FlyKnight (Game) Review.

 

 

A warm experience is one best experienced with friends. The game equivalent of a chocolate bar that you had from a corner shop from when you were a kid that you can't remember the name of or had some off brand or slightly generic name; a 'Time Out', a 'Boost' or something, something that makes you feel evocative of a different time. But it's only when you bounce the memory off a friend who can tell you yes, you did not imagine they used to stock Vanilla Coke in the vending machines of your school and that your memory is an accurate informer of that self-same feeling.

 

FlyKnight's a game about a Fly you create, that's a Knight. It looks akin to games of an older era but most identifiably, the polygonal era of games such as RuneScape. It's frame rate is locked to a level that feels in the tens or fifteens at most. It is small, born of a GameJam project, often a effort to create a game in a day and this version of the game being slightly expanded upon. You must stop a being called Lunamoth whose stolen the wings of all Fly's. And in turn, you must use your first person, vaguely stamina based action gameplay to defeat said being and stop her to restore the honour of your knightly cadre.

 

In truth, it would've been a fine enough game; I'd likely still have enjoyed it. But the addition of an online co-op was what had me smiling most. The ability to explore the game as a group and play through with others from the 'bonfires' of the games has been the part that's given me the most fun. Seeing an online mode like this working in such a small project reminds me of the efforts that some have gone to create things that a younger me would've thought impossible. It's fun to consider a game modelled to look like a game decades old robust with a feature that proves how far we've come along. The past and the future dancing beside each other.

 

I giggled alongside my friend, as friendly fire is a factor, the game still feels like swimming through treacle and you end up sluggishly doing your best, with a wildly inconsistent boss fight difficulty that feels like it's not quite clear what they wish to prioritize learning and that indeed, the game feels like a concept that has yet to be fully executed. But I won't forget my friends laughter, nor my own as I sunk to the bottom of a lake that I didn't at all throw myself into multiple times 'cus I'm really good at positioning myself.

 

Also there's fishing.

 

Picture taken by me ingame.