Gooshlands Gathering

Cube_Well's picture
gooshlands-coverimage.png

These worlds were formed from many oozes, of slimy substances that pound, mix and mash.
The slippery sludges of daily mundanity converge into a lake of strange splendor, and The Gooshlands are born.

This is a pack of four worlds you can explore in Katelabs:

  • Gooshlands, a mish-mash created via a collaboration with several friends
  • Desert Pilgrimage, a map which sends you on a long journey across red-hot dunes
  • Magic Carpet, in which rainbow carpets shoot sparkles to stress-test your PC
  • Boxforest, a ghostly indoor grove


These worlds are in open beta, and more will be added to them over time, probably.

Make sure your copy of Katelabs is up to date before you begin.

Event Created For: 
Made For: 
An event

Comments

Kate B's picture

thought I commented on this

thought I commented on this but I guess I forgot, sorry to keep you waiting!

this is the biggest one I've received yet and I like the way this feels collaborative and also I love Gooshlands a lot... feels like a real place with lots o mysteries. I like how there are lots of places to shrink and grow. I also like the choices of colour, where it feels intentionally primary-coloured yet muted, and feels sort of gooey. I feel like I can smell this place and it smells a bit like blu-tak and erasers

I liked the tiny bear in a jar. And the little garden inside the dome. And the way it looks like the whole thing is inside a very elongated tube

the desert pilgrimage is also a ton of cool ideas, I like the distance it takes (and that... VERY stretched house at the end?!) having a very long area is something I haven't seen anyone do yet. also liked that I was trekking to mcdonald's

boxforest was smaller but had a cool aesthetic with the trees in boxes. looked around for a while to see what kind of mysteries were there.

magic carpet was. a lot of tension on the computer but made for a nice closing world to finish the piece.

Whales's picture

> magic carpet was. a lot of

> magic carpet was. a lot of tension on the computer but made for a nice closing world to finish the piece.

Surprisingly the FPS for me was better than on many other maps, even after the sky filled with thick clouds of particles.

Whales's picture

I love the idea of these

I love the idea of these being pocket worlds. Little escapes. That's what video games with editors should be.

Pepperoni pizza train bonus +1 Albeit the desert may now have given me pizza demon nightmares. Are those coconuts in the ground, or skulls... why do I feel like this isn't a good path to tread alone? Thankfully the house at the end feels safe, probably due to all the kind text in it. Without that it would be even more forboding.

The desert map in particular felt like a journey. I like that feeling. It's more than a just a 3D world to explore, it's getting close to interactive without needing any actual interactive features.

I had no idea that Katelabs allowed lighting to be used so flexibly, I assumed it was a mostly fixed ambient light game. I'm going to have to perform some experiments. Years of hearing graphics artists complaining about 3d engine lighting limitations has mostly turned me off playing with lighting :P

Each map seems to have a very consistent colour scheme. It's nice, it gives the maps an atmosphere and a feeling of cohesiveness.

> Gooshlands, a mish-mash created via a collaboration with several friends

Did you circulate the one level file around, or are there some import/merge kl features I'm not aware of?

Cube_Well's picture

Thanks for commenting!

Thanks for commenting! Feedback helps me make my next thing even better.

> I love the idea of these being pocket worlds. Little escapes. That's what video games with editors should be.

Totally in agreement.

> Are those coconuts in the ground, or skulls... why do I feel like this isn't a good path to tread alone?

One of the creative limitations of Katelabs I enjoy is that it enables scenarios where different models will be used to represent different things depending on context. It can also add a certain vagueness if the objects are not immediately recognizable.
Are these objects coconuts? Are they skulls? The game will not answer, so you are forced to draw your own conclusions.

> Thankfully the house at the end feels safe, probably due to all the kind text in it.

I'm glad you enjoyed the text, because I wasn't really sure about it at first. I originally planned the text to be an easter egg, but thankfully I decided that didn't make sense. After journeying down such a long walking sim, you deserve at least some small acknowledgement of how far you've gotten.

> I had no idea that Katelabs allowed lighting to be used so flexibly

I know, right?! I made a few maps before realizing myself.
I'll admit I had a bit of trouble when trying to light Gooshlands, but that may have been from my specific setup. (I have yet to see any other maps that were enclosed in "fake skyboxes" made of enlarged objects.)
I'm not a lighting pro yet, please take me with a grain of salt.

> Did you circulate the one level file around

Yeah. Just a fun thing with a few friends. Set a time limit of one week per person, but other than that it just kinda happened on its own.
Don't worry about the lack of named contributors. The anonymity was by design.