Month: December 2014

If anyone had told me a year ago that the best videogame story would be told in an indie game about a knight with a shovel instead of a sword, I’d have called them crazy. Even now, I think there’s something off-puttingly internetty about that pitch – like bacon, cake or lolcats, it seems to mistake weird for witty. Shovel Knight promised to be a bad one-note joke that’d run for ten hours of gameplay but be stale by the end of the first level.

I guess promises are made to be broken.

Shovel Knight, a crowdfunded indie game by developer Yacht Club Games, is a sidescrolling platformer in which you take on the role of the titular hero – a knight in shining armour brandishing his mighty shovel – and are tasked to find your buddy, the less creatively named Shield Knight. Everything about this game oozes with homage to the Mega Mans and Super Marios of the eighties. Pixelated graphics, chiptune music, tight and limited controls… It’s all there.

Yet underneath this old-timey coat hides a deceptively modern game – one that’s a lot less painful to play than the platformers of yore. There’s some customization to be had, some surprisingly complex boss battles (given the nature of the game) and a good checkpoint system – which is much needed, as Shovel Knight does not kid around. This game gets balls-bustingly hard, especially in the later levels. Not rarely did I throw down the controller in absolute frustration for missing a jump or dying at the hand of a boss. Yet however angry I got, the game was never in any way poorly designed or unfair. Shovel Knight’s controls are perfectly fine-tuned, enabling some true Mega Man-esque pixel precision play.

In a day and age where sidequests and padding are the name of the game, it’s rare to come across a game that’s streamlined and lean. Make no mistake: A lot of time and effort has been put into making this game the way it is. Shovel Knight succeeds in the basic rule of art: making the creation seem easy.

The same leanness goes for its wonderful, no-nonsense story. Find your buddy. Save the world. There’s no unneeded complexity – just some good ideas and a game that sticks with them. Where Shovel Knight’s story especially shines is in its world-building: It takes the random-seeming shovel joke and creates a world around it.

There’s no other shenanigans to be had: Inhabited by colourful characters of all shapes and sizes (there’s even a trout shaped like an apple), the world feels like a mix between the early Zelda games and a Saturday Morning cartoon. Sure, jokes are cracked about your odd weapon of choice, but they’re varied, earnest and cute. Shovel Knight has little to no cynicism to share: It’s a fairy tale about a hero saving the world. It doesn’t mock or judge or ridicule, not does it try to be cool or daring. Nope: Shovel Knight is courageously normal.

Shovel Knight is a very confident-feeling game. The gameplay is top notch, the story is consistent and straight, the presentating is breathtakingly retro. Every little cog in this machine fits together perfectly, making for a wonderful ride. You can get it on steam, and I suggest you do so. There’s no excuse – the game’s dirt cheap.

Half-past-random verdict:

Forteen out of forteen pixellated shovels.

Pictured above: Totoron, my level 95 Pandaren Monk in World of Warcraft – the only game that lets me play a humanoid panda bear riding on a dragon turtle accompanied by an evil-looking dwarf on an undead horse and a cute little puppy that’s secretly made of lava.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock or if you have nothing to do with videogames (like most of my readers), you might have heard about Warlords of Draenor coming out. This new WoW expansion features a new iteration of an old continent, a lot of cosmetic and quality of life changes and most importantly: Garrisons – your own private base, with its own followers you can send on missions or work orders for them to complete.

Now, for most people World of Warcraft is a source of evil (in fact, writing this post will probably get me branded a no-life for the rest of my life). Debuting in 2004, it immediately rose to immense popularity by being the equivalent of gaming crack. Marriages were broken, children fell into neglect and futures were destroyed as players farmed for fire resistance potions to finally kill that sonovabitch Ragnaros. It was a highly addictive experience, one specifically engineered to keep you playing.

Well, guess what: It’s ten years later and the game is just as addictive as ever. The only difference: This is entirely normal now. Many free-to-play games gate their content behind long waits that can be skipped by a paywall – and of course they put the wall precisely where it’s hardest to put their game down. But it doesn’t stop there: A lot of the Assassin’s Creed games (including their newest release, Unity) have a chest that slowly fills up with cash – the speed of which depends on how many sidequests you have done. If you’ve played these games, you know how hard it is to put down the controller – you just want the chest to be a tiny bit fuller next time you play.

And with garrisons, World of Warcraft has finally come full circle. Practically every bit of the garrison content is gated. You send your followers on missions and have to wait for them to return. You want to upgrade your base, you have to wait until the upgrades are complete. Even plants and mining ores grow inside your base on a 24-hour cycle.

And every 24 hours, I want to log on and do five minutes of mining. And of course I’m curious to see whether my followers have successfully completed my missions. And while I’m at it, hey, those upgrades aren’t going to click themselves!

God damn you, Warlords of Draenor, you snuck mobile gaming into my WoW. You have truly created a monster. A wonderful and awesome monster. Something preciousss…

(P.S.: I will probably do a write-up on Warlords’ story once I’m done with most of it. So far I’m halfway through and I’ve seen some interesting things done by a company that’s made more than one dramatic mistake in the last couple of years…)