Dead Knight

Revenge is a common theme in most stories that involve great journeys and nasty villains, but it never seems to go the right way. Hence, those seeking revenge usually do not achieve their goals, which is why the good guys always have better reasons for their adventures. On the other hand, there are cases when you can fulfill a vengeance quest, and it’s pretty sweet.

Dead Knight is a 2D platformer with roguelike elements, in which your goal is to explore the levels, kill enemies and somehow make your way to the surface again. There is no room for error, because once you die the whole game restarts and you have to take it from the top. Thus, you must carefully approach every encounter and make sure you do not get hit along the way.

The story is as simple as it gets too, since it all starts with a knight that is killed by his wife and thrown underground. As it happens, the knight raises from the dead as a skeleton and goes on a quest to get revenge on his former beloved. Naturally, the way up is paved with obstacles and enemies that want a piece of the main character, so you have to defeat them in order to survive.

In terms of gameplay, there’s not much you have to do, other than attack and jump whenever there are obstacles ahead. It’s quite easy to die if you don’t time your jumps correctly, but mostly you have to watch out for pesky enemies that attack you on sight. It only takes a couple of hits to kill you, so you must make great use of the sword in order to strike first.

As far as the graphics are concerned, they are nothing to write home about, but the visual style is actually very intriguing. The levels are nicely designed to create a creepy atmosphere while you waltz through underground caverns and tunnels, and the animations are decent as well. The soundtrack is quite impressive, albeit repetitive, because the tunes sound very haunting most of the time.

In the end, Dead Knight might not be easy to approach by casual gamers, given the permadeath feature and the lack of checkpoints, but hardcore fans should feel right at home. Thus, it’s worth keeping an eye on the project as it develops.