Knytt

• Made by: Nifflas’ Games
  
• Cost: Free!
  
• Where to get it: Knytt page

What elements are important for a good game? When a developer makes a game about exploration, what do they need to include? In the last 20 years or so we’ve seen games like The Legend of Zelda, Eye of the Beholder, Super Mario Bros., Metroid and Star Control, all of which have a heavy emphasis on exploration. It’s generally accepted that games like this include: enemies to kill, obstacles to overcome, varied environments, secret areas, maybe a plot to uncover and a character who slowly gains more power and agility as they progress. These games are all legitimate classics, but if you were to take out the fighting and character growth mechanics, you’d be left with bland, somewhat tedious games. Because of this, you might think that exploration games require those elements; that fighting and blocked-off areas are simply an intrinsic part of the exploration sub-genre.

Nifflas’ Games’ Knytt boldly abandons combat and character growth to give the player a purely exploratory experience. It’s a game about enjoying the scenery, soaking in the atmosphere and seeing just how far you can go in any given direction. 

You play as Knytt, a sprightly little… gnome-thing who’s barely more than a stick figure. In the fashionably brief intro, he’s abducted by the galaxy’s most embarrassingly incompetent alien who, after scooping up our hero and zipping into space, almost immediately smacks into an asteroid and crash-lands on a different planet. As Knytt, you explore this gigantic world looking for the scattered pieces of the alien’s ship so you can get back home. This is done in a style reminiscent of, say, Super Metroid. You can run, jump, climb up walls and… well, that’s it. Unlike Super Metroid, no part of the world is initially blocked off, and you don’t have any abilities to gain. You are free to explore the entire game world in any way you feel like. This tends to get you lost fairly quickly. 

But what a world to get lost in! Each area is unique, with beautifully colored atmospheric artwork, provocative ambient sounds and weird little inhabitants living in the world. As you traverse the planet, you’ll come across platforming challenges and the occasional enemy to avoid, but that’s about the extent of the gameplay. 

It is a true testament to the designer’s vision that this game can have almost no combat and still be an absolute joy to play, albeit a more relaxing one. How many games do you play that don’t have combat? Really, aside from puzzle games what is there? Knytt shows us that there are other things our heroes can do besides massacring entire races of small animals. 

Spelunky

• Made By: Derek Yu
• Cost: Free!
• Where to get it: This TIG Forum post

When you mix chocolate, rock music and Mr. T what do you get? The most awesomest explosion of awesome all over your face, that’s what. Spelunky is a game that mixes tight platforming, loot-collecting, and NetHack-style random level generation. For me, this is the gaming equivalent of getting punched in the face by a giant Mr. T made out of chocolate while he’s playing a Slayer riff on a guitar made of bone and lost souls. Which is to say I love it.

Spelunky is made by Derek Yu, an artist and game designer who became famous around the indie scene after co-developing Aquaria, a game that won the IGF’s 2007 Seumas McNally Grand Prize. He developed Spelunky, however, mostly on his own using Game Maker.

In Spelunky you play as a cute midget-Indiana Jones type character, delving into what appears to be an old mine/cave network in search of loot and all manner of apparently very lost damsels in distress. Your starting equipment is made up of a limited number of bombs, for blowing holes in stuff, and ropes for climbing into and out of deep mine shafts. Not surprisingly, you use your whip to defend yourself against typical enemies like bats, snakes, spiders and, er, cavemen. I guess it makes sense. You navigate each level of the caves looking for gold and gems, various upgrade items and damsels in distress, eventually heading to the exit at the bottom of the level. Occasionally you’ll come across a Golden Idol, and picking it up predictably sets off a huge rolling boulder that crushes everything in it’s path.

It all sounds like a yawnfest when I describe it like that, doesn’t it? Well, the genius of this game is much more subtle than it’s surface features. Every level is randomly generated. That’s right; like they say, it’s never the same game twice. You never quite know what you’re going to encounter. There are lots and lots of upgrade items, and I won’t tell you all of them here, but they include parachutes, glasses, teleporters and shotguns. Every one of these items affects your game in some huge way, but you never know what you are going to stumble on in your travels.

All of the characters, items and obstacles interact with each other in unpredictable and exciting ways, which is what keeps the game so engaging all the time. When you pick up the Golden Idol off of its platform, for example,  the boulder comes tumbling down and bores a long tunnel in it’s wake as it barrels through the cave. I discovered, however that if I managed to get underneath the Idol chamber, I could blow up the platform itself from below and the Idol would simply fall into my greedy, waiting hands without setting off the boulder. On the other hand, in a different session there was a giant, nearly indestructible spider blocking my way to the exit and it wouldn’t budge. So I trekked back a little ways, picked up an Idol, quickly climbed a ladder to get out of the way, and, just as I was hoping, the boulder plowed right over the spider’s stupid face and I could casually stroll through afterward unharmed. This is the same kind of crazy, chaotic happenings that made NetHack so fun, except this time it’s presented using fun platforming instead of keyboard command memorization and all-text graphics. There are so many weird things to encounter and problem-solve your way through, and the discovery is half the fun.

Keep in mind, though, that this game is brutally hard. Health is extremely difficult to come by. In fact, it might take you a while to figure out how to even get more health, because the game certainly won’t tell you. You’ll probably find that you’ll die and start over a few times before you even get to the second level. Don’t let this perturb you though. This is how the game is supposed to play; you’re not playing it wrong by dying a lot. One time I threw a rock at a wall and it bounced back with startling momentum, hitting me in the face and killing me. Embarrassing, but hilarious.

You owe it to yourself to play this game. How many other games let you choose between saving a lady or dropping her in a pit so you can pick up a sweet jetpack?

1213

• Made by: Ben ‘Yahtzee’ Croshaw
• Cost: Free! $5 for the Special Edition, which has stuff like commentary and an extra scenario to play through.
  
• Where to get it: 1213 Official Page

If you’re a gamer, and I know you are, then you’ve heard of Zero Punctuation, the hilarious brainchild of Ben ‘Yahtzee’ Croshaw. By talking ridiculously fast and being uncompromisingly funny Yahtzee has become famous overnight. What most folks don’t know, however, is that before he was the most entertaining critic ever, he made a veritable ton of free games using the awesome Adventure Game Studio.

This one guy has made more quality games in a few years than some professional developers make in their whole career, and he’s released them all for free. The man’s creative output is astounding. He’s made several adventure games, one space trading game and few action titles. My personal favorite of all of them is 1213.

1213 is an action title with some item-gathering adventuring that has a great emphasis on story. It has elements from classic, very un-Mario sidescrollers like Prince of Persia, Flashback and Impossible Mission. Here’s an excerpt from the website:

“A man lies in a darkened cell, consumed by pain and sickness. He does not know where he is. He does not know how he came to be there. He does not even know his own name. All he knows is that he is being tortured by a bizarre, bespectacled man, who addresses him only as a number – Twelve-Thirteen.”

One day the door simply opens. That is when the game actually begins. I’m not going to say anything else, because the sense of discovery and plots twists are what make up the fun of this game. I’ve played games that cost $20 million and a team of 80 to make and the story and dialog were so bad I’ve wanted to dig my eyes out with pistols just to distract me from painful embarrassment of being in the same room as the game. How is that Yahtzee here can make a game by himself that has writing that’s better than literally 95% of all the games out there? That’s just bizarre.

You control 1213, wandering through the mysterious facility, climbing up walls, sneaking around and occasionally shooting guards all while gathering information from computers and documents. There are puzzles, but they are never really more complex than finding an item to open a door. However, everything fits so well into the setting and story that you probably won’t mind. The added challenge of navigating the labyrinthine hallways and dealing with guards makes every moment enjoyable.

The graphics are pixelated and old-school, but very well done. There are cool little details in the artwork, like ransacked offices, smoking guards and 1213′s sickly, hunched-over gait. Although the music is made up of public domain MIDI tracks not actually written for the game, the tracks are well chosen and Yahtzee utilizes them skillfully, taking away the music during dramatic moments.

The game is overall pretty simple to play and you can probably beat all three episodes (downloaded separately) in a weekend. The great story and creepy atmosphere are really what makes this game stand apart, however, and the overall package is just so solid and polished that you’ll be very satisfied by the end of it. Do yourself a favor and play something a little more cerebral than the usual fodder.