Soon after the end of the first level contest we released Nikki and the Robots 0.3.2, which you can download here or via the update menu option of your copy.

[video links: Vimeo | YouTube]

The new features are:

• New Patrol Robots, which will make Nikki fail the level when touched
• Jetpack Robots are more forgiving and easier to control
• No more editor crashes when Nikki has not been added
• Signature checks for updates (heightened updater security - not gameplay-relevant)

A few words about the contest judging: we will announce the winners in approximately ten days. We received some last-minute levels and are very thankful to all level builders who shared their works.

Patrol Robot

We hope that the Patrol Robot is fun to work with. You can get in touch with players and builders on IRC and the forums.

PS: The robot compendium has been updated both in our tutorial and on IndieDB.

At the time of writing, there are approximately 64 hours left if you want to submit levels to the level design contest to win one of three T-shirts and pre-orders of Nikki and the Robots.

We received 23 user-made levels so far (get all of them here or here) and I took a look at how many robots, switches, batteries and objects in total are in them.

Contest Levels 2.5 - See as real table here

My feeling was that robots were under-used in the contest. The statistics show that I'm wrong. What surprised me however is the average 530 objects per level (the current average object count in levels shipped with Nikki and the Robots is 170). Makes me feel lazy. :)

We have been tweaking physics and controls lately in preparation for the next release. (check out this horrible recording of horrible jetpack test physics :) ).

I'm curious if the last days of the contest will spawn many awesome levels. I guess I have to hope for bad weather..

Context: Our level design contest (rules are here) will be over in about three days (a timer is here).

Something caught my attention when I last went shopping: butter. The packaging and name inspired me to design a level.

• ROOMBOTER ("butter" in Dutch) sounds like the kick-kraftwerk word ROBOTER ("robot" in Germany). Robots are important in our game Nikki and the Robots..
• The packaging design aesthetics remind of pixels and tetris; blocks in a grid. Many of the existing levels in Nikki and the Robots are similar.

You can download this level [mirror 1|mirror 2].

Copying existing designs is not how I would usually create levels. The instant inspiration I got compelled me to do it in this case though.

When did you last have spontaneous inspiration for game locations/levels lately? Do you rather get ideas from nature or man-made things?

The levels we received so far made us want to give a little more in return, so we'll throw in two more shirts for the best level designers.

So submit cool levels before July 7th is over and win one of three shirts and one of ten pre-order copies of Nikki and the Robots. :) Check out the previous entries here and here.

For rules, check out this announcement.

We only have two shirt styles, so if anybody has ideas for new stuff to print, let us know.

On June 6th we started a level design contest. July 7th is the deadline and everybody is welcome to submit as many levels as they like via email, webchat or forum. Text and video tutorials are available.

Since releasing the first batch, we received nine levels (one of them in two versions):

To test them, you have to unzip the archive [mirror 1 | mirror 2] to the following directory:

WINDOWS: %APPDATA%\nikki-free-levels\userLevels\

LINUX/MAC OS X: ~/.nikki-free-levels/userLevels/

Just copy the path into Explorer's (CTRL + L) or Filer's (CMD + SHIFT + G) location bar to enter that directory.

On June 6th we started a level design contest. It runs until July 7th and everybody is welcome to submit as many levels as they like. Text and video tutorials are available.

We received ten levels so far via email, webchat and forum:

[full size]

To test them, you have to unzip the archive [mirror 1 | mirror 2] to the following directory:

WINDOWS: %APPDATA%\nikki-free-levels\userLevels\

LINUX/MAC OS X: ~/.nikki-free-levels/userLevels/

Just copy the path into Explorer's (CTRL + L) or Filer's (CMD + SHIFT + G) location bar to enter that directory.

There are also some user-made levels that are not part of the design competition:

• mhitza's walljumping levelpack
• Tyr's Mario 1-1 level remake
• YuGiOhJCJ's amazing levelpack

Looking forward to more submissions!

A nasty slow-motion bug has been removed by rewriting a bit of clocked, our Haskell timer library. The bug was noticeable on many Windows systems but Linux and OS X were also affected in some cases.

Just use the "update" main menu option to get the latest release or download it here.

Furthermore, we added a battery counter and made time and battery counters prettier:

Let us know if anything is broken on our bug tracker, forum or via email.

We're starting our first level design competition! Fire up the editor and create something amazing!

We will pick 10 winning level designs (possibly even more), whose creators will each receive a free copy of Nikki and the Robots (the full game), and they will be included in the game's credits.

One Three of the level builders will also win a fancy Nikki and the Robots t-shirt!

Our level editor is easy to use and we have made a short tutorial [links: GDocs | Readability | IndieDB] and an instructional video [links: Vimeo | YouTube | IndieDB].

You can send us your levels via email, upload them to a hosting site and send us the links, or you can post them to the forum. For hosting files we recommend box.net, dropbox.com or mediafire.com.

• Name (for attribution/credits)
• Email address (for contact)
• The phrase "These levels are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Unported 3.0" (CC BY)

The winning levels will be included in updates of Nikki and the Robots. We will also create retouched versions with additional graphics and content and then include these levels in the story mode of the full Nikki game.

Authors will be given notable attribution both in the game and on our website.

No Clones Allowed!

Everybody is welcome to submit as many original levels as they like. Allow other games to inspire you - we all do - but no clones, please. :)

This competiton ends on July 7th 2011.