(double posting incoming...)
Oh wow, oh wow!
Now that's what I call a modding debut. My original plan was to look into a few levels and save the rest for next weekends. Little did I know. after just the second level I was sucked into the atmosphere of this mod and played through it in one session.
Where do I start with my feedback?
Story:
Unlike Ceilick, the story grabbed me right away. I first watched the scrolling Starwars text and then read through the story in the F1 menu with relish. The premise made me smile a lot. Actually, it was only a matter of time before someone observed Keen's secret machinations, wasn't it. Even if the Coke thing is a simple excuse for a planet stop, the narrative felt very plausible and authentic to me, possibly due to the lovingly drawn characters.
I think you've captured Keen very well, and Craig is also a cohesive character who I somehow immediately took to my heart. IMO the humorous undertone of this game perfectly captures the mood of the original Keen games.
The fact that Aurora Bliss ultimately has little to do with Craig didn't bother me at all. The dialogue in the BWB level had me laughing hard, and I was more than eager to explore the environment without that little clumsy fellow.
Colours:
Oh yes! I'm a huge fan of your colour choices. The basic idea of the worldmap is such a good mix of colours. The orange and pink combinations work fantastically.
In contrast, the dark blue part of the planet with the poison green zones has created a very gloomy flair, which I like a lot. So much so that I'd love to have seen an additional level playing around with that thick green fog idea.
And oh my! Can we appreciate that door for a second, please. This is absolutely fantastic. I wish I came up with that idea beforehand. marvelous looking! so so good
Creatures:
I've really played a lot of mods, and I'd argue that I can actually tell right away which creature served as the base (Levellass' products excluded). But you proved me wrong. Ventabilis took me by surprised and the first contact with Madness almost made me garg my pants. You've been very creative with the movement patterns. But also the appearance of these characters is very original, which gives life and character to the whole project. I for one always argue that the uniqueness of the population of a planet is the most important aspect of Keen Modding. If the characters seem alive and can tell a story and show their own motivations, you've got half the battle. And your characters are darn good.
Also, the accompanying text to Ventabilis is hilarious. I love your interpretation of the Dopefish. And the rose fields are a brilliant idea as well.
I would love to see the Lick and Berkeloid being altered even more. I'm sure you have good ideas, but maybe patching limits the possibilities.
Level Design:
As Ceilick said, I too as a modder will grab&borrow some of your ideas. I love the deadend doors for instance. Using Save&Load, I entered each one to see what other ideas you had developed. Hello there, you flashing butterflies
My spirit of discovery was not only triggered here. I also searched intensively for the Secret Level and was finally able to reach my goal with the ingame hint.
The puzzles are well thought through. Even though I'm not a fan of quick time events, I enjoyed them a lot, as in this very execution, they are challenging yet fair. This run-to-place-the-keys for e.g. was so much fun! Damn I enjoyed it.
The Rimmer puzzles, on the other hand, took my teeth a bit out until I understood the mechanics. I should have read the help menu more carefully, I guess.
Anyway, you use space very intelligently. I especially like the fact that you included several puzzles in a very small space, which overlap and have to be solved one after the other. This is a meaningful way of returning to an area but reaching certain places via an alternative route or from a different angle that were unreachable beforehand.
But what the hell is the Halls of Colours all about? I suspect that it is related to that rar file, but I still can't find a real clue...
possible spoiler altert: I have played with the color codes, tried the colors myself and so on... am I on the right track?
Overall a very enjoyable experience of a high quality product, that is. I was amused by the story, drawn in by the graphics, challenged by the level design and so much more. I would definitely be giving this a second playthrough on the next update.
Room for improvement:
Like already mentioned you could put in some effort to fix the Tiling and Graphical Errors, plus Level Borders would be appreciated.
In just a few levels I noticed a number of backtracking paths. Here a door or a bridge would be neat to reduce the need of backtracking the same paths over again. In other levels on the other hand you've already came up with neat alternative routes
PS: what's with that lost dingo?
Levellass
, cause I never even thought about playing it on easy. I always thought : "well if it's passable on hard - it's passable on easy."
