I'm quite the adventurer. Today I went leagues underwater and traveled between two dimensions in order to defuse a bomb planted by an evil genius with hopes to destroy the world. I boarded a rocket ship and crashed on a planet with zero signs of life. With the help of my faithful umbrella, I made it to an island somewhere in the Atlantic, where I eventually found a ship to hide on, and we began to sail home. On the way back, I fell asleep and got stuck in a strange dream, where a crow took me to a place I had never seen before. There were books scattered all about - upon opening one, I became trapped and had to return a prized jewel to the literary residents. I went through a few chambers jammed with traps and wandered through a room littered with snakes and other unknown beasts, until I finally arrived at the trophy room. I set my eyes on the shining ruby beauty - reached my hands out, snatched it, and proudly lifted it above my head - until a snake materialized on the floor in front of me, ending my game.
A day such as this is common in the land of the Knytt. Knytt Stories is an indie-platformer project coded, designed, and developed by Nifflas, who also created the game's graphics and composed its superior music. It's downloadable for free on his website, as are all the levels he and other players created. Knytt Stories doesn't follow a specific storyline structure - the only thing we can know for certain is that we play as Juni, our Knytt spokeswoman. Through various scenarios, Juni either finds herself trapped in an alienated location, or she's trying to save the world. We're only given one piece of motivation: Juni just wants to get home. Our job is to control Juni as we take her through the beautiful, peaceful scenery. She's faced with many obstacles - monsters lurk everywhere, hoping to harm Juni anyway they can. Traps are scattered throughout the world to slow Juni down, thus giving her reason to worry before trying to pick up the next power-up.
http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p105/Icy_X-Cel/Reviews/ksss1-1.png
Knytt Stories is a simple game. You have a mere 4 tricks in your arsenal you must learn to utilize - jumping, moving, umbrella-ing, and the art of duplication. Our goal is to use these skills to the best of our ability and ensure Juni's safety. Usually, you start out with very few abilities. You can walk, or you can jump. However, you'll shortly gain power-ups to make the job easier. You'll find after a couple of minutes you can run, then a bit later you're double jumping, and then you'll have your umbrella and be sailing across the map.
Levels come in all flavors - some may be jump-heavy, whereas in others you'll have to concern yourself with the abundant monsters of the environment. Some even have different difficulty levels: select the "Easy" setting, and you'll be able to peacefully enjoy the environment and music while still having the challenge of getting past monsters and making some tough jumps. Up the setting to "Hard" and you'll probably be seeing the respawn point quite a bit - monsters are much more common in these levels, the jumps are trickier, and the puzzles are more complex. For the most part, the balance on difficulty is great - those who just want to relax can do that, and those who want a challenge will receive it, at the expense of having to spend some extra time to complete a few tricky maneuvers. In my experience, however, it never became mind-numbingly difficult, and that's what kept bringing me back. Whether it's pure luck that the fourty some levels I've downloaded all follow this statement or the community takes pride in the development of their exhibitions, I've had a great time with Knytt Stories and have lost many hours stuck in it's trance.
Nifflas took great pride in the audio and visual features of Knytt Stories. The pixel art is stunning; for those like myself who can still enjoy a 2D game as much as the current 3D graphics, the game is a pleasant experience. Nothing is too hugely complex - it just simply works. Perhaps it's because I also take into consideration the music. The background music of Knytt Stories is so superbly done - I wish the developer would release a soundtrack for it. It's very ambient, and even in most levels that I download, it fits the background of each map perfectly. When I get near the ocean, I begin hearing the tide coming in. Then comes the fearsome noise of a thunderstorm, so I run inside the house to find the crackling of a fireplace...every sound was taken into consideration, from the sound of the wind at the top of a cliff which changes pace as the hands on the clock keep turning, to the drops of water inside a cavern, slowly trickling down, down, and then up? (Hoho, no, down.) It's just comprised of everything needed to feel like you're actually there. On more than one occasion I've left Knytt Stories running with my headphones on just for the ambience. Yes, Knytt Stories is a great game, but the way it makes you feel is something special, and most games these days can't give that feeling Knytt Stories does.http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p105/Icy_X-Cel/Reviews/ksss2.png The game also comes bundled with a level creator. It's very apparent to me that this feature works, because the quality of the levels made by fans that are released on the site is amazing. However, I found the interface very difficult to deal with (perhaps it's just my simple mind). It took me around 45 minutes just to create the design of one simple map, and when I did, I wasn't sure how to make objects solid - when I tried to test it out, Juni just started falling south through my obstacles and continued falling down an endless pit of death. There was nothing that came with the download that explained how the level editor works. I'm sure there's a million guides on the site, but this is a bit of an inconvenience.
There's no reason not to try Knytt Stories. It takes the number one spot out of 10 freeware games I found to have the highest ratings [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.81763]. The gameplay is simple and fun (the thing you used to feel back when you first plugged in your SNES), and with constant levels being developed from the community, you're sure to have something to keep you entertained until you move over to Cave Story [http://www.miraigamer.net/cavestory/]. The music and graphics are relaxing - a great way to sit back and kick it after a day at work. I couldn't ask for anything more, Knytt Stories sets the bar high for freeware games.
Knytt Stories can be downloaded on Nifflas' site, http://nifflas.ni2.se/index.php?main=02Knytt_Stories
A day such as this is common in the land of the Knytt. Knytt Stories is an indie-platformer project coded, designed, and developed by Nifflas, who also created the game's graphics and composed its superior music. It's downloadable for free on his website, as are all the levels he and other players created. Knytt Stories doesn't follow a specific storyline structure - the only thing we can know for certain is that we play as Juni, our Knytt spokeswoman. Through various scenarios, Juni either finds herself trapped in an alienated location, or she's trying to save the world. We're only given one piece of motivation: Juni just wants to get home. Our job is to control Juni as we take her through the beautiful, peaceful scenery. She's faced with many obstacles - monsters lurk everywhere, hoping to harm Juni anyway they can. Traps are scattered throughout the world to slow Juni down, thus giving her reason to worry before trying to pick up the next power-up.
http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p105/Icy_X-Cel/Reviews/ksss1-1.png
Knytt Stories is a simple game. You have a mere 4 tricks in your arsenal you must learn to utilize - jumping, moving, umbrella-ing, and the art of duplication. Our goal is to use these skills to the best of our ability and ensure Juni's safety. Usually, you start out with very few abilities. You can walk, or you can jump. However, you'll shortly gain power-ups to make the job easier. You'll find after a couple of minutes you can run, then a bit later you're double jumping, and then you'll have your umbrella and be sailing across the map.
Levels come in all flavors - some may be jump-heavy, whereas in others you'll have to concern yourself with the abundant monsters of the environment. Some even have different difficulty levels: select the "Easy" setting, and you'll be able to peacefully enjoy the environment and music while still having the challenge of getting past monsters and making some tough jumps. Up the setting to "Hard" and you'll probably be seeing the respawn point quite a bit - monsters are much more common in these levels, the jumps are trickier, and the puzzles are more complex. For the most part, the balance on difficulty is great - those who just want to relax can do that, and those who want a challenge will receive it, at the expense of having to spend some extra time to complete a few tricky maneuvers. In my experience, however, it never became mind-numbingly difficult, and that's what kept bringing me back. Whether it's pure luck that the fourty some levels I've downloaded all follow this statement or the community takes pride in the development of their exhibitions, I've had a great time with Knytt Stories and have lost many hours stuck in it's trance.
Nifflas took great pride in the audio and visual features of Knytt Stories. The pixel art is stunning; for those like myself who can still enjoy a 2D game as much as the current 3D graphics, the game is a pleasant experience. Nothing is too hugely complex - it just simply works. Perhaps it's because I also take into consideration the music. The background music of Knytt Stories is so superbly done - I wish the developer would release a soundtrack for it. It's very ambient, and even in most levels that I download, it fits the background of each map perfectly. When I get near the ocean, I begin hearing the tide coming in. Then comes the fearsome noise of a thunderstorm, so I run inside the house to find the crackling of a fireplace...every sound was taken into consideration, from the sound of the wind at the top of a cliff which changes pace as the hands on the clock keep turning, to the drops of water inside a cavern, slowly trickling down, down, and then up? (Hoho, no, down.) It's just comprised of everything needed to feel like you're actually there. On more than one occasion I've left Knytt Stories running with my headphones on just for the ambience. Yes, Knytt Stories is a great game, but the way it makes you feel is something special, and most games these days can't give that feeling Knytt Stories does.http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p105/Icy_X-Cel/Reviews/ksss2.png The game also comes bundled with a level creator. It's very apparent to me that this feature works, because the quality of the levels made by fans that are released on the site is amazing. However, I found the interface very difficult to deal with (perhaps it's just my simple mind). It took me around 45 minutes just to create the design of one simple map, and when I did, I wasn't sure how to make objects solid - when I tried to test it out, Juni just started falling south through my obstacles and continued falling down an endless pit of death. There was nothing that came with the download that explained how the level editor works. I'm sure there's a million guides on the site, but this is a bit of an inconvenience.
There's no reason not to try Knytt Stories. It takes the number one spot out of 10 freeware games I found to have the highest ratings [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.81763]. The gameplay is simple and fun (the thing you used to feel back when you first plugged in your SNES), and with constant levels being developed from the community, you're sure to have something to keep you entertained until you move over to Cave Story [http://www.miraigamer.net/cavestory/]. The music and graphics are relaxing - a great way to sit back and kick it after a day at work. I couldn't ask for anything more, Knytt Stories sets the bar high for freeware games.
Knytt Stories can be downloaded on Nifflas' site, http://nifflas.ni2.se/index.php?main=02Knytt_Stories
