The developers behind Shovel Knight have recently released a new DLC called the “Pocket Dungeon” which lets you play through all three main campaigns in bite-sized chunks, with each level unlocked after beating one of the previous ones. Our team played through these levels and brought back our impressions for your reading pleasure.
Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon is a trial by tile. It’s the first game created by WayForward Technologies that was released on January 5th, 2019. I’m here to give you my impressions of the game and why it might be worth your time.
Shovel Knight debuted in the indie gaming community in 2014, and its nostalgic platforming left a lasting effect. Seven years later, developer Yacht Club is bringing the series back with Pocket Dungeon, a grid-based game that’s part roguelite, part puzzler, and all hard.
A fresh take on the game
Image courtesy of Yacht Club
Pocket Dungeon is played on an 8-by-8 grid, with adversaries, goods, and obstacles trickling down like Tetris bricks as you progress across it tile by tile. Your character will attack if they come into contact with any of them, and little purple pips show how many strikes the victim can take. The fundamental concepts were simple for me to take up, but mastering them required a significant amount of practice. Enemies are very hazardous, and even low-level goons often die.
Death, on the other hand, does not necessarily mark the end of your quest. The single-player campaign in Pocket Dungeon may be played as a roguelite or a puzzle game, depending on your preference at the start of your journey. If you’re playing it as a roguelite, losing all of your health means you’ll die and fail the run. You retain any gems you earn and may spend them on things at fan-favorite Chester’s shop or a shot through Percy’s cannon, which returns you to the most recent level, in true roguelite form. These did a good job of making me feel like I had a shot to defeat the stage that had just destroyed me.
If you play Pocket Dungeon as a puzzle game, you may die and respawn as many as you like, but if the grid entirely fills up, you’ll fail. When you’ve killed enough opponents, grabbed the key when it falls down the grid, and walked to the exit tile when it appears, you’ve cleared the level. It’s quite remarkable that Yacht Club was able to create a system that works flawlessly across two gaming genres, but that doesn’t make it any simpler.
Enemies who exhaust you
![1639318438_733_Shovel-Knight-Pocket-Dungeon-is-a-trial-by-tile-%E2%80%94]()
Image courtesy of Yacht Club
Because monsters constantly slide down the screen, Pocket Dungeon is challenging. Each opponent kind has its own strategy, such as crimson Beetos attacking from across the square, ghostly Invisishades that become intangible after each hit, and stinging Floatsomes that fuse together to form jellyfish-like barriers when they contact. These many tendencies are difficult to deal with, but they also help to keep each battle unique, since each level has its own set of opponent kinds.
When the screen becomes too crowded, the primary combat mechanism known as chaining comes in handy. When you hit one opponent, all of the enemies on surrounding tiles receive damage as well. This is how you cleanse the screen of swarms of similar opponents. It also helps the game seem more balanced – after all, you’re only one knight battling a whole army.
Chaining also applies to striking rocks and picking up healing potions, and bashing into a batch of the latter may be quite useful when confronting more difficult monsters. There is, in fact, an intentional ebb and flow between aggressively fighting and mending. Whereas the original Shovel Knight depended on platforming abilities to dodge harm, in Pocket Dungeon, being struck is a given. When you hit an adversary, you’re almost always met by an unavoidable retaliation. This presents a unique challenge, and although I enjoy platformers in general, Pocket Knight seems new because to its unique design.
Fortunately, pick-me-ups like relics and objects may assist alleviate this problem. When you buy relics, you get benefits like improved health and explosive chains until your next defeat. In the midst of combat, items are discovered inside chests. In every instance, they seem like a reassuring second wind in the midst of a struggle, one that has often assisted me in turning the tide. Spears have a longer reach across the grid, armor decreases damage by one, and certain things even build a protective barrier around you. Although the items obtained from chests have a limited number of uses, they are sufficient to make or break a run as the adversaries begin to stream in. Even when they weren’t enough to get me to the finish line, they were enough to make me feel like I “nearly had it” and set me out on another run.
How did it turn out?
![1639318439_262_Shovel-Knight-Pocket-Dungeon-is-a-trial-by-tile-%E2%80%94]()
Image courtesy of Yacht Club
So far, Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon’s difficulty has stood out the most. Playing as the many knights — who you’ll unlock by defeating them in boss battles — is entertaining, since each has their own special ability. Regardless of the persona you pick, the game is equally tough. Enemies move in lockstep with you, although they’ll shift after a brief pause if you’re merely retaining your position on the grid. Regardless, speed isn’t the name of the game here, and rushing will only lead to your demise.
For Shovel Knight fans, it’s still a fun experience, despite how difficult it can be. It’s satisfying to face each new knight, understand their routines in order to win the combat, and then test out their new abilities for yourself. Seeing old friends and rivals in new settings is a mixture of fan service and repurposing, and it’s a winning combo.
Watch This Video-
The “Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon is a trial by tile” is a game that puts players in the role of Shovel Knight as he goes on a quest to save his beloved Shield Knight. The game will be released for free on November 18th, and has been given positive feedbacks so far. Reference: shovel knight dig.
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