itch.io

https://ohmnivore.itch.io/peasant-knight

Peasant Knight is a puzzle-platformer. With a twist. You're relentlessly dashing into the face of danger, namely traps like suddenly erupting flame pits. You can only go forward! Or stop.

The game has a lot of twitch action, but I want most of the thrill to come from solving the levels. Each level is like a complex machine of traps where you need to find the fastest path that also keeps you in one piece

YEEESSS it's released! Grab it on itch.io for PC https://ohmnivore.itch.io/peasant-knight or on PS4/PS Vita/Switch/Steam https://pk.fouramgames.com

It really took forever to finish. The "new project" excitement depleted after a month or two and it's been a long slog since then. I don't even know how it took so long. I technically started Peasant Knight in 2015 (December 29 2015). But really it's been on/off from January 2016 till January 2019 - three years.

There was a 1.5 year period during which I focused on my day job and barely touched the project. Still, the Peasant Knight repository has 637 commits and that alone is interesting 0_0

It's quite a bit for such a seemingly humble game! ~500 of these commits were done since the last time I posted in the devlog so let's break them down (in no particular order):

• Localization (lots of UI work since elements are not fixed-size anymore!)
• Gamepad support
• Steam integration (mostly achievements)
• Cutscenes which were eventually replaced by comics drawn by a friend
• Added local multiplayer
• Added settings (key bindings, volume, screen shake, flash, localization, etc)
• Improved visibility of flamepit and other traps
• Pre-level menu for scrolling through the level before starting
• Added a bunch of levels, reworked some undercooked levels,
• BUGS BUGS BUGS
• Massive optimizations (pooling and preloading and making friends with the garbage collector)
• Rendering fixes (wobbly sprites and tilemap/sprite tearing)
• Made Steam and other promo artwork
• Added new traps
• Environment effects (darkness, rain, snow, lava steam)
• Tombstones on death to mark progress
• Skeleton boss
• Mortar boss
• Smooth level transitions
• A pause menu that works correctly (even pauses in-progress sfx)
• Integrated some more sfx and music tracks

I spared you the endless commits for polish, iterations, and tweaks which probably outnumber the feature-related commits. Commits with messages like:

• Better stop after OverlayPauseMenu and GamePadPauseMenu (to prevent accidental player deaths)
• Game now pauses on gamepad disconnection
• Improved the orcknight sprite
• Camera lerping during teleporting is now quicker
• Fixed a crash in multiplayer
• Small fix to lvl 8 (Ever Higher.tmx)
• Fixed huge level transition bug
• Fixed a MAJOR skeleton boss bug
• Possibly fixed the bug where FlamePits don't erupt 0.01% of the time

Looking back, some of them have pretty amusing stories and would be fun to share xD

Very well done! Feels like a real book.

My only gripe is the aliasing around the page edges.

Looks beautiful, thank you!

Thanks shadow :)

Thank you!

I'm finally adhering to a more or less regular devlog update schedule, so I thought why not post the new devlogs on itch also? I've been keeping it on tigsource, but tbh I like the itch UI a lot more :) So here's the second most recent update.

Wow. It's been a while. So much has happened, I don't even. Big news first:

Peasant Knight is coming to the Nintendo 3DS! That's right. I met a team member of http://www.ratalaikagames.com in a chat room, and a few days later we're married. Just kidding, he checked out Peasant Knight and said it would be a great fit for the 3DS and Steam. Now I'm not delusional, Peasant Knight at that time was a small mobile game, so it was a very big surprise. However, Ratalaika is implementing the hip features I always wanted to add: in-game level editor and map sharing, no less. They're also adding lots of other features so the game will fit snuggly in those platforms.

They're essentially porting the game from the HaxeFlixel engine to their custom Spiller (http://www.ratalaikagames.com/spiller.php) engine which runs on the Wii U, 3DS, PS4, Vita, Xbox One, Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, and most likely all household appliances.

I also made a landing page for Peasant Knight where you can sign up for the mailing list. Lots of blood and sweat went into writing the CSS, but it was well worth it. http://pk.fouramgames.com

Future plans: 3DS, Steam, and mobile releases in a few months
Meanwhile: polishing stuff while Ratalaika is working on the port

Thanks! I'm breaking my head over inventing new traps and enemies to keep that progression afloat. It's like I've already thought of the obvious ones.

Website + mailing list, Twitter

Background
Peasant Knight is like a love ballad to gamedev. I was getting burnt out on some non-gamedev projects at the time so I started this as a distraction. I wanted to make an enjoyable game that wasn't a big challenge to code, and to actually finish it! The plan was to finish it in around 2 weeks. It ended up taking 3 YEARS. Classic eh?

Peasant Knight is a puzzle-platformer. With a twist. You're relentlessly dashing into the face of danger, namely traps like suddenly erupting flame pits. You can only go forward! Or stop.
The game has a fair bit of twitch action, but I want most of the thrill to come from solving levels. Each level is like a complex machine of traps where you need to find the fastest path that also keeps you in one piece.

Long-term plans

• Make Mac and Linux builds for itch.io and Steam
• Release on 3DS
• Release on Android
• Release on iOS

Cool gifs

Upping the difficulty a bit.


Soothing clouds :)