Knightin’+
This demo contains only the first dungeon. Join brave sir Lootalot on his epic quest in this little Zelda-lite adventure. Explore and fight your way through the dangerous dungeons filled with traps, puzzles and magical artifacts. And, of course, show the evil bosses who is the real boss here. Knightin'+ is a classic adventure game made by one person (yep, it's me) inspired by the amazing masterpieces from 90s. So what can you expect from this game? Let's sum up: Classic adventure gameplay (i.e. explore the dungeon, fight monsters, solve puzzles, collect loot, unlock new abilities, proceed to the next dungeon). Tongue-in-cheek story (that shouldn't be taken seriously by any means). Stylish pixel art graphics. Catchy soundtrack. Full controller support.
Steam User 60
200 character summary
Knightin is a short but nice game, It has beautiful graphics, nice controls and some solid gameplay. Solve the puzzles and defeat the monsters in this short but worthy zelda like dungeon looter.
Story & Characters 7/10
There is a little story, But it does not take itself serious at all, The game itself calls story dialogue crap, There is no princess, Just a knight named Sir Lootalot who likes to loot dungeons, There is not much to say about him.
Gamemodes & Gameplay 9/10
The game has just 1 gamemode, but you have multiple saveslots, When you start a game you get to the dungeon overview, There are 4 dungeons which can be completed pretty fast, Some dungeons have 3 floors and others 5, but the dungeons are always a 4 by 3 grid of screens with a nice map, There are keys, locked doors and puzzles which may take you a few minutes to solve. Each dungeon ends by defeating the boss on the last floor behind a locked door.
Your knight can move freely around in every direction, There are lots of weapons and upgrades, You can slash your sword, Defend with your shield, Do a dash attack and Fire fireballs, There are also upgrades which make you stronger, give you more health, magic, Or give you other useful abilities. Most upgrades are found in chests, But some must be bought from the shop, Here you can also refill your health, Enememies drop health pretty often. You earn money by looting it from enemies or chests.
The controls feel right, I love the gameplay, The bosses are all unique, and just bashing in on them won't work, You really need to learn the short patterns and figure out how and when to hit them. I do think it is a bummer it is so short, There is no random generation so it will get old pretty fast, More content could make this game a masterpiece.
Graphics & Soundtrack 9/10
The graphics look beautiful, All sprites look amazing, Some monsters are a bit out of place, but I guess it fits the general theme of the game. All dungeons look unique have 4 unique monsters and unique bosses, They all look very different. Even the menu and dungeon selection screen It finds beauty in simplicity. It also has some pretty nice animations.
The soundtrack is short, But also done really well It has some catchy tunes and you can also get the soundtrack seperatly. The dungeon tracks last about 2 and a half minutes, Which is very short, But you don't really notice that ingame. The soundtrack just fits the game really well, You can hear they did take this part very serious.
Performance & Support 7/10
The game itself runs fine, It is locked at 60fps, but there where no drops. there is a small issue however, Steam Overlay is not working for some reason, This is not a huge deal, But it is an issue.
Endgame & Replayability 7/10
The game is sadly very short, There is no procedural generation, No story, no lore, collectables or anything like that, Surely there are chests, But if you really explore the maps it is almost impossible to miss anything, There are 2 achievements which require you to finish the game without dying and another which requires you to finish the game in under 90 minutes, Which are quite the challenges. If you really like these zelda like games you might enjoy a few playtroughs, but it will get stale pretty quick.
Improvements
More dungeons, all with their own monsters and bosses. Surely the nice graphics feel a bit wasted in such a short game, I think 8 would be a nice goal, But something like 16 would be insane, Maybe in the form of DLC?
I would also love to see an overworld, Surely the select dungeon screen is nice, And I love the easy access, But there is a whole lot of unused potentional. Imagine everything you could do outside of the dungeons.
An actual story mode, Maybe keep it in the "I don't care" style, but give it a bit more, Like an extremely dumb or sl.utty princess, or a talking "Deku" tree who talks to you in such old english that is not really understandable anymore, Give your knight a bit of attitude and making smirky remarks maybe break the 4th wall, I don't know, Let your creativity go wild.
Conclusion 8/10
Knightin is very short, But it looks very nice, and the gameplay is solid. Don't buy it for a story or something that has a lot of replay value, But if you like a small dungeon crawling puzzle game with some solid gameplay it is certainly worth the asking price.
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Game Info
# of players
Single Player Only
Steam Cloud Save
Not Available
Controller Support
Bad mapping with Xpadneo
Achievements
A few hard ones
FPS on Ultra 1080P
Locked to 60?
Ram Usage
150MB
Installed Size
200MB
Launch Command
gamemoderun %command%
Issues
Steam overlay not working
Operating System & Hardware
OS
Arch Linux
Kernel
5.5.7
DE
Gnome 3.34.4
CPU
Intel I7-6800K Hexa Core @ 4.2 Ghz
GPU
Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080 (Nvidia 440.64 Drivers)
Steam User 23
A fun little Zelda-inspired romp. Seems pretty short (I've cleared 3/4 dungeons so far), and a bit easy except for the bosses (they seem to jump in difficulty compared to everything else), but still good nonetheless. As weird as it is, my biggest gripe with the game is that there isn't an overworld outside the dungeons, just a map where you select the dungeon to play. Frankly, if that's the worst thing I can say about a Zeldalike, I'd say you've made a good one!
Definitely worth a play-through, and I hope the developer makes something larger and more in-depth.
Steam User 28
8-bit Zelda-esque oldschool game, exactly what it says on the can. Give it a shot if you're too tired of BoI clones over-casualized at the basic game mechanics levels, and over-randomized at the global gameplay flow.
Steam User 17
In Knightin’+ you play as sir Lootalot who must complete four different dungeons by slashing down enemies, solving puzzles, and taking out bosses.
The plot of the of Knightin’+ is nearly non-existent, as the focus is the gameplay. The limited story that does exist consists of humorously break the fourth wall and poking fun at the rather generic fantasy setting. A good example of this is in the intro cut scene, which directly asks if you are actually interested in any of this story crap. This goofy and self-aware writing creates a framework for players to simply enjoy the entertaining experience within while providing a few genuine chuckle-worthy moments.
The vast majority of the roughly five-hour experience is spent navigating the four dungeons. These monster-filled areas consist of multiple levels, with the final one containing a boss. In order to successfully navigate from floor-to-floor, keys are required which are often obtained by completing puzzles or by successfully navigating up and down the different levels.
The two main types of puzzles are sliding box puzzles and environmental puzzles. The environmental puzzles are delightful to solve as they involve the entire layout of a floor and are presented in new ways throughout the game. Personally, I found that using a piece of paper to note various arrangements and locations was an effective way to keep track of them. On the other hand, the sliding block puzzles are much more difficult. Even though they are one of the better aspects of the game the challenge that they provided stands out as being a bit too harsh at times in comparison to the rest of the game.
One of the best parts of Knightin’+ is the pace at which you unlock new equipment and skills. In each of the four major sections, you have the opportunity to unlock at least two meaningful upgrades. Each of these enhancements adds new ways to tackle enemy encounters. For example, once you acquire the fire dash you are able to leave behind a trail of flames to counter rapid moving enemies. There is also the magic wand which allows you to shoot fireballs from afar or light-up a room.
There is a great amount of variety in the game’s environment and enemy design. For example, different elements are introduced in each stage such as teleportation portals, visually limited rooms, and several different traps. As for enemies, they stand out from one another by each having unique attack patterns such as the vanishing ghost which shoots projectiles at you or the purple plant beings will continually multiply to overwhelm you.
The four boss battles at the end of each level are well done, with each boss being visually well-designed. Overcoming these encounters is mainly done by memorizing attack patterns and counter-attacking between moves. Each one is vastly different and all four provide an enjoyable challenge.
Overall, Knightin’+’s classic gameplay is absolutely good while offering well-paced upgrades, great enemy variety, and mixing in a handful of different elements to keep things fresh. The comical narrative is a tad funny and allows the player to enjoy the title care-free. While the puzzles are mostly great with a few being particularly challenging.
Steam User 8
This was a good one. A sort of Zelda-style dungeon-rush. No filler, all killer.
Steam User 7
I got this game for 2,99€ and I can full heartly say that it was worth each cent of it.
Pros:
+ It got a Demo that allows you to check the full first dungeon out before buying
+ It got nice and dynamic 8-bit music that change when you pause or enter a shop
+ Controlls are easy to understand but figuring out how enemies work and how to fight them the best way possible keeps things challenging - exspecially when you get a room with different enemy types that synergize very good together.
+ There are a lot of puzzles, including multiple sokoban sections, but also a lot of combination locks need you to find a clue on a floor to complete. While the one in the Demo is pretty much free, there are a lot tougher ones later on that really need you to keep your eyes open. Since there is so much variety in how the hints are displayed, it makes each combination lock feel special and not repeative. And there is ALWAYS a hint that makes it obvious what the combination is - if you found and understood it.
+ Many collectibles and optional collectibles along the way
+ Previous dungeons can be re-visited
+ Coins will automatically fly towards you from the beginning - no tedious collecting to grab all
+ Each boss is unique and got some sort of trick that you have to figure out in order to kill it. Definitelly close, if not on par with Zelda games.
+ Good humor that is a parody on other games of this genre.
+ Small simplistic but informative map
+ Very cheap game price
Cons:
- The last dungeon did feel much easier than the previous one. Or to turn it around: the third dungeon's difficulty felt out of line. (In exchange, the last dungeon is far larger and got a focus on puzzles instead of enemy strength)
- Horizontal green turret lasers make no sense at their horizontal shooting position
- The ranged attack is off-centre
- Only dungeons without surroundings to explore
- Each floor of each dungeon got each possible square on the map filled, which leaves no room for unpredictable hidden secret rooms.
Overall I would say that it is a well made Zelda-like game, which only focuses on the dungeons and combines puzzles with fighting in the right balance.
Steam User 9
Cheap and entertaining for a few hours. Explore dungeons, fight monsters and solve puzzles.
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