Developer RedEmber and publisher No Gravity Games have released their new title Good Night, Knight in Early Access on Steam. This is RedEmber’s very first title which started its life as a single-person part-time hobby however after playing the game, I can vouch for its stability and the amount of hard work that has gone into the game. This is our Early Access Review of Good Night, Knight on Steam in which we equip some items and kill some enemies in the never-ending Spire.
The game starts with you setting some parameters for the game such as making your character and choosing to opt for Permadeath or not. Choosing this kills your character once you die even once however if you do not choose permadeath, you can die and respawn as many times as you want in the game so death is not too punishable in the game. You play as a Knight who wakes up and finds himself falling down a huge spire. Once he reaches the base of the Spire, he meets some more Knights (literally named useless) who give him a quest to save the world and from there, your adventure begins. One thing is evident from the very start of the game that the story does not take itself very seriously and is filled with humor at nearly everything.
Good Night, Knight combines many gameplay mechanics into a single title. While it certainly is an RPG, it also combines slashing combat combined with stealth and levels that are procedurally generated. Throughout your adventures, you will also come across a multitude of puzzles that vary in their complexity. Most of the puzzles in the game are pretty simple and you can easily solve them however some puzzles will need a cunning mind. As you play the game, you will notice the unique field-of-vision system as well that allows you to spot enemies and other things on the map only when you are looking at them.
The Spire’s Base is your safe zone in the game where every NPC you meet in the game eventually ends up for later interactions. You also have a pet dog here which I accidentally killed and then after resurrecting it, it was sent to a farm far from me because apparently, I was too brutal with the dog. Apart from the lost dog, I had everything else here for my use. Our main camp is here as well which houses our various useful instruments and things. We have our bed which is used for sleeping and regaining our health. Then we have our Crafting Station where we can craft multiple powerful items for use in the game.
If we want to brew some potions, our brewing station is also present here. All of the items that we collect during our journey are stored in our chest present in this tent because we have a weight limit and we cannot overburden ourselves. The game has a very different approach for its inventory management as it allows you to continue using all the items that you find in the world. Even if you are overburdened, you can continue using these items without any issues. However as soon as you die and are respawned or you go back to your camp and rest manually, you have to put back certain items in the chest and make sure that you are not overburdened anymore. The same happens when you try to equip items from your chest, you can only equip those that you have space for.
Apart from this, you have the Curse Station that houses all of the Curses that you find in the game. These are special items that you can equip which provide a certain buff and a debuff at the same time. These always come at a bargain and you have to decide yourself whether you want to have the buff while suffering from a debuff at the same time as well. Then you have your cooking station where you can set your Night Meal which you consume at the cost of ingredients when you rest. The better the meal, the more it costs but the better buff it provides to you when you wake up. The final thing in your tent is the co-op orb which allows you to play the game in co-op.
Now coming to the gameplay of Good Night, Knight. The game is your traditional top-down RPG with a few twists here and there. It is certainly a combination of different gameplay mechanics, the most prominent ones are PRG, dungeon crawling, and slashing combat. You must work on your character development with items and a story for you to follow which might not be a serious one at all. Each stage in the game has different levels and you clear them out level by level. These are filled with enemies, traps, and bosses that you have to face and defeat. Some rooms also come with different puzzles that you must solve in order to progress in the story or to simply unlock a special item in the game. The items are also scattered in these procedurally generated levels for you to find and equip in the game.
The combat works like that of RPG titles as well. You have a health bar and a stamina bar. Every action that you perform in the game consumes your stamina. You can press the attack key for lighter attacks and press and hold to land heavy attacks with the latter consuming more of your stamina. You can evade and dodge enemy attacks and use your shield to block enemy attacks as well. All of these actions consume stamina, so you have to watch out for your stamina as well as your health. The enemies can also inflict different status effects on your such as fire so you have to remedy them as well for example, for extinguishing the fire, if I had water pools in the level, I would just jump in the water and that would extinguish the fire quickly. As you progress in the levels, the enemies get tougher and tougher however nothing seems to be too difficult to manage in the game. For quick use of potions and items, you can assign them to quick use slots as well so you can quickly use them in combat scenarios.
The world of Good Night, Knight is full of NPCs that you meet as you explore the levels. The dialogue strongly revolves around humor so everything that you or the NPC says has some sort of humor attached to it. For example, the very first time I met the skeleton merchant of the game, I ended up buying a piece of paper with everything boosted to 999% written on top of it. It was literally a piece of paper with this written on it instead of an actual card that I was aiming for. You can then find and purchase multiple items from this merchant back at Spire’s Base later. There are plenty of other NPCs in the levels as well which ensure that you do not find the game too boring just slaying enemies and collecting items. These funny engagements are a fun diversion.
For me, the best aspect of the game is its combat. With that being said, I will also add that it was more fun playing with a controller rather than a keyboard and mouse. The game supports both keyboard and mouse and using a controller for playing the game, so you have freedom of choosing whichever suits your playstyle. In addition, since the game also supports co-op gameplay, you will need a gamepad since one player plays with the keyboard and mouse while the second player joins in using the controller. It becomes a really fun co-op game since both of you can enjoy the game on the same screen and just need another controller for joining in the fun. If you are playing solo and prefer using the keyboard and the mouse, you will be aiming and attacking with the mouse while the rest of the commands are on the keyboard.
At this point, Good Night, Knight is in Early Access, and the developer plans on keeping the title in this phase for at least a year. This might be too long for an Early Access phase because the game already looks to be in great shape. There are no bugs or glitches in the game that most of the Early Access titles come with and surprisingly, I do not remember any sort of technical problem with the game for my entire playthrough. It ran extremely well for me. You have three areas to explore, kill enemies and collect special items that completely transform how you play the game. The full version will ship with three additional areas for you to explore so it will be even bigger in its scale. Even in its current form, the game can easily give you around 6-8 hours of content because most of the content loads procedurally in the game giving you a reason to return to each level again and again.
Final Verdict:
Despite being in Early Access, Good Night, Knight feels like a complete title. There are no bugs or glitches in the game and the game feels complete in every aspect. The game offers plenty of content for you to explore while the combat feels really good as well. The retro visuals look decent and the accompanying soundtrack really fits well into the game. While the Early Access tag might be offsetting for a lot of players, I can easily say that while the full version may feature more content, the Early Access release feels like a polished title, and if you are looking for a fun, retro-looking RPG, Good Night, Knight will easily fulfill your need. It will only get bigger and better as it nears its full release. Highly recommended for top-down, retro RPG lovers.
