Knights of the Lions

One thing I love about being a critic is when somebody tells me that they learned about a great new game because of my review. What you might not know is that I’m also discovering games through the channel, because a good chunk of the games I decide to review come from small developers reaching out and introducing their games through either email or Discord. There are so many games that I never would have heard about if not for starting Defunct Games, including the latest gem I want to talk about – Knight of the Lions. This is a puzzle/platformer with a simple look and a deep, emotional story about loss and the impact of war. In other words, it’s the kind of surprise release that still makes me excited to play new games. Here is my review of Knight of the Lions by Eugene Zubko.

This is the story of Vita, a refugee of a foreign war who is trying to grapple with being estranged from her parents and friends in a strange new country. This plays out through voice over, as Vita expresses her inner-thoughts while doodling on a piece of graph paper. At first, she sees herself as a turtle, ready to bunker down and hide from the world in her protective shell. But then she realizes that she doesn’t want to be a turtle, scared and alone, as she would rather see herself as a brave knight, ready to take on whatever this world throws at her.

We play a majority of this game as that knight, a simple, hand-drawn character that looks like it was doodled with a ball-point pen during English class. What sets this apart from the typical platformer is that our hero can’t jump any time she wants. In fact, outside of running left and right, the Knight’s abilities are all tied to walking over colored squares, which will temporarily grant them one of three abilities.

The first and most common ability is to jump, allowing us to leap over gaps and get on floating platforms. The red squares will allow the Knight to dash either forward or at a diagonal, while the orange squares will grant the ability to float. The trick is that you’ll not only need to use all of these abilities in conjunction with each other, but you’ll need to do it fast enough before the effects wear off. It’s the kind of thing that sounds simple enough, but quickly turns into an ordeal as the gaps get further apart and what the game asks from you becomes more difficult.

Now, I will admit, jumping, dashing and floating aren’t exactly new concepts in a video game, we’ve been doing those things since the early days of Atari and Collecovision. Thankfully, the game finds a lot of fun ways to incorporate these limited-time abilities into new and fresh puzzles. Each stage throws something new at you, and you’ll never know what’s coming next. It might be all about perfectly timed jumps in one stage, only to then turn around and be about flying through the sky avoiding those pesky hand-drawn spikes. There’s even a driving section where you have to avoid speeders, cops and big rigs on the congested highway.

One thing I really like about this game is how it sometimes invades the real world. There will levels that extend beyond the limits of the graph paper, and even others that will force you to solve complicated math equations on Vita’s hand. There’s this constant nagging reminder that we’re not fully inside of the paper world, but rather just using it as an escape from the real-life struggles she’s facing.

And that brings us right back to the story, which is being fed to us one line at a time. Vita slowly reveals how she’s really feeling and how it is impacting her life. We not only see it through the narration, but also through a series of text messages she sends her friends and family. We can choose what the young woman says, but it ultimately won’t matter in the end. The final act is full of honest reflection and emotional revelations, helping to bring new meaning and importance to the doodles we’ve seen along the path. It’s an adventure inspired by Don Quixote, and many of the same themes are front and center in Vita’s struggles.

From a storytelling perspective, the game really worked on me. I bought into Vita’s plight and was an emotional wreck going into the finale few stages. The fact that they keep many of the details just vague enough will keep the message evergreen, and I have a hund that this story will resonate with somebody, no matter what year or decade it is.

That said, the gameplay is a bit sluggish and the collision detection feels off. This is one of those games that expects you to replay a tough section a dozen times until you get it, not unlike Super Meat Boy. Unfortunately, the big difference is that Super Meat Boy had good, fluid gameplay. That’s not the case here, where everything feels stiff and at least half of your failed attempts can be blamed on the gameplay. I suppose the good news is that the checkpoints are close together, making it easy to tackle one section at a time.

Coming in at around six dollars, Knight of the Lions is a budget-friendly game that offers around two hours of gameplay and a strong (and surprisingly heart-warming) story about a young girl trying to find strength in the midst of a scary situation. Sure, the gameplay is a little sluggish, but that shouldn’t keep you helping Vita overcome her struggles, both platforming and real.