Knytt Stories

By: Derek Yu

On: August 28th, 2007

Knytt Stories and a lunar eclipse in one night? Surely it’s a subtle sign from the Universe that this is something special.

Beyond the fact that I think Nifflas has improved upon his craft since the original game and that I am in love with this one, I don’t want to belabor a description. You should know Knytt Stories is not just a single adventure, but a series of adventures. Really, an unlimited number of adventures, since the game comes packaged with a level editor that seems very robust and easy to use.

Those of you who found Knytt to be too “boring” will get more out of Knytt Stories, I think, but no promises. The rest of us may have been sold from the start, but I gotta say that I genuinely like this game even better. Download it immediately.

(Thanks, Circy!)

Posted in Freeware, Highly Recommended, Platformers, Windows | Tags: Nifflas

http://www.blogger.com/profile/13070412747712995130 Radnom

I saw the eclipse first-hand :) The moon went red, it was pretty awesome.

Downloading Knytt Stories now.. I’m not a huge fan of exploration games but the first had a pretty awesome engine, at the very least.
http://isadorblog.blogspot.com Isador21

It’s out!!
mots

cute installer, cute but stupid. I’d hit it
http://www.blogger.com/profile/13070412747712995130 Radnom

har har, it’s more fun than Knytt indeed. I’m up to some giant spiky bastard, I need the ghost thingy to get past him.
mots

so i just finished it on easy, got to that hidden part and got the red key , what does it do?
mots

alright got the purple one… 2 more..
raelz

wow knytt again! gonna download till night, loved the original one (and deep forest, which is even better)
Dan Knapp

You should play on normal, there are enemy types that aren’t there on easy. :) That said, I’ve only found the red and blue keys… hmm….
Dan Knapp

And I loved the little installer! Stupid? Well, pointless, but you know, the installer is the first impression for most software and it’s almost always a bad one… This made me grin and that’s all it has to do.
mots

nah, i meant stupid as in it just creates a folder and does notq let you specify any.

so i’ve got the blue , red and purple key.
ichgehe

got the red key… where are the other keys?
mots

there’s one in the part over where your house is , on the right side there’s a brown animal and on the next screen to the left some flying thing.

you need to go up where that brown creature is, jump on the right side and just drop with your umbrella and jump the the left ledge
ichgehe

ah, thanks. i found the yellow key by accident just now…
Screwtape

Is there a version without the installer? Knytt worked fine in Linux under Wine, but the Knytt Stories installer doesn’t. :(
mots

where’s that yellow key?
Dan Knapp

Ah, good, thanks for the directions to the purple one… Now I, too, have everything but yellow. And oh, that’s fair about the installer then.
ichgehe

you need to go all the way up to the place with the snow. keep going further in until you reach the stage where you have to use the umbrella to navigate through the spike maze as you fall. i can’t remember the exact directions but i think you need to hug the wall in the middle of one of the rooms.

i’ve found them all… now what?
mots

before or after the spikes?
mots

haha, found it, going down that spike thing on the 2nd screen take the left and be sure you haven’t jumped before using your umbrella and just jump in the little hole.
Lim-Dul

Holy macaroni! This game is AWESOME! That is – all of Nifflas’ games are but this one upped the ante yet again. All the small details, the wonderful music, the smooth controls, the overall design… AND there are 9 additional worlds ready to be downloaded already! Wow!
ichgehe

mots, do you know what’s supposed to happen after all the keys are collected?
mots

IT’S SECRET ENDING , YAY!

alright so go to the dark part, to the far right and til you find the blue level, complete with spikes and ninjas and air rides for the umbrella, as you go left through that world you will see a red block with a keyhole..
ichgehe

haha nice. now for the other expansion packs!
Bobo

Wow, talk about some great news to wake up to. Downloading immediately!
merkwuerdigich

Previous Knytt game was more like accidental trip. It was short and surprising. Knytt Stories is too familiar. Not that catchy at all…
HandCraftedRadio

when does knytt 3 come out?
Movius

And I was going to try to get back to normal sleeping patterns tonight. Not likely now.
http://http:web.mac.com/shinjisixteen Shinji16

Hm… thought it was coming out on Thursday… Oh well.

Fuck, I might have to call out of work for this.
http://chrisblogs.wordpress.com ChrisSketch

I’m quivering with excitement.
Cube

Whoo, found the secret ending, whoo! Whoo!

Short game, though. I need to download the official expansion. :(
Dominic White

Isn’t it a GOOD thing that the moment you beat the game, there’s already another nine (four by Nifflas, five by his beta testers) stories waiting for you?
Melly

Damnit, the website link doesn’t work for me. Is it happening to anyone else?
Rz.

wow, it’s ridiculous how much better this is than Knytt. it’s just mesmerizing.
Xander

It’s pretty great. I know you have to deal with a lot more enemies this time around which maybe doesn’t suit some Knytt fans, but I think it manages a much more comfortable balance for me between exploration and action. It’s not combat as such, but using your platforming skills to overcome moving, thinking and firing obstacles is a nice break between the back-tracking if nothing else.
http://josephkingworks.blogspot.com Joseph

Wow the music was really breathe-taking! Very impressive production values, I like the challenging design, more reminiscent of WADF. I also enjoyed the fact that the collectible items were useful powerups. And the controls were spot-on! WOOOOHOOO!!!!
Shih Tzu

Yeah, I thought Knytt was really neat but suffered from the Shadow of the Colossus problem of having a big world that’s far too empty. This one seems to address that by giving the player more challenges. I like much. (I also like how the music surprises you a lot.)

The atmosphere is great, but I still think there’s a potential here for more in-depth storytelling if anyone wanted to take it that far. I don’t know if the engine can handle complex event scripting, but even with the bare minimum of signposts and NPCs who function as signposts, there ought to be something you could do.
http://josephkingworks.blogspot.com Joseph

I agree with Shih Tzu. Knytt Stories has a lot of untapped potential…
Dominic White

Tangentially, I personally thought that was one of the best things about Shadow of the Colossus, atmosphere-wise. The fact that you’re in this bleak, forsaken land with no life to be seen beyond the occasional bird or lizard.

The whole thing felt very lonely and desolate. Part of what I liked in the original Knytt, too.
Stwelin

Got through quite a bit of the first story already, had to do work for classes though.

It’s really fun, although i’m not really sure as to why running and wall climbing are powerups you have to find. Honestly, if the beginning of each story is just going to be a fetch quest for basic maneuvers, i’ll probably be slightly irked.

Anyway, off to school now.
X_Sheep

For a good example of what the Level Editor is capable of, I suggest you play the Underwater Adventure level from the expansion pack.
Melly

The game has those simple but highly polished graphics we’ve come to expect from Nifflas and the sound and music are awesome. Does anyone know a .ogg player?

However, unlike what most people here mention I think the game suffered a bit from the abundance of enemies. In Knytt you had very, very few enemies, most of the hazards being environmental. It added a sense of desolation and loneliness, something that made exploring the huge sceneries more like an adventure. Something out of a kid’s imagination, which seems to be the whole feel Nifflas wanted to achieve. In Knytt Stories’s The Machine, that feel suffers from having a world filled with creatures that seem out to get you. Considering they sometimes easily outnumber the gentle creatures that live out their lives in the background that make you wonder about them instead of trying to figure out how not to let them kill you. The game even sports some surprise deaths, which kind of kill the feeling for me.

I hope this was Niffles’ own idea and not cattering to the wishes of players who thought Knytt was too boring for their twitchy trigger fingers. Sometimes less is more, in my opinion.
D.Stalkey

Regarding Colossus, I find it interesting that it’s emptiness could be seen as a negative thing. The feeling of isolation and lonliness that it conveyed to me was something that I really enjoyed… there was an eerie sense of mystery to the place you were exploring and battling in. The atmosphere in Knytt is something I similarly enjoyed, although in this case it’s not desolate and lonely but mellow and ambient. Either way it was the carefully defined atmospheres of both that made me keep on wanting to explore the landscapes further (although what eventually turned me off of Colossus was the agonisingly poor frame rate… it reminded me of trying to run Unreal on my dad’s 486).

I’m just playing through The Machine and there’s some wonderful music in it, and the gameplay changes (power-ups and more enemies) are refreshing. So hooray for Niffas, and hooray for lots of additional content being made available!
http://weapons-of-distraction.anagkh.net soilworker

I downloaded a few third party levels from the forum. They come as just one bin file. How do I load these? Just putting them in the Worlds folder doesn’t work.

Judging by the levels from the expansion packs there is at least an ini file needed.
e

Regarding installing new levels. You can drag and drop .bin files into the Knytt stories window (on the main menu, see the “Install Level” option.
Erahgon

Just finished playing The Machine and The Underwater Lab. Definitely had more fun with them than I did with Kyntt 1.

And google FooBar if you want a player that can play .ogg.
Nifflas

>I hope this was Nifflesâ€™ own idea and not cattering to the wishes of players who thought Knytt was too boring for their twitchy trigger fingers. Sometimes less is more, in my opinion.

Yeah, it was my own idea :) I tend to focus on different things in different games, and although Knytt was indeed sometimes criticized for having a lack of enemies, that’s not something I take back – and I will not doubt for a second about doing it again the next time I feel like creating a game that’s only about the landscapes and ambiance :)
Melly

Glad to hear it. :) I might just make a more Knytt 1-like game with the editor myself, just to fill the void. :P
HARDHEAD11

How do I get past the spiky dude in the training level?
Shih Tzu

D. Stalkey: Oh, I loved the desolation and loneliness in SotC. What I meant by “empty” was that there wasn’t anything to do in the world. Nothing to climb on or explore, no real motivation to go out of your way to see new places in the world, just a bunch of forests and rolling hills that stood between you and the next colossus encounter. I felt disconnected from the (often gorgeous) vistas I ran through because they seemed to serve only as background. I guess I’m the kind of person who likes JRPGs that have searchable bookshelves and cupboards more than those that have lots of pretty but functionally irrelevant scenery.

That said, I’m glad both Knytt and Knytt Stories exist.
cactus

I liked the game as much as the first. Maybe more. However, when I got to the machine, I somehow managed to turn it off before I got a good look at it. So it felt like I missed the grand finale. Quite a let down.

Never play good games when you’re tired :(