS+ exclusive obstacles that will offer experienced KS players a good challenge.
  • Two difficulty modes: Very Hard (original version) and Hard (light version).
  • Hidden treasure vaults and collectible artifacts that unlock additional content. They're all well hidden, but marked with subtle hints.
  • Lots of bonus content and hints available after beating the main quest. This includes an unlockable Environmental area and also a (completely optional) Lunatic mini-area that contains extremely hard versions of some of the challenges that will EVISCERATE you really test your reflexes (and your patience!).
  • A couple of animated cutscenes (including a full-screen one).

Spoiler: Screenshot Gallery (click to show/hide)




Any feedback and suggestions on how to improve the level will be appreciated! It's been ages since I last designed a pure "Challenge" level, so I'm not very confident I did a good job here :oops:

NOTE: This level requires egomassive's KS+ mod to play. Using version 1.3.2 or greater is recommended.
« Last Edit: April 14, 2018, 14:38:27 by Vegetal Gibber »
Some KS levels by me:

*

Offline Wibi

  • 258
  • 66
  • apologies for the interference
    • View Profile
Re: [KS+][Challenge][Very Hard/Hard/Lunatic] The Dithered Temple
« Reply #1 on: February 24, 2018, 17:44:24 »
Help! Where do I insert the installation disk?

*

Offline Vegetal Gibber

  • 780
  • 176
  • Sorry excuse for a game designer
    • View Profile
    • VG's Games Portfolio
Re: [KS+][Challenge][Very Hard/Hard/Lunatic] The Dithered Temple
« Reply #2 on: February 25, 2018, 16:26:17 »
If you have a 3.5" HD drive, you can just run the game straight from the floppy disk (just don't forget to disable the write protection switch before saving the game!). There's also an installable 5 1/4" version (split into three 360KB disks) that you can get by registering the shareware version via postal mail  8)
Some KS levels by me:

*

Offline ixMarcel

  • 357
  • 70
  • I'll get you during my next save game!
    • View Profile
Re: [KS+][Challenge][Very Hard/Hard/Lunatic] The Dithered Temple
« Reply #3 on: February 25, 2018, 20:15:40 »
This level blew my mind, as expected. It's insane how much detail and care you put into your levels. I'm at a loss for words. The intro is very impressive, especially when viewed in KS+ fullscreen! Everything looks and feels exactly like a game from the MS-DOS era, I cannot believe you actually pulled this off.

Re: [KS+][Challenge][Very Hard/Hard/Lunatic] The Dithered Temple
« Reply #4 on: February 25, 2018, 21:57:47 »
Spoiler: bugs 'n' comment (click to show/hide)

*

Offline Vegetal Gibber

  • 780
  • 176
  • Sorry excuse for a game designer
    • View Profile
    • VG's Games Portfolio
Re: [KS+][Challenge][Very Hard/Hard/Lunatic] The Dithered Temple
« Reply #5 on: February 26, 2018, 14:19:21 »
@ixMarcel: Thanks for the kind words! :D I'm really glad to hear that I succeeded in recreating that old-school EGA DOS game feeling. There are a few parts where I went for slightly different approaches, though:


@scratskinner: Glad you tracked down the bonus areas! Hope you enjoyed completing the level.

Some KS levels by me:

*

Offline Vegetal Gibber

  • 780
  • 176
  • Sorry excuse for a game designer
    • View Profile
    • VG's Games Portfolio
Re: [KS+][Challenge][Very Hard/Hard/Lunatic] The Dithered Temple
« Reply #6 on: March 06, 2018, 13:51:49 »
I just updated the level with a potential fix for the slowdowns in the "Corridor of Trials" segment reported by scratskinner. However, I'm not sure if this fix will be effective, since I cannot reproduce the issue on my machine at all. If anyone else experienced the mentioned slowdown issue and is willing to check again after reinstalling the level (saves should not be affected), I'd appreciate it if they'd let me know whether the update helped or not.

UPDATE: The previous fix was confirmed to not be effective at all (thanks, ristos! :D) , so I've updated the level again with a different workaround. This one should either completely address the issue or make it so there's only a single, very brief moment of lag when entering the mentioned rooms.
« Last Edit: March 07, 2018, 16:20:31 by Vegetal Gibber »
Some KS levels by me:

*

Offline Purple Ink

  • 392
  • 39
    • View Profile
    • My lore forum
Re: [KS+][Challenge][Very Hard/Hard/Lunatic] The Dithered Temple
« Reply #7 on: March 14, 2018, 09:17:11 »
Haven't actually finished this one yet. But I must say, the graphics hurt my eyes. Nice. :)

*

Offline Vegetal Gibber

  • 780
  • 176
  • Sorry excuse for a game designer
    • View Profile
    • VG's Games Portfolio
Re: [KS+][Challenge][Very Hard/Hard/Lunatic] The Dithered Temple
« Reply #8 on: March 14, 2018, 14:46:09 »
Glad you're enjoying it :D  I'm concerned about the graphics hurting your eyes, though. Hopefully it's in a good way (as in "this really looks like an old game with a very limited color palette") and not in a bad one (as in "this is so hard to look at that it literally causes me pain") :oops:  Good thing I didn't go with the infamous CGA cyan/magenta/white default 4-color palette, as I was originally planning to!

Spoiler: (click to show/hide)

In other news, I silently released an updated version of the level yesterday, which fixes a couple SGEs and makes a few other minor adjustments. I'm also considering the possibility of making an easy version of this level as a separate download, although I'm not sure if there'd be enough demand for it. If any of you guys found the lower difficulty mode (Light version) way too hard to beat, feel free to chime in with your opinion!
Some KS levels by me:

*

Offline Purple Ink

  • 392
  • 39
    • View Profile
    • My lore forum
Re: [KS+][Challenge][Very Hard/Hard/Lunatic] The Dithered Temple
« Reply #9 on: March 17, 2018, 01:42:33 »
Glad you're enjoying it :D  I'm concerned about the graphics hurting your eyes, though. Hopefully it's in a good way (as in "this really looks like an old game with a very limited color palette") and not in a bad one (as in "this is so hard to look at that it literally causes me pain") :oops:  Good thing I didn't go with the infamous CGA cyan/magenta/white default 4-color palette, as I was originally planning to!

I mostly meant that in jest. But I also meant it really looks like one of those old games. So great work with the graphics.

*

Offline Vegetal Gibber

  • 780
  • 176
  • Sorry excuse for a game designer
    • View Profile
    • VG's Games Portfolio
Re: [KS+][Challenge][Very Hard/Hard/Lunatic] The Dithered Temple
« Reply #10 on: April 04, 2018, 14:57:07 »
Thanks! The "limited color palette" look is kind of a hit-or-miss thing, so I'm glad it worked out fine in this case.

I released one more update that adds a missing save point in the "Light version" and fixes a few minor graphical inconsistencies between the two modes. This will probably be the final version I upload to KnyttLevels.com, unless anyone reports an issue or makes a suggestion before I do that.
Some KS levels by me:

Re: [KS+][Challenge][Very Hard/Hard/Lunatic] The Dithered Temple
« Reply #11 on: April 18, 2018, 21:22:54 »
I'm really enjoying your level so far. It's creative and well-organized. Also, great job on capturing the retro feel!  8)

I've been looking around for the high jump. Is it included in the level?

*

Offline Vegetal Gibber

  • 780
  • 176
  • Sorry excuse for a game designer
    • View Profile
    • VG's Games Portfolio
Re: [KS+][Challenge][Very Hard/Hard/Lunatic] The Dithered Temple
« Reply #12 on: April 19, 2018, 13:52:18 »
Thanks! Glad you're enjoying the challenges and the aesthetics so far :D

There's no high jump power-up in this level. I thought about including it in the later sections of the temple, but I decided against it because it would have made things very unbalanced when backtracking for secrets. The exit and all collectibles can be reached with only Run+Climb+Double Jump+"Modded" Hologram. The "Shadow Forest" bonus area features an additional power-up (and a few challenges based on it), although it can't be carried over to the main area.
Some KS levels by me:

*

Offline pfrangip

  • 315
  • 60
    • View Profile
Re: [KS+][Challenge][Very Hard/Hard/Lunatic] The Dithered Temple
« Reply #13 on: November 03, 2020, 17:43:04 »
Hello!

I was only just made aware of the existence of this level, but boy is it a good one!
Spoiler: The Good (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Lunatic (click to show/hide)

*

Offline Vegetal Gibber

  • 780
  • 176
  • Sorry excuse for a game designer
    • View Profile
    • VG's Games Portfolio
Re: [KS+][Challenge][Very Hard/Hard/Lunatic] The Dithered Temple
« Reply #14 on: November 07, 2020, 13:57:27 »
Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it! I do have very fond memories of the 80's/90's PC era, which were the main source of inspiration for this level (including the hair-pulling difficulty level of many of those games, although I tried to make it as fair as possible here with the save point and enemy/trap placement :P2 ). Makes me happy to see I'm far from being the only one :D

Some KS levels by me: