Shipwrecked

A basic survival-on-a-deserted-island story. Your focus is on the necessities of life and rescue. As the game progresses though, some mysteries start to develop.

Shipwrecked is a Knytt Stories level I made for a competition on the Nifflas Support Forum. The rules were simply that a certain tileset, A Beach and a Cave by Paul “Ripen” Noumowics, had to be used on every screen of the game. With 10 days left in the competition decided to take on the challenge and win it.

The hero of our story showing off her custom animation.

Deep in the jungle lies a cave entrance.

Shipwrecked is your basic survival-on-a-deserted-island story. Your focus is on the necessities of life and rescue. As the game progresses though, some mysteries start to develop. The island has a complex and dark history which is far more dangerous to our shipwrecked interloper than the initial struggle. In the end you’ll pit yourself against the evil that lurks on the island in an attempt to put things right.

The gameplay is in chapters which isn’t too common among Knytt Stories levels. Even less common, every cutscene happens in-game including full screen images with animation. In addition to this the game is filled with custom animations and graphics inspired by the A Beach and a Cave tileset. The ambiance is almost entirely original and really sets the level apart. Most of the game doesn’t have music because the ambiance fills the sound-scape so well. As music goes there is a memorable classical guitar track and an original tribal drum track. The simplicity of the instrumentation matches the simplicity of the environs and remoteness of our lonely survivor.

The level was originally released in May of 2010 as a beta. It won the competition it was made for, and has been hailed as one of the top Knytt Stories levels. Knytt Stories and the levels made for it are always free, so download and enjoy. If you like this level look for Harvest by Farik. It was a major inspiration for Shipwrecked. Finally, if you like the classical guitar track as much as I do, you can get a free high quality version at musopen.org.

Download Shipwrecked 8.6MB

The Dying Core (demo)

She awakes from a stasis chamber and is immediately summoned by a large machine which is losing power. It instructs June to find 4 other machines and turn them on, there by becoming a hero.

The main machine providing a key.

The yellow key leads to this yellow area.

Heir apparent to An Underwater Adventure by Nifflas.

This is a level I made for a competition at the Knytt Stories forums. The rules were quite extensive, but the jist of them was to create a level about the keys. There are 4 keys in Knytt Stories in 4 colors; yellow, blue, red, and purple. Each key was to have it’s own area based on it’s color. The areas were to be found in sequence, one area unlocking the next.

My level revolves around a new character, June. She awakes from a stasis chamber and is immediately summoned by a large machine which is losing power. It instructs June to find 4 other machines and turn them on, there by becoming a hero. That’s all there is to it. The main machine provides June a key to start with, and an additional key for each sub-machine she successfully activates.

The level is not finished yet. The due date for the competition arrived so I submitted it as a demo. You can find a link to the demo below, but I recommend waiting for the finished product. I have no estimate at this time of when the level will be completed. The graphics are originals by me, Tim McDowell. The graphics are an expansion of a collection I made for a request. They are very much a derivative work based on graphics by Nifflas, the creator of Knytt Stories. The finished level is planned to have an intro scene much like the one in my first level, A Knytt in Time. There will also be 2 endings. I also plan to use atmospheric 8-bit track for the music selections. These have been difficult to find.

Download The Dying Core (demo)

Mess in Progress

I’ve nearly formatted this WordPress powered site to my liking.

I’ve nearly formatted this WordPress powered site  to my liking. I’m truly posting this news to inform myself of how the site behaves with multiple entries.  If you are not me and you still happen to be reading I suppose I could tell you that as soon as multiple posts work as expected, I will commence porting the old entries over. Then finally, I can begin telling you about all the new developments I’ve made with games and graphics in the last 3 months or so.

Sorry for the Mess

I’m transitioning from Blogger ftp publishing to Wordpress.

I’m transitioning from Blogger ftp publishing to WordPress. Blogger saw fit to discontinue their service after I spent hours upon hours learning their template language. Thanks a bunch. Anyhow, now I’ve got to figure out how everything is done in WordPress. This is the second time I’ve had to transport my blogs and hopefully the last.

Yellow Submarine

These graphics were made for a request on the Knytt forums. Someone was making a game involving a yellow submarine.

Ooh! It’s yellow and it’s in the water. Notice the rivets, It uses a two-layered ground design technique.

A hero needs a way to get to and from waterborne monstrosities. Especially since most adventurers can’t swim.

I hope it doesn’t rust through! This is the red version. The distant objects are semitransparent to help show that some of the water between here and there is in front of them.

~ These graphics were made for a request on the Knytt forums. Someone was making a game involving a yellow submarine. This someone wanted a graphics set with the look of “An Underwater Adventure”, a Knytt Stories level by Nifflas, to construct their submarine. I loved the feel of that level, so I wanted to see if I could imitate it without ripping it off.

~ My end result was rather good I think. The originals by Nifflas had dark contact areas and light or pitch-black backgrounds. It was very mysterious and cold. Since mine had to be yellow, I settled on a medium darkness for my contact areas. This allowed the interiors to be very bright or very dark. One thing I don’t love are the eye-sering visuals of The Yellow Submarine movie. As a result the yellows in my tileset were muted. Now, I had to consider that the game designer requesting the graphics probably intended to homage the movie in some way. So, in an attempt to stay true to the movie’s visual assault, I added alternate purple interiors.

~ As far as submarines go, the graphics are a bit lacking. Submarines should have curved exteriors to help navigate the ocean currents and resist crushing pressure. A curved shell would put a huge demand on tileset real-estate. Also, I wanted to make the set a little bit multipurposed. There’s no sense doing all this work for free if it can only be used for one game in a limited way. Finally in that spirit, I made a matching rust colored set. It’s always helpful to have a little graphical diversity yet matching style when building a game.

These graphics may be used, edited, or borrowed for Knytt Stories levels. Credit is required. Here they are: Submarine Tilesets