Video Game / Kye

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Kye is a charity-ware Block Puzzle game developed by Colin Garbutt originally made for 32-bit Microsoft Windows systems in 1992.

The gameplay involves Kye, a green circle that was named after the original developer's dog, moving around mazes to collect all the diamonds in the level. The game is notable for its high difficulty: There are blocks, rocks and monsters all over the place and a common way to lose was to get trapped, die or get the path to the diamonds blocked.

The game is most notable for its level editor due to the way objects can interact with one another. Gained a small community during the early years of the World Wide Web, in which people shared their levels. The original version is available for download here. You can also find extensive information on the Kye series and various versions here

Tropes present in this game:

• All There in the Manual: The names of various objects are not detailed anywhere in the game itself, only being identified in the help documents and the level editor.
• Ascended Glitch: The black hole objects were not supposed to be movable. A bug in Kye 2.0 allowed them to be pushed by pushers while they were in the process of "swallowing" an object. This feature was used occasionally in few custom levels and many clones didn't implement it. Xye keeps the glitch and uses it in a couple of official levels.
• Asteroids Monster: Shooters are capable of generating Sliders or Marbles over time, which if not blocked or destroyed will soon overrun the map with blocks.
• Block Puzzle: The core aspect of Kye is manipulating blocks, pushing them directly or using Magnets to pull them. Blocks come in two distinct shapes (square and round) and can have gravity on one of the four cardinal directions. Many objects in the game also function as solid blocks unless interacted with.
• Christmas Special: Christmas Kye (which comes in two versions with 25 levels each) and a demo version, Christmas Kye Jr. These versions color the walls either cyan or turquoise and apply festive skins to many of the characters and objects.
• Collision Damage: The instant an enemy steps into a tile adjacent to Kye either horizontally or vertically, Kye is killed.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • Each general category of objects in the game is given a different color scheme. Kye is green, diamonds are blue, blocks are yellow with a dash of red, walls are grey, and enemies are black and purple.
  • The different-colored blocks/objects in Xye aren't just for show- some objects will behave differently if they're a different color, most notably the Sliders, Marbles, and Sentries.
    • Sliders and Marbles can travel at five different speeds depending on their color. From slowest to fastest: Blue > Green > Yellow > Red = Purple
    • The behavior of a Sentry is different depending on its color. Yellow simply bounces, Red plows through, Blue and Green turn clockwise and counter-clockwise respectively, and purple plows through before bouncing.
• Co-Op Multiplayer: The homebrew port released for the ColecoVision, Cye, incorporates this with the second player controlling a darker Palette Swap of Kye.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: In every level of the original Kye, Kye began each level with three lives. Getting killed would have Kye respawn at his spawn location with all the diamonds he collected still in his possession, and if his starting point isn't blocked off, Kye could resume collecting diamonds and possibly complete the level. Certain levels would avert this trope by having a block that would collapse and seal Kye's spawn, trapping him if he dies and respawns, requiring a full Puzzle Reset. Also can be averted by a monster reaching Kye's spawn point, where the monster will perform a Cycle of Hurting on Kye until all of their lives are gone. In Xye, level designers can adjust Kye's starting lives from zero to three, with zero lives being the most common choice for custom levels.
• Downloadable Content: The 496 addon levels, which were sent through mail order to those that registered Kye.
• Elite Mooks: The fan sequel Xye adds these, which take direct paths to catch you as opposed to the original monsters whom just try to run into your exact location, running into walls and blocks along the way. Some of them are much faster, taking a step both when the player does and on their own pace.
• Follow the Money: Sometimes inverted. Grabbing certain diamonds too early or in the wrong order may cause objects on the current level to rearrange themselves in such ways that render the level impassable.
• Fake Difficulty:
  • Trial-and-Error Gameplay: It is nearly impossible to know the direction of the doors that were introduced in Kye 2.0 which only allow Kye to enter in a specific direction, with some levels exploiting this by having multiple paths, some of them blocked by doors. Some versions and remakes display the direction the doors can be traveled in (such as the above-mentioned Christmas Specials).
  • Checkpoint Starvation: Many levels contain multiple, smaller puzzles that have to be solved in sequence. A mistake in a later puzzle would mean that you had to do the entire level all over again. Xye averts this by introducing the undo feature to assist in solving bigger puzzles, despite Word of God claiming a level is not truly passed if it is used.
• Fan Remake:
  • Python Kye, which is identical to the original game. The only enhancement it provides is a graphic editor that allows creating full level sets, while Kye 2.0's editor only allows making single-level packs that then must be combined with other levels with a text editor.
  • Running Cheetah Kye, an attempt at making a version of Kye with smooth-moving sprites as opposed to the tile-by-tile movement of the original. Though due to the change in physics, the game is slower than normal Kye.
• Fan Sequel: Various so-called ports introduce new features and objects. Including Kye 3.0, Xye, SKye, PYKye++ and others. PYKye++, in particular, meshes elements of Kye with Chip's Challenge.
• Gravity Screw: Blocks with arrows gravitate towards the direction they point, while rounded blocks slide off of one another and pile up.
• Guide Dang It!: Thanks to the Nintendo Hard nature of the game and lack of checkpoints in some rather lengthy levels.
• Level Editor: One of the series' main selling points. Initially done through editing text files, Kye 2.0 added a visual editor with a GUI that allowed creating individual custom levels. Xye would follow suit with its own built-in editor that can create full level sets.
• Lock and Key Puzzle: Used in Xye, with five possible colors for keys and their accompanying locks.
• Marathon Level: Many of the more difficult stages in the game are lengthy obstacle courses where multiple puzzles have to be completed in succession without failure.
• Minus World: The levels were stored as text files. Try to provide normal text files such as the readme files to the game and it will create levels that are usually unsolvable and full of monsters and nonsensical wall structures.
• Mission-Pack Sequel:
  • Kye 2.0, the only major update to the original game, added timer blocks, black holes, doors, and shooters to the list of objects, along with five new levels to the default level set that demonstrate them.
  • The registered version, Christmas editions, and Dr. Floyd's Kye, as they do not add any new objects, only new levels (and in the case of the Christmas editions, festive graphics).
• The Maze: The door objects allow for the creation of mazes where the only way to find the correct path is through trial-and-error. "Adoorable" features one as a set piece in the lower-right corner: two of the paths are traps that will prevent the player from progressing.
• Noob Bridge: Level 14, Adoorable, features a room where the player must take advantage of diagonal movement using the mouse or the numerical keypad to collect diamonds surrounding four monsters arranged in a cross shape. Since the game only checks for collision in where Kye stands, he can slip by the kill planes of the monsters to reach the diamonds—a trick that is not possible with traditional four-way directional inputs. Since the mechanic is barely used in Kye and its numerous custom levels, Xye omits diagonal movement and once included a modified version of Adoorable which completely removes the room from the level.
• No Ending: The last level of Dr. Floyd's Kye is an arrangement of walls that spell "GAME OVER" and block its only diamond inside the O.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: All that a monster needs to kill Kye is to get to a cell that shares an edge with Kye's current cell.
• Timed Mission: The various timer and generator blocks can be used to create these. Take too long and the level would either flood up with blocks or monsters.
• Tutorial Level: The first level of the original level set, "First", is meant to give a tour of how the game's various blocks work. Players are encouraged to interact with the various objects before collecting the single diamond right next to their start point when they're ready to move on.
• Unwinnable by Design:
  • BORDER.KYE, the level used as the background for the unregistered version's splash screen, is simply for show and cannot be completed as one of the Diamonds is placed behind a round block that cannot be moved and monsters block the lower path.
  • Dr. Floyd's Kye's 25th and final "level" is an ending level that barricades a diamond behind a solid wall.
  • One level in the registered version, FACTOR.KYE's "Factory", cannot be completed as both the player and the level's single diamond spawn inside walls.