Knytt Stories released

[davidn]

You all know by now how enthusiastic I am about the general independent game-making community. Some things that are being done by non-published game makers can be genuinely more fun than a lot of commercial games now (especially being better than those endless Bejewelled clones that most online collection sites insist on churning out). And hopefully, with a few more releases like this, MMF2 will get a lot more recognition as a powerful 2D game writing environment...

Knytt Stories was released today. It's a bit difficult to describe - it's an atmospheric platform adventure game by Nifflas, a Swedish MMF2 user. "Atmospheric" is the important word there - Nifflas has an incredible talent for making his minimalistic and simple graphics come together to form worlds that have genuine charm to them, blending together a mix of light, airy environments and claustrophobic unsettling ones.

The best bit about this one is that it includes a world editor so that you can make your own "Stories" - this is something that has been commonplace for commercial games to some extent but it's a very new feature in MMF2 creations. There's already one bonus pack out, and I'm hoping that player-made worlds will start springing up around the Internet shortly.

It's not for everyone - the game is slow-paced, thoughtful and peaceful rather than having non-stop action. But if you're at all interested, go to Nifflas's site and try it out - it's a 33MB download and it's well worth it. (And there's a tileset by me in it... not that that affects my enthusiasm for it.)

Comments

[jeremylinnell.livejournal.com]

That's weird. I just finished playing this, came to livejournal and lo and behold you've written about it. Absolutly breathtaking at points I found, especially two of the sections in particular, as well as the finale. The music also really does deserve special mention, although that goes for all of Niffla's things. The ambiant nature of the original Knytt had a very ICO quality about it almost. Cracking stuff.

[davidn]

The end of the "Machine" world was incredible - I had expected the game to end as soon as you reached the goal, but letting you go back through the changed world was a great touch.

[kaedeko.livejournal.com]

I'm definitely give this a try in my free time.