The Gamer's Quarter

[internisus]

Nifflas, primary author of Within a Deep Forest, has just released his latest game. It's called Knytt, and you can download it for free here. I'm very excited about it, and after I play for a bit I'll be sure to post impressions or some such thing. In the meantime, begin frothing as dictated by the image below:

[Wall of Beef]

So far I have only found one part, but I have traveled what seems to be a extreme distance. Ive just been basically exploring, and not really hunting for items. The one I did find I just stumbled upon. This game seems massive. Oh and the amount of details are just as delightful as they were in Within a Deep Forest, and the music is also really great atmospheric stuff.

[crispus attucks jr]

i cant say i like how that whole page is a giant bid for CRED or whatever. "Knytt is a free platform game for Windows featuring exploration and atmosphere." featuring atmosphere. besides that being kind of gross and the namedropping i guess this looks neat.

installing now!

[internisus]

Having played Within a Deep Forest, I have no problem with the author including "atmosphere" in this game's list of features.

[Dracko]

Three minutes in and I instantly fell in love. It feels so fluid to play at that, with your little hopping, wall-scaling ratmonkey. You feel like a lively little packrat, and that's pretty swell for this sort of game.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[Cycle]

This game came out just in time... also, the title keeps sounding like a naughty word inside my head.

[Joe]

There isn't much going on here, but the superb aesthetic and excellent (and intuitive) controls make up for it.
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[Wall of Beef]

Yeah the game is extremely enjoyable...but I just beat it. At least I am assuming I did, in the credits it mentions "Secret Game Music" which makes me think there is something more to discover. I know I did not go everywhere though, so who knows.

[internisus]

You beat it already? I didn't even try it yet. That makes me sad.

[Wall of Beef]

[Winged Assassins (1984)]

I beat it too. It's a damn sight easier than Within A Deep Forest.
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[Sushi d]

niiice.. its not annoying like the last game was.
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X_X

[Winged Assassins (1984)]

Except for that one screen in that really dark area, the one with the nearly invisible creature that kills you when you touch it.
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[dessgeega]

oh fuck yes. i've been semifrothing for this.
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[internisus]

I finished it, too. It's very, very easy. I really enjoy the simple, casual wall-gliding control, and the game is even more gorgeous than WaDF. There are more graphic effects (like the moving background trees), some lovely surreal locations, and tons of ambient critters. The cues for music bits are perfect; usually a brief ambient melody strikes up just when you emerge from the underground and see the surface again, or discover a distinct chamber, etc.

However, since the items do not do anything as in WaDF, the gameplay lacks variety. Once I had explored everything, I found myself pretty bored as I collected the remaining items. There is also no sense of flow or pacing. WaDF did not have anything like bosses, but at least it had a climactic ultimate challenge in its final area. In a way, this feels like a child's story or lullaby. It's very nice, for what it is. I just can't help but feel that there's nothing to it beyond the mood music and beautiful settings.

[dessgeega]

yeah, i just played it start to finish. i like it, though. there are some very simple jumping puzzles, just to keep traveling engaging (what few "enemies" there are feel more like environmental hazards than adversaries). it's really just a game about exploring. it's like seiklus, but with fewer things to collect. it's all about just exploring screens and finding lovely things, like the city in the clouds or those warring fez creatures. it does exploration very well. there were times when i'd be making my way through the caverns below and i'd see a castle wall rising out of the water behind me, and i would think "i need to see what's up there". and then when i'd manage to go up there'd be a huge, flooding castle. one time i was under a lake and i saw a hook dangling down. heading up, i found a small town on the lake, one of its members - sure enough - casting a line into the waters.

i solved the game from left to right, and after collecting the last item i had to head back. travelling backwards through all the places i'd been, there was a real sense that this world was huge, even if it is only screens of pixels, and that i'd travelled far. i can see myself coming back to the game and just wandering around, free of the pretense of needing to map out every area or find every item.

i do like my games hard, but this was just what i needed after the day i had.
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[internisus]

That I became tired likely has a lot to do with the fact that I obtained the items in a screwy order, moving one way, then back, and farther the first way, then farther back in the left-right scheme of things, so I wound up moving through the same tunnels over and over again. I strongly agree with you that, overall, the game is most reminiscent of Seiklus. It was very sweet, exploring for the first time, and I, too, felt compelled to move away from an item just to check out the environment.

I think it would have been a better experience for me without the light-guide of the A key, which is interesting, since I wanted to do away with that in SotC as well.

In the end, though, I feel let down, because however more relaxing and lovely this game is, the incredibly clever design of WaDF just has a more lasting appeal. For instance, do you remember Utopica and the way it required you to mess with save points in order to progress? I doubt any of the beautiful locations of Knytt will stay with me as long as that has.

By the way, it seems that Nifflas is going to be releasing some sort of update that will change the physics a bit and maybe add or unlock more secrets, so keep your eyes open, dess.

[dessgeega]

my eyes are open!

i didn't actually rely on the light too much (well, more toward the end i did). i was just very thorough, keeping a mental catalog of every tunnel i'd seen and whether i'd explored it. i might not have recognized some of the items as important without the light, though - i used it to "verify" that what i'd found was something i was looking for.
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[TOLLMASTER]

[vision]

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[dessgeega]

i found a couple of secret passages. i've definitely started inspecting certain features of the landscape more closely.
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[dessgeega]

and now i found a secret item, and secret game. it looks as though there's at least one more.
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[Lackey]

The village scene in the beginning is identical to one in Within a Deep Forest isn't it?
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[Isfet]

i have no idea why i ignored this thread for as long as i did.

anyway, wow. something about the aesthetics of this game really make me feel something that i haven't in a very long time. maybe a mix of nostalgia and a sense of exploration that most games haven't really accomplished for me as of late. it sort of has an early-to-mid nineties PC game feel to it. i'm not sure why. maybe it reminds me a little of The Dig, but not exactly. i really wish i knew what it made me think of. the combination of the ambient music and world you're exploring really meshes well.

anyway, i've found two parts so far. this is the kind of game i want to show to people.

[Shapermc]

How do you pronounce this game?
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[stotelheim]

Shaper if we both manage to get to the kentucky party then I could pronounce it for you, as it is a swedish word.

[wankerwitson]

How do i pronounce Cnut the Great?
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tim?

[Isfet]

wait, so it's not just pronounced like "knit?"

impart the Swedish knowledge.

[stotelheim]

no it is more of a uh man damn the english language just ain't built for this shit or maybe it is and i am being kind of a stupid ass about this

anyway a knytt is like a troll except smaller and uh i don't really know much about them

[Joe]

It's quite the serene little thing.

I'd like it if there were more things to do, and if the jumping puzzles were a bit more challenging. He's got a great mechanic going on, it just seems kind of wasted on Seiklus Lite.
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[internisus]

I think that Knytt is an experience most comparable to a mixture of Seiklus and Shadow of the Colossus, but it seems to me that it fails in both regards. It's been some time since I've played Seiklus, so I might be mistaken, but I recall that game being far less obviously laid out from left to right, and the absence of any kind of goal locator such as the beam of light in both of the other games keeps its exploration pure. The context for Knytt's exploration is much more thin than in Shadow of the Colossus, and obtaining an item is a very non-climactic event. Rather, it is a non-event. You pick it up and check to see where the next nearest item is. Moreover, being 2D and laid out left to right means that the exploration becomes increasingly repetetive as you seek these items in places that you have already scouted; SotC, in contrast, has you explore new locations with each individual hunt beginning in the center of the map, and it hides many of those places smartly with its expansive 3D landscape. The hidden places in Knytt are mostly a matter of false walls and floors, which is deceptive in a way that SotC is not.

I think these comparisons help to illustrate why Knytt is a disappointment taken on its own.

[Wall of Beef]

Yeah the game is pretty much 100% graphics. The jumping and running are fun, but extremely rare is any of it neccessary to really do something. I mean you have to jump up the ledges to get to a place, but never do you have to stop and look and figure out how you will jump to get there. The only times I have had to make any tricky jumps was for some warp portal shortcut after I had already found all the Parts. And it was not something so complicated in design that it should not have existed more in the game.

Finding the secrets so far has been providing some sort of challenge. But its all just a matter of going everywhere making sure you touch every wall.

I still really love this "game", but its purely for the environments, set peices, and music.

[Dracko]

I've just completed it. I don't feel like criticising it in any way. It felt serene and struck me as being an honest piece of work, with little pretension.

It's bought me and I'm willing to try and uncover the secrets.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[Lackey]

Short notes:
Walk-through walls are pretty sucky, as far as secrets go.
The Climbing mechanic is a great idea. I'd love to see this in more platformers, it makes me feel much more free.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[internisus]

[TOLLMASTER]

[Lackey]

Is anyone making a map of this game? Because I suspect it would be beautiful.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[internisus]

Yeah, check Nifflas's forums.

[dessgeega]

i'm finding secret passages everywhere now, despite not finding a single one my first time through the game. i think that speaks very highly of the game's design.

this one in particular pleased me: i saw an out-of-the-way place and said "i wonder if there's anything there - maybe i can reach it". and i jumped over to it. sure enough, there was a secret passage, which led me to a place i'd seen before but couldn't reach, and i followed it to a hidden path. the path led me to a place where i fell and landed somewhere very lovely, which had no other purpose than being lovely and hidden. i liked that.

i did find one more secret secret thing, and i have a feeling it's going to let me see more of the world.
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[vision]

--

[Winged Assassins (1984)]

I just found something that significantly alters the way that I play the game and a whole bunch of new areas. I'm going to have to take them a bit at a time, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with all this new stuff that's come almost at once.

EDIT: Holy shit! There's a thing with a huge cannon that pops out of it's back.

EDIT #2: And now I've found the secret game. And something else which looks like a 'play' button.
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[Cycle]

I just noticed (thanks to headphones) that the sound of the chaps footsteps pans across the speakers, depending where he's on screen. Nice touch!
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[internisus]

Really! That's pretty impressive; I probably wouldn't have thought to do it.

[dessgeega]

wow.

i . . . just found the motherlode. i have no words. this is incredible.
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[professor_scissors]

I've covered about half the world so far without finding any sort of interesting secrets. Occasionally I'll find secret passages, but they never do more than link one ordinary place to another. I even found a secret passage that ends immediately in a dead end, without ever leaving the screen it's on. Am I doing something wrong, or are all the secrets on the east half of the world?
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SUPER GAME BAKEDOWN 2007 IS COMING.

[dessgeega]

you're doing nothing wrong. keep doing it! there's much more.
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[dmauro]

Within a Deep Forest is the last game that just absolutely floored me, so I am completely psyched to get home and try this out.

[dessgeega]

there are some amazing things in the sky.

i think i may have seen every screen in the game, now.
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[internisus]

Scissors-Sensei, FYI, some passages are one-way. I'm telling this because I know exactly which screen you're talking about.

[Wall of Beef]

I wonder what sort of updates he has planned for this. I would like for him to add something that leads you into space.