Knytt Review
By Daniel D'Agostino, 2010-06-11
Looking for games similar to Braid, I stumbled upon this game called Knytt. Knytt is a freeware platform game for Windows. While it certainly does not reach the awesomeness of Braid, it was nonetheless fun to play.
From the Knytt website:
"The Knytt was abducted by an alien! Traveling through space, the UFO flies into a meteor and crashes on a nearby planet. Luckily, the Knytt and the alien survive, but the UFO is a wreck. How can the Knytt possibly find its way back home again?
"Knytt is a free platform game for Windows featuring exploration, atmosphere, and infinite cuteness."
That's the story - you are stranded far from home after the UFO that kidnapped you hit a meteorite and crash-landed somewhere weird. You have to run around the world and collect the items needed to repair the UFO, and then head back home.
The world is pretty big and maze-like by design, so you end up getting lost pretty often. Many times you find a lake or a pool of lava or a mountain that you can't cross, and you have to take a long way either through deep dark tunnels or through the clouds.
The gameplay is simple - it's the usual platform game in style, however it comes with the added ability to climb up and down walls with speed and agility that would make Spiderman turn green with envy, and you can also perform wall jumps in the spirit of recent Prince of Persia and Assassin's Creed titles (although it's not -remotely- quite the same thing).
The controls are also simple. You use the arrow keys to move left and right as well as to climb up and down walls. The 'S' key will make you jump, and the 'A' key shows the direction to the nearest item you need.
The graphics are somewhat primitive, but it does not bother me, nor does it affect gameplay. In fact, they actually boast a style of their own, giving the world a hint of cuteness that the website seems very proud of.
The whole game takes one or two hours to play until the end. It may seem like little, but it's actually a good thing because you would probably get fed up running around the world in a trial-and-error fashion for more than a couple of hours. And considering it's a free game and it's also very entertaining, it's a great way of spending some free time.