This game is an interesting one. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Knightmare Tower by Juicy Beast Studios when I downloaded it. It looked kind of neat and I was willing to take a risk (the game is free to download and try, so what risk really?). Now I am hooked. This is probably one of the best games I have found when I just want to play for a few minutes to some time quite a bit longer.
Knightmare Tower is the type of game you will play if you want to do something that doesn’t take a lot of time. You can play it for 5 minutes or an hour and still feel like you had a great time. There is no unneeded grinding or overt high skilled requirements. You should be able to pick this up and get right into it. It is one of those great games that are simple to play yet difficult to master.
The goal of Knightmare Tower to fly your knight to the top of the tower, rescuing princesses and killing monsters along the way. You start off as a knight with a wooden sword and a weak set of armor sitting atop a wooden rocket. Yes, you ride a rocket. The first goal is to carefully time the launch of the rocket to get the maximum amount of speed possible. Once your rocket falls from below you, the only thing keeping you flying upward, and in spite of gravity, is killing monsters. Every time you swing your sword and hit a monster, or item floating in the air, you are propelled further up the tower. You can gain extra bursts of flight by pulling off attack combos.
The higher up the tower you travel, the stronger the monsters get. Each monster type has a unique set of attacks or strength. In order to continue the fight up the tower and kill off monsters, you will need to upgrade your equipment. You can upgrade your sword to cause more damage per attack. You can upgrade your armor to increase your health or reduce air friction. There are a total of 8 pieces of equipment to upgrade, plus potions to help you along the way.
Oh, did I mention that the tower is slowly filling up with lava as you travel upward? As long as you stay at a steady pace, you probably won’t encounter the lava, but every time your attack misses an enemy or item, you are rescued by your rocket, but your momentum has been reduced. If it is reduced too much, the lava begins to catch up and falling into it ends the play session.
I haven’t been able to get to the top of the tower as of yet, but my journey has not been in vain. The game is great and I highly recommend it. If there was one thing that I wish to see in a sequel would be the introduction of multiplayer. The game could be a lot of fun with two to four people all trying to reach the top at the same time. But for now, just trading the controller back and forth between play sessions is a good way to include others.
Like most Ouya games, Knightmare Tower provides a portion of the game for free and you must pay to unlock the rest. Unlike most of those, you can theoretically beat the game without unlocking it. (Turns out you need complete all quests to reach the end and that requires access to potions that are locked unless you pay.) It is just really challenging. What you do unlock for paying is the full upgrade options for all your equipment and access to potions that will help keep you alive and flying. Like I said, it is possible to beat this game if you are lucky, but w Without the higher level upgrades, it takes more and more attacks per monster to kill them and a lot fewer attacks by them to kill you.
There is also a controller bug in the game that was a little frustrating when I found it. If you have more than one Ouya controller powered on, those other controllers can press actions buttons, but not control movement. So if you have a malicious sibling/friend/significant other, they can really mess you up by swinging your sword at the wrong times. However, Juicy Beast responded quickly to the bug report and promised a fix for the bug in a later update. As of this writing the bug has not been fixed, but it should be soon.
What you get for free: The full game minus high level equipment upgrades and potions.
What you unlock for paying: Access to all equipment upgrades and potions.
Cost to unlock the game: $3.99
Verdict: Buy
