The Knytt can climb, and jump. And walk. (But not swim.)
An incredibly relaxing Freeware platform game by Nifflas, the creator of Within a Deep Forest and Knytt Stories. The game combines basic gameplay elements of the ICO series with the drowsy atmosphere of Creatures, only cuter, and shorter, and happier. And with really sweet retro graphics. And made of breathtaking Scenery Porn.
The story is quite simple: The Knytt, a weird little creature, gets abducted from his native planet by an alien. However, before reaching its supposed destination, the alien's ship crashes against an asteroid, and the alien makes an emergency landing on a nearby planet. If he ever wants to get home again, the Knytt must help the alien recover the parts of the spaceship which has been scattered all over the strange planet.
The strange little world is a gorgeous, diverse maze full of little houses and curious little critters. Some want to attack the Knytt, whose only power is jumping — it can't fight or defend itself. Most just live their own little lives while the Knytt walks by.
The game can be finished in less than an hour, but its non-linearity gives it a high Replay Value. There are also a few hidden shortcuts and massive bonus area too, if you know where to look. You'll probably want to play it a few times over. With a nice cup of tea.
Available for download here
. Or, if you like, you can watch a Let's Play by DeceasedCrab here.
This game has examples of:
- Alien Abduction: This kicks off the plot. Knytt is abducted by a (friendly) alien, but the UFO is struck by an asteroid and crash lands on a planet.
- All the Worlds Are a Stage: Apart from a Jungle Japes styled section that is completely original, most of the bonus area takes elements from the other areas in the game.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- The game gives you a light that points you in the direction of the closest part to the spaceship as an ability so that you have some idea of where to go in the game.
- The game also gives you an item screen that shows you which parts you've already collected. This is very helpful, since the game has no map.
- Asteroid Thicket: The spaceship travels through one in the intro sequence, and it gets struck by one, causing the ship to crash.
- Backtracking: You'll end up doing it a lot, since there's a lot of one-way paths and dead end areas.
- Beautiful Void: Played with; there are people and other creatures, but you can't interact with them.
- Blackout Basement: The further underground you go, the darker it gets. If you're not playing in fullscreen, then you may not even be able to see anything.
- Bonus Dungeon: Well-hidden, but massive.
- Cheat Code: Two secret locations may be used to obtain a code.
- Critical Existence Failure: If the Knytt touches any environmental hazard or enemy, he disintegrates.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: You just get sent back to the last save point if you die, and they're thankfully quite common.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: "Knytt" is Swedish for "little creature", which is exactly what Knytt is.
- Excuse Plot: The protagonist is abducted, is accidentally stranded on an alien world and has to collect parts of a UFO—the rest of the game is spent doing just that.
- Falling Damage: Averted. The Knytt can fall from any height unharmed, provided the environment he falls on isn't hazardous.
- Flat Character: None of the characters are given any real personality or characterization.
- Giant Spider: There's a few, all lethal.
- Gotta Catch 'Em All: The goal of the game is to collect 11 parts to rebuild the UFO.
- Happy Ending: Knytt recovers all of the UFO parts, and the alien returns him home in gratitude. Knytt decides to go in his house and take a nap. The end.
- Heroic Mime: Knytt.
- Jump Physics: Knytt has a low jumping height, but can jump a decent distance and has a little control in mid-air. His wall-crawling and wall-jumping skills compensate for his mediocre jump, though.
- Lethal Lava Land: Lava appears in several areas. There's also a segment where there are heated blocks which kill you.
- Lighter and Softer: Than its predecessor, Within a Deep Forest. In that game, you were out on a quest to save the world from being blown up by a mad scientist. In this game, you're just a kid who is stranded on a far off world who has to repair a spaceship and get home, and there's no villain—heck, there's almost no enemies at all in the game. Most of the threats are just environmental hazards like water and lava.
- Metroidvania: The game is a very minimalist take on the genre; you explore a wide open world to gather tools in order to beat the game. Knytt can't attack and can only jump, climb and use a light to point the way to an item, and there are very few enemies to encounter, with the environments and platforming providing the lions share of obstacles. There are no power-ups, either.
- Minecart Madness: There's a mine cart in one of the areas you must get behind and push in order to find one of the ship parts.
- Minimalism: As mentioned above, the game is a Metroid-style adventure stripped down to its bare essence.
- No Antagonist: The game has no villain. The only enemies are some vicious wildlife, which only appear sporadically and aren't out to actively thwart you.
- Noob Cave: The games file select screen has an optional tutorial level to give players a crash course on the games mechanics.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: Knytt again. Fortunately, combat isn't part of the gameplay, and you'll be spending more time searching than dealing with hazards of the environment or the odd critter.
- Optional Boss: Not really a boss since you can't fight, but one exists, and its name is the Das Magdenburska Martian Deathray Pantzer Crawler.
- Railroading: Downplayed. There are some sections of the world that overlap with each other, but there are obstacles that keep you from taking the most straightforward path to them (i.e. water between a chasm that's too wide to jump across) forcing you to find an alternate route. Other than that, the game gives you total freedom to travel anywhere you want in the game.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Knytt, but there are a lot of other cute creatures to be seen along the way.
- Ruins for Ruins' Sake: There's the remains of what appear to be a castle in the middle of the map.
- Save Point: These are frequently found throughout the game, and double as checkpoints.
- Shifting Sand Land: Some of the rightmost areas have deserts, including sandy areas and cacti.
- Shout-Out:
- The word "Knytt" is from a character in Vem ska trösta Knyttet (Who Will Comfort Toffle?) by Tove Jansson.
- One area resembles the castle from ICO, which Knytt is heavily based on.
- Knytt's home is very similar to, if not outright being, the same area as the tutorial level in another of Nifflas's games, Within a Deep Forest.
- Silence Is Golden: Outside of the instructions in the tutorial level, there is no dialogue in the game, spoken or written.
- Spikes of Doom: The more eastern areas have golden spikes that, like liquid, will kill you on contact. Greener spikes appear at the very bottom of the map as well, leading to tricky platforming in the optional bonus area.
- Spin-Off: The game's opening sequence appeared in the tutorial level of Within a Deep Forest originally.
- Super Drowning Skills: If the Knytt touches any liquid, it dies.
- Underground Level: Almost the entire game other than the surface and the Level in the Clouds.
- Wacky Wayside Tribe: Usually don't appear for more than one screen. They all look pretty happy.
- Wave-Motion Gun: Das Magdenburska Martian Deathray Pantzer Crawler.
- Wall Crawl: Knytt can climb up any wall.
- Wall Jump: Achieved by climbing a wall, jumping off, and climbing another wall.
- Warp Zone: In one of the underground areas not far from where you start, there's a well hidden warp area (as in, you have to actively seek out the tunnel leading to it—it's covered by a foreground) that will take you straight to the aquatic ruins in the east of the world.
