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Author:	Ben Warren	Submitted:	25th March, 2012	Favourites:	1
Genre:	Role Playing Game	Downloads:	236
Rated:

Edited By Ben Warren on 3/25/2012

Steel Knights

You wake from the peaceful slumber of cryo and stumble out onto the cold metal floor of the Staging Point. Outside the reinforced windows the darkness of deep space can be seen highlighted against the deep red colour of a barren world. Your S.K. suit insulates you against the chill as the ships systems begin to come to life around you, bringing up the lights and activating the myriad of consoles and computer screens around you.

The pair of you have a simple brief, split across three locations. Discover what has happened onboard the Thunderchild. Locate the whereabouts of the crew and deal with whatever the source of the issue could be. This is what you do, and you’re well trained for it. All that remains is to pick where the best place is to begin your mission . . .

The Game

Steel Knights is a RogueLike dungeon crawler. This means that once you die, you are dead, and there is no saving or coming back. However! This also means that every time you play, the game is a different experience. Levels are randomly generated, enemies are randomly generated, and treasure is random and abundant. Explore three seperate worlds, fight four bosses and almost thirty enemies, and try to unravel the mystery of the Thunderchild.

Mechanically, this game has an emphasis on projectiles and healing items. Make sure you heal regularly and use your guns. Ammo is easy to come by and you start with all basic firearms.

This game was made in 7 days for the 7DRL2012 competition by Enker of Cascade Studios on graphics, concept, writing, psy_wombats on programming and design. Some code reused from Golden Age: Endless Dungeon.

Features

- 100% original graphics and sprites.
- 60+ monsters to encounter.
- 3 unique randomly generated dungeons to explore.
- 30+ items to discover.
- Customizable player character.
- Cool retro Gameboy Colour era theme.

Review This Download

http://rpgmaker.net/games/3885/ (6 mb )

Posted by Cazra

2nd April, 2012

YEEEEAAAAUUUHHHH!!!! JAVA!!!

Posted by Jon C-B

3rd April, 2012

Rated :

Great job. Its clear you put a lot of work into this.

Posted by Sketchy

5th April, 2012

Rated :

Cool game - and I'm the first to complete it

("Spaceman Steve" is a reference to the classic klik game of the same name).
There are a few minor niggles, but overall it's very good.

Posted by Rick (AntiMatter Entertainment)

3rd May, 2012

Rated :

Awesome, I checked out your Golden Age game a while back and was very impressed with the quality. I absolutely LOVE punishing myself with permadeath games, Roguelikes in particular, and I feel that it is a niche that deserves more attention on this site. Downloading now!

Posted by Rick (AntiMatter Entertainment)

3rd May, 2012

Rated :

Okay, I had my first playthrough and although I absolutely love it, there were a few issues.

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First and foremost, the on-screen stats (ammo remaining, HP, etc.) do not appear in their correct positions for me like they do in your screenshots. I'm assuming they are meant to be separated into the boxes marked out by vertical lines in the HUD, but here's what I'm getting every time:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v154/PsychoticSquid/SK-StatPositions.jpg

Is it possible that the game is looking for an installed font that you haven't included and is defaulting to one that doesn't have the same spacing? I only JUST reformatted my computer so forgive me if it's a ridiculously common font that I don't have.

My second niggle is merely a formatting error in the in-game manual. The first page of the manual says "s - shoot your equipped gune - Equip Items", where the 'e' on the end of gun is clearly meant to be on a new line to show Equip Items as a seperate command. This could once again be related to the font issue, though, although I don't think so.

My final issue (which isn't REALLY an issue) is that the game appears to have no full-screen support. Is it possible for you to add full-screen? I cannot beg you enough. Even if the display doesn't stretch to fill the screen and you just have black borders around everything in full-screen, I just personally cannot stand trying to play a game with my desktop visible in the background, it totally breaks the immersion for me.

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I do have good things to say about it, though! Just like with your Golden Age: Endless Dungeon game, the visual style, in particular the way your line-of-sight engine works, is flawless. Your sprites are well-made, charming, and perfectly suited to the genre. Level generation is very clean and sufficiently varied, and you have just enough enemy variety. I have not yet encountered any bugs or flaws in the actual gameplay, clearly this is the work of a dedicated and thorough fan of the genre. I personally feel that you deserve MUCH more recognition as a game designer and developer than I have seen so far. If it helps, I'll be watching your projects very closely for the rest of my gaming life.

The sci-fi setting is a breath of fresh air in a niche typically dominated by medieval settings. I love the back story behind the Steel Knights and the intricate details scattered throughout your mission logs, they almost remind me of the sort of in-depth descriptions you'd find in old-school text adventures. I can only hope that most people will not default to the "too long, didn't read" mentality as much of this game's beauty lies in its intricate little details.

I haven't finished it yet, or even come close. I will, though. With games like this, I play them for the rest of my life. I still play ADOM, Powder, Nethack, and a few others despite their age and this looks to be a very worthy addition to my list of always-come-back-to's.

All-in-all, I'm very impressed with this game and with you as an independent developer. Fix the issues I mentioned, and you've easily got five stars for this game. I'd be happy to review it for you, too.

Author

Ben Warren

Registered
08/04/2007
Points
558

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