hmpf

So, after making great progress in a variety of areas recently, I was... afflicted with a creativity storm in the last few days. I can't really put it any other way; it's like the weather: it comes and goes as it pleases. And, like any proper storm, it causes a fair bit of chaos.

I fought it. To no avail, really - the only result was that I effectively managed to prevent myself from achieving anything on the creative front, either, while still not managing to get anything 'more important' done. Wrestling the muses down can be exhausting.

It also screwed up my sleeping again, because the nights were spent fighting with bunnies.

Lesson of the day: next time, just give in, and at least get something creative done - instead of trying to *not* give in to the urges but expending so much energy on that fight as to render myself incapable of doing anything real-lifey either.

(Well, there were *some* positive results: I have started a new, small Knytt Stories level, and I think I have solved the central plot conundrum of my LoM crossover - the one that had me stalled these past two and a half years.)

It gets me into this perfect state of flow... and then I come back to myself and look at what I've built and am all "wow, this is great, did I really build this?" And then I go for a walk in the forest or garden or city or village or cave I've built. It's a lot like my architecture and geography-themed dreams, only less three-dimensional.

Sadly, the level seems to be growing out of all proportion. I started out expecting a final level size of maybe 300 screens. Now I've already built more than 200 and I'm aware that that's still less than a third of the world I've planned (I have the general layout sketched out on a big piece of paper.) And since I'm building at a rate of less than 3 screens per day - I can't afford to devote too much time to this new hobby - it will take me frelling forever to finish this level... I'm expecting a total size of 600-800 screens, now. And I started building about half a year ago.

Because I don't have much time, no description, just links (leading to the threads on the old forum, so you should find descriptions and sometimes also screenshots there).

The Oubliette (challenge, short, normal/hard)

Mashu Prapa (environmental/challenge, medium/large, normal)

Temple of the Sun (challenge, medium, normal)

Another Journey (environmental, medium, easy)

A Walk at Night (environmental/challenge, small, normal)

... That's probably enough for one night. :-)

This is one of three screens I built today.

(Which brings the screencount total up to somewhere around 170.)

Why are game genres that I really don't like beginning to look so damn gorgeous nowadays?

This makes me want to learn how to play airborne shoot'em-ups (or whatever you call that genre). Check out the trailer, the screenshots don't do it justice.

There seems to be, nowadays, a subset of computer games/video games that are mainly about navigating a work of art, rather than about accomplishing any kind of directive. I hesitate to even call what's happening there worldbuilding, although that's a somewhat related phenomenon. But it's really closer to painting and sculpture than to worldbuilding and storytelling. Or maybe there's a bit of all of these in there. Anyways, this is nearly utterly about a new kind of aesthetic experience. 'New' in that you don't stand in front of the work of art, but walk/fly/jump around in it. Strangely enough, even with a 2D game, the fact of being able to 'walk around in it' changes the aesthetic experience, in ways that I find difficult to explain.

I've already begun to learn to love platformers. Will I learn to love other previously unattractive genres, too? (But my reflexes are crap! I'll never get good enough to really experience these games! *cries*)

Here's another example.

**

Here, have two short, artistic online platformers:

Shy Dwarf
Seven

Hello sleepless night. :-(

The good news is I'm slowly edging closer to LJ-land again, mentally. That is, I'm beginning to overcome the strange, great reluctance I always feel after an extended absence. I'll probably start dropping in randomly at various people's journals in the next few days. No proper catching up yet, though, because there's still other things that need sorting out before that.

Also worth noting:

- I haven't looked very energetically for a job yet. I feel kind of guilty about that, but on the other hand, I do think I needed the time to decompress.

- I was nominated for an award for my MA thesis without noticing. (I didn't win, but it's still pretty amazing. And kind of hilarious/embarrassing that I didn't know. The notification must have been among the thousands of mails I still haven't sorted...)

- Two weeks ago I made my first attempt to 'join' Greenpeace. (You don't really join them, you just volunteer your time with the local group. So far I've only been to an introductory meeting thingy, but I plan to keep it up. I'm not sure Greenpeace is the right organisation for me, but until I find another, they'll have to do. ;-))

- Level building is going great. Here's a preview: Pretty pictures! - This is quite possibly the most relaxing form of creative endeavour I've ever discovered. Unlike most of my other creative outlets, with level building I can just sort of... completely let the right hemisphere take over. It's like a trance. It's euphorising!

- Oh, hey - if you would like to play a tiny little - finished - practice level I made: Right click and save. As with the recs I posted earlier, you're going to need the Knytt Stories software to play this, of course. Oh, and the level is an environmental, i.e. there are no challenges or enemies in there. The worst that can happen to you is falling into the sea.

The first (very small) demo for my level is almost ready and will probably be ready to post tomorrow. If you would like to play it, you need to have the Knytt Stories game software, which you can download here:

http://nifflas.ni2.se/index.php?main=02Knytt_Stories&sub=01About

Play through the short tutorial that comes with it, and you'll know all you need to know to play my level. However, you should definitely also give the big level that comes with the software, "The Machine", a try, because it's really a very nice game - and coming from me, i.e. someone who doesn't usually like platformers, that's really saying something! And if you decide you like that well enough, you can also get another level pack at the link above which contains several other nice levels made by Nifflas - I especially liked "A Strange Dream".

As for third party levels, there's - literally - hundreds, and dozens out of those are nice enough to rec, but I don't want to overwhelm people here, so I'll just rec a few:

Riku Island is probably the single most beautiful environmental level. ('Environmental' being the genre of level that is all about bringing you the pretty, with as little stress as possible.) It's mostly very easy, with just one moderately tricky jump and then, later, a rather extensive maze which you'll probably need to draw a map for (or at least, I did). It's worth persevering, because the maze leads somewhere really nice.

Download link in this thread: http://nifflas.ni2.se/forum/index.php?topic=1250.0

Caverns is huge, varied, and mostly very pretty, in an underground, cavernous kind of way. ;-) It's mostly very easy, with a few difficult bits - but you can have hours of fun with it even if you don't tackle the difficult bits at all. There's no point or particular ending to the level, or rather, the point is to run around and take in the sights.

Download link in this thread: http://nifflas.ni2.se/forum/index.php?topic=940.0

Lost in the Storm is another large environmental, though not as large as "Caverns". This is probably a good starter level, as it's very, very easy, and also quite pretty to look at. It's almost literally a walk in the park. :-)

Download link in this thread: http://nifflas.ni2.se/forum/index.php?topic=331.0

And not a student anymore!

Well, officially still a student, I guess. But, I'm done. As of today. Many, many things went horribly, horribly wrong. I lost my nerve before the written exams. I got really sick for several weeks before the oral exams - lie-in-bed, cough-up-a-lung sick. I forgot to prepare for one half of one of my oral exams. (Yes, completely. As in: you enter the room and the prof says, 'We have two topics...', and you go, '... Wait, what?' My powers of repression are obviously prodigious. Seriously, anybody here ever *forgot* to prepare for an exam? I think that kind of puts me in a league of my own...)

But. Despite all that crap, it went better, way, way better than expected - all of it. Even the exam I forgot to prepare for went well (2-, for you Germans) - it probably helped that the topic I hadn't prepared for was one I'd done a heap of papers on over the years, so I still had some general idea of the main points. The thesis got a 1.0, which is basically as good as it gets.

The final average, for those who care (and know the German grading system), is a 1.4. I was a bit shocked to hear that, mainly because apparently I can't do even basic maths anymore - four of the five components of the final grade have been known to me since last week, but I must have added them up wrong, because I thought the range of possibility extended from 1.7 through 1.5. Good thing I'm not studying maths!

***

In other, more important news: I'm building a computer game.

Which is a bit of an exaggeration, really. I'm not building much myself, I'm just applying graphics (not made by myself) via an editor (also not made by myself) - but I hope I'm applying them in an aesthetically pleasing, and perhaps at least occasionally somewhat original way.

I downloaded this game, Knytt Stories, a few months ago. It's a platformer, a genre I'm not usually fond of, because I have the reflexes of a geriatric sloth, but I needed something to take my mind off uni for at least twenty minutes or so per day while I stayed at my parents' - something that didn't require an internet connection. So, eventually, I actually tried playing this game that had been sitting on my disk for a while, and liked it quite a bit. Unlike many platformers, it focused less on evading Death by Spikes or Death by Monsters or whatever, and more on exploring a fairly large and frequently quite pretty world. (Pretty in a 2D, stylised way.)

So, for a while Knytt Stories and its predecessor, Knytt, kept me entertained. But they're not that large, and sooner than I liked I had I finished them. Looking for something similar on one of my increasingly rare online forays I found user-made levels for Knytt Stories, and downloaded a few of those. But many of those are *really* short, and a lot are impossibly difficult and therefore do not appeal to sloth-like me, so that was a limited source of relaxation. So eventually, in between studying, I started playing around with the editor that Nifflas, the creator of the game, has generously included in the download package... and it turned out to be one of the greatest toys I've ever been given.

I'll post some images soon, when I'm back home with a normal internet connection (Friday, probably.)