Knytt Stories Design Tour

By: Derek Yu

On: December 10th, 2008

Following fast on the heels of David Rosen’s last design tour (World of Goo) is a new tour of Knytt Stories. I’m really enjoying the style of these videos, and the analysis is fun, too. Keep ’em coming!

From the Wolfire blog.

Posted in Community, Developers, Videos | Tags: DavidRosen, Nifflas

AppleBot

What’s with the guys accent? lol
askjdhfakjsdhf

WHY SHOULD I GIVE A SHIT ABOUT WHAT THIS GUY SAYS
Matt

I thought his comments on world of goo were more informative, but I enjoyed this one as well. Hard of Extremely Hard? I thought it was very easy there is really no penelty for death other than being set back to the last save point(which is never far) and the monsters aren’t that hard to get around.
JLJac

Hey Derek, maybe we could restrict the comments so they are only accessable from a forum account?

Really useful, those little tours:) He seems to have a good grasp of those little details that improve the overall impression.

But he should have cleaned his internet history though haha
David

I think this one started out well, but started to turn into more of a review towards the end. I am going to try to stick more to the technical game design and technology points in the future because that is what I know more about!
esquar

the fact that he mentions it only using 600 kb of ram is not necessary to the design of the game, its a great side-benefit, but not anything worth noting when going over the design of the game.
Nemo07

“In most modern games, you only have to worry about one thing at a time; for example, by having a magic line telling you where to go.”

*Someone* wasn’t a fan of the compass power in the new PoP. ;) Although, the new PoP seems like it would get one of these tours were it not created by big developers.

Also, I agree with Matt that Nifflas’ levels are really not difficult at all. That’s not to say they’re not sufficiently challenging, just that it’s usually not very difficult to overcome the challenges. I have no idea where the “hard or very hard by most current game’s standards” is coming from.
ssidbroadcast

“Did I mention that they’re totally free?”

Yeah, but not for OS X. :(
David

About hard or very hard: I mean because you have to figure out where to go, and most of the challenges require significant dexterity, and often require several tries. It is not frustrating because death is handled so smoothly and painlessly.

Basically there are different leagues of hardness. Mirror’s Edge is one of the most difficult mainstream games, but is easier than Knytt Stories’ “The Machine” on normal. On the other hand, Knytt Stories is really easy compared to, say, Nikujin or N+.
David

This is all totally subjective though; I am going to try to stick to more objective design points in the future!
Big Lon

I really enjoy these design tours, always learn something new and can never resist getting the game being toured shortly after watching the video. Thanks a lot David!
Switch0025

So far I like his videos. I only have one problem: he focuses almost entirely on the good design choices; he doesn’t spare much time to talk about what he thinks the developers did wrong.
David

Switch, I am living in a glass house ( http://www.wolfire.com ) so it could be dangerous to go too far in that direction :)
Venus Flytrap

I agree with what Switch says. I am a huge fan of this game, and I think he did a good job of describing the relaxing atmosphere and ease of use, but was there anything that you thought was a poor design choice?
Dither

Good work, David! I enjoyed your analysis. You sound like Jeffrey Tucker.
Cobalt

“But he should have cleaned his internet history though haha”

That’s actually a Google feature.
JLJac

Yeah, just noticed. It didn’t get to my part of the world until this morning.
Cas

I love these videos but he sounds more like Stephen Hawkin which is rather hard to listen to.

Any of you out there with Digg accounts – Digg this stuff!

Cas :)
WineBlood

Love these design tours : makes you see the reasons why those video games are good that you may have not thought about. And as for his voice, I don’t think its actually hard to listen to. I’m not a native english speaker and I have no trouble at all.

Now I wanna play Kyntt Stories but I have no free time for that! -_-‘
Switch0025

@David: true, but I believe most people can respect an opinion (unless those people are Eidos).
Cobalt

@WineBlood: Make time! It’ll only take you maybe three hours at most, and it’s an awesome game.
Sparky

David- thanks again for another video. I agree with you that focusing on the technical is a good idea.

I’d like to voice my support for including some discussion of a game’s shortcomings. I think you’d to a good job of handling things in a positive way, and it would strengthen your analysis.