Knightfall

I was fortunate enough to get a sneak peak at this a few weeks ago - I am proud to say I know the guys who developed it (Megadev).

I absolutely love this game. A perfect mash up of familiar themes with plenty of added individuality. And, best of all for me (and partly because of me I hope) it is completely colour-blind friendly (often a failing of games with this mechanic).

The music is great too!

I actually happen to love this game, even if for some reason I can never seem to make it past the second "world".

Is it just me or is this another game that borrows heavily off of the opening sequence from Ghosts and Goblins? Meat Boy's opening sequence also bore an uncanny resemblance.

This game is terrific, but I wish they had gone even further in the Puzzle Quest direction. When I gain a level, I want to get a new ability, not just some extra hit points. I also want items or abilities that can transform individual blocks into other kinds of blocks.

Ideally, I'd like different character classes that can do different things as they gain levels, perhaps by spending a quantity of Action Points. Maybe in the sequel.

I hope that the vicious bits of the Armor Games audience don't discourage the author too much.

Not sure about the origin of the opening sequence, but it does seem familiar.

About the game, I've been enjoying this one, too. I've managed to make it to the 3rd world so far.

I really enjoy these mash-ups! :D

I DID IT! I finally got out of the second world!

Beautiful, challenging game. I must have died at least 100 times. I really have no idea what drove me to finish the game. Probably, "I'm this far, I can't give up!"

Hi all, I'm one of the developers of Knightfall. Thanks for the nice comments, much appreciated!

@ Kyle E. Moore: You're absolutely right, it does crib from the GnG intros, but the whole thing is intended to be a visual and sonic love letter to that series, so it goes even further as you get into the game!

@ Psychotronic: Those are noted - constructive feedback is always good. We'd love to do a sequel if we get the chance, as there's plenty that didn't make it in due to time, overambition and the like. You never know, it could happen...

@ Jay and Reibear: Cheers! Glad you're getting a bit of enjoyment out of it.

And yeah, those Armor Games folk can be mean, but what can you do? It's the Net for you... ;)

Hey, Nick, great to hear from ya.

Yeah, there's definitely plenty of old school hommage to be found. For instance, the knight right down to the lance-like drill looks like a fully armored GnG, and I was wondering if the death sequences (which are rather frequent in my case) were intended to resemble the death sequence of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (another death sequence I've seen quite a lot of in my day).

But I'm with Reibear; I just can't put this down! Especially not since I've developed my ultra awesome winning strategy!

definitely one of the top recent web games I've come across... excellent execution of a bright mashup idea

I hope there will be a sequel with some of the additional features (new skills as you level up... maybe a character stat system... plus new classes/races) that have been mentioned.

A lovely spin to the RPG genre for the casual gamer with a lot of potential for more elaborate development

How many times do you have to hit the final boss to defeat him?

NickP - how about a save function?

I just finished World 3 (again, since I quit out before I was finished earlier and there was no option to "resume" my game when I came back), and now I need another break.

Sure would be nice to be able to pick up where I left off later, or else I don't think I'll ever be able to finish story mode. It's just a little bit longer than my ADD lets me play.

Jay:

I was right with you yesterday. Then I noticed that below the new game button there is a really long button with a lot of writing. Turns out, that writing is Continue game, and all the extra stuff is where you actually left off.

Either that button is new as of today, or yesterday I didn't see it because it had too many letters and I was just too lazy to read it.

Heya NickP,

Hope you don't mind me posting the Penguin cheat

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Great game!

Howdy guys,

I'm just excited that my YouTube tutorial was actually mentioned in the review! I'm seriously more proud of that video than any of the 100+ walkthroughs I've made. I was challenged to do something I'd never done before, and I feel like I did a solid job with it. Big thanks to the Megadev team for writing most of the script that I used, and thanks to my lovely girlfriend for doing the narration.

While games like this are really not my style, I disliked this game less than other similar games. Drilling through dragons is fun!

Also, don't be too surprised if you see more video tutorials coming out of Armor Studios.

-Tass

@ Kyle E. Moore: That's the most cunning exploitation of a loophole I've ever seen! Excellent :D

@ Tass: thanks for the video, sir - very clear and concise, so it was. Just the ticket.

@Glenn: Cheers for the support, Mr Broadway!

:OOOO

I can now continue! Wooty! \o/

Thanks so much. If it was there before, then some glitch happened and the game didn't save my progress the first time I played.

Some small complaints, as praise gets you nowhere (you're bound to get plenty as-is ;) ):

1. In-game tutorial would've been preferred to a Youtube link; I don't want to diss your video craftsmanship, but as far as I've seen it makes things a bit easier.

2. Purgatory is easily "cheated" by going on killing sprees on the easy levels, using the gold to buy annihilation/chicken/skeleton keys, and blitzing through the hard levels with a few easy kills to loop back around to the easy levels. If enemy damage scaled as you continued, it might balance out.

3. WARLOOOOOOOOOCKS, GAAAAAAAH.

Anyone have tips on how to defeat the devil?
I killed him multiple times and he just keeps coming back..

Tweed:

The game is great. I would like to see some more RPG elements in it to really earn that puzzle/RPG title though.

And does anyone know what the (live) chickens do?

Awesome game. Just finished all story difficuties.

I just don't get the achievements. There's only titles, no description, so i have no idea what i did to earn them.

For the rest: keep it up and i expect an even more awesome sequel.

Pretty fun game, but it's a little irritating that using magic to kill enemies (as far as I can tell) doesn't give you experience or gold. Also as mentioned it'd be nice if there was some indication as to what each achievement actually was.

Hi Dan, this is Mike from Megadev here, standing in for Nick on the weekend shift. :-) I can understand your frustrations at not being awarded anything for killing enemies using magic, but it was a design decision made to stop players exploiting the magic system. If XP and / or gold were awarded then you could potentially fill up the board with monsters, destroy them all with an "annihilate" spell and then probably go and buy even more annihilate scrolls with the proceeds. There's already a few minor exploits in the game (which I'd rather not divulge), but the magic exploitation could have easily ruined the game's balance.

As for achievements, we wanted to keep the names fairly cryptic to encourage players to talk amongst themselves and discover how to unlock them, but this has probably back-fired a bit. :-) We'll be posting the descriptions on the video tutorial page in the next day or two so please check back!

The chickens really don't do anything at all, but they can effectively either help or hinder you. I quite often use them as a "buffer" between the knight and certain enemies to make initiating an attack a little easier. I think every RPG should feature chickens though - just look at Zelda: Link To The Past. :-)

We're currently in discussions with Armor Games about a sequel so keep an eye on our site for news. We've had a lot of feedback asking for more RPG elements so we'll probably take the game further down that route whilst still maintaining the puzzle and strategy elements. Thank you all for your great feedback and we hope you continue to enjoy the game - any more suggestions would be very welcome. :-)

Nice one,

Mike.

I FINALLY BEAT IT!!!! YEAH!

Issue: The Beholder; why would you DO that? *grumbles*

This is weird, but this is one of those games that I have fallen more in love with the more I play. This is because the more I play, the more I discover different things I can do which really hints at a very impressive amount of depth. And now that there is talk that there is going to be a sequel, I'm uber excited over that.

And now to go back and try and beat it on the not easiest level!

I really liked this game. The randomization mechanic made it so even though levels got harder, you weren't stuck banging your hand against the same wall over and over. Even when I got stuck on the same level for half an hour, I was still willing to try to beat it because the next set of blocks might be easier to deal with. The items added some nice "well, crap!" things to do, but I noticed that most of the time they were unnecessary, since once you get the hang of how you can move just about anything to (more or less) your own liking the game isn't too hard. (Then again, I played on chicken mode, so don't take my word on that. :-))

As has been pointed out, levelling up is almost underwhelming. However, I think the overall effect is underrated. As you get into higher levels (and armor, I suppose), being able to take acceptable amounts of damage gives you more freedom with how you move around the board. So while levels aren't particularly exciting, they're pretty useful and I'm glad for the mechanic.

The one complaint I have is near the end, I got stuck where I couldn't remove any blocks and the game wouldn't let me shift any around (like it would normally if I ran out of moves). I think this was caused by three of the pink unremovable blocks (the ones that damage you when you land on them.) touching, and it confused the programming a bit so it thought there was a 3-match when there really wasn't. This was easily solved by quitting and going back to the stage (it resets the stage when you quit/return), but irritating.

Thanks for an amusing couple of hours. :3

I have done it. I have beat the game on all three difficulty levels and now I'm playing on purgatory because... I STILL CAN'T STOP PLAYING!!!!!

Ahem...

That would be my way of saying, please with the sequel to be hurrying up, yes?

This has been one of my favorite games to come out so far this year, I think.

This is more than a "minor" exploit, popping a line of 8 zombies is an infinite combo - go through, they spawn on top of you. Flip it, get hit once, flip again, add plow through again. You can gain something like 2 levels each run and the life gain quickly makes the 5~10 damage you take seem like nothing.

Some of the lesser things include the fact that armor causes 100% miss from the 'hits' you take after using up all action points from level 6-30, at 31 you start taking 1 damage/action again. Also, black knights can be used as utilities for drilling through things like skull blocks, as well as setting up combos. It's remarkably easy to get groups of 4-5 lined up along an edge and collect 20k+ exp off them.This is more than a "minor" exploit, popping a line of 8 zombies is an infinite combo - go through, they spawn on top of you. Flip it, get hit once, flip again, add plow through again. You can gain something like 2 levels each run and the life gain quickly makes the 5~10 damage you take seem like nothing.

Some of the lesser things include the fact that armor causes 100% miss from the 'hits' you take after using up all action points from level 6-30, at 31 you start taking 1 damage/action again. Also, black knights can be used as utilities for drilling through things like skull blocks, as well as setting up combos. It's remarkably easy to get groups of 4-5 lined up along an edge and collect 20k+ exp off them.

A level just spawned with no key on it. It took me a while to figure out why i was finding the game so hard after a few days away!

quevine: if you have 3 pink blocks touching, I think you can click on them to destroy them as with any other block type. I can't say I've done that myself (with the pink spike blocks), but I certainly have destroyed 3 touching skull blocks.

The really annoying part is the achievemnts, they sound so cool and they give you absolutely no inkling as to how you got them or why they're there. Can someone please please PLEASE post an achivement guide. I want to know how I got them! Thanks!

You get Deadly Gentry when you beat a stage with no enemies left.

The achievements:

Trevor -