Product Info
Title:
Knight Move
Developer:
Nintendo
Publisher:
Nintendo
Genre:
Puzzle
Price:
2600.00
Description:
Alexey Pajitnov was quite a popular figure in the puzzle gaming scene
throughout the 90s, and with good reason – he was the guy that
created Tetris. There were many games that sought to recreate this
success, including ill-advised titles like Hatris (Tetris with hats) and
Faces…tris III (Tetris where you match up different faces). Among one
of the games that departed from the falling block formula is Knight
Move, published by Nintendo in 1990.
Here you control a knight (the chess piece) that constantly bounces
around a 4x8 board. You can turn in four directions, but, like in chess,
you can only move in L-shapes, with your goal being to pick up hearts
scattered around the level. Tiles degrade and eventually collapse if you
jump on them too often, though grabbing hearts will restore some of
their strength. In spite of the danger they present, you can create more
holes to gain extra points. As you continue to play, eventually the game
gets faster and faster, until eventually you make a mistake and take a
plunge. There are two game modes – a normal mode, and one where
hearts will disappear after a certain number of moves.
Knight Move is novel, but it's just not very interesting. The key
facet to the game – being able to navigate a character that can only
move in odd directions, and doing it under pressure – just doesn't have
the lasting appeal of most puzzle games. The sound is pretty good,
though – the music is a lot like Dr. Mario, and the knight piece makes a
hilarious screaming noise whenever it falls into the void.
Interestingly, this basic idea was taken and evolved with a later
game, slightly retitled as Knight Moves and published by Spectrum
Holobyte in 1995 for Windows computers. The board here is 3D, the
levels are more varied, and there are now enemies and power-ups to deal
with. However, the game was still poorly received.