Shovel Knight is a game that came out in 2014, which was funded through kickstarer, and celebrates the bygone days of 8bit platformers, by being a rather nifty, and somewhat difficult platformer in it's own right.
Much of it's aesthetics and design is inspired by the 8bit platformers from the 80s and 90s- including it's game design! With little to no instruction of what to do- you are given a simple, contextual backstory as to what happened to shovel knight before being thrown into the fray! Brought into the world of Shovel Knight!
You begin the game in an over-world map, showing you the first area you can go to, the Plains! For clarity's sake, when you begin the game, you cannot progress farther than the plains, but as I had to prove that I owned the game, My own play through where I have already beaten the plains, will have to suffice. As I have already played the game several times, I will be showing you the beginning of the game, with my fancy GOLDEN ARMOR, which is useless but pretty.
This is the overworld map, which is reminiscent of the old Mario 3 style maps from the 8bit era.
You begin the game jumping into a forest-y type area, which shows you nothing but a mound of dirt on the far corner. This introduces the core essence of the game, and also allows you to experiment and understand what the game is about. You have a shovel. That is a mound. Naturally, it needs some serious excavating.
Hot Dang! Treasure! This introduces the currency of the game, and the main mechanic of the game- shoveling. As the game progress, you learn that as the mighty Shovel Knight, you can shovel through most about anything. Mounds, Dirt, Sand, Snow, Enemies, Those who Oppose you, Former Loved Ones, Hoop Kid Toys, Ect.
But uh-oh! Now an big, red, bug is coming your way! Taking into account our knowledge of color, Red can only mean bad- and thus the bug must die. This, my friends, is how Shovel Knight reinforces it's most important lesson!
LOOT! Monsters have loot inside them, and killing them is the only way you can get to them. The lesson stays in your head: Shovel Through Everything.
As the game continues, it shows you more and more of it's 8-bit mechanics, introducing them with the same ease and comfort that those old games did.
Jumping (With sweet-ass Golden Armor Front-Flips), and how high you can jump- as well as how far.
Digging, other things besides the mounds that you can see below the platform.
Here, is where it gets interesting. Now, you can see that the compressed dirt, as shown before, is sitting in our way. Digging in front of it does nothing and jumping up and down on top of it does nothing either. There is absolutely no way to get through this dirt block- unless we do some experimentation.
Ah-ha! While jumping, you can point your shovel downwards! Now let's see how it affects the stone blocks.
It destroys them! And makes us Bounce! Now we're cookin'. With this final, forceful act, the game finishes teaching you it's basic mechanics, without uttering a single word tutorial-wise. You can dig, move, jump, and bounce, all using your shovel- and it hasn't even gotten to the relics or other mechanics it has in store later on!
After that come...
bubbles (which you can use to bounce)
Dragons...
Which shoot bubbles.
Walls....
That you can Break!
And Death!
Now Death in Shovel Knight is an interesting concept, as you don't lose Lives when you die, but instead, A bit of your money floats out of you, and lingers while you are re-spawned back at the start, or a checkpoint, if you've reached one. It can only be recovered by grabbing it, and if you die before you grab it, the money you lost before hand will permanently be removed from the game.
If you need a recommendation for this game, take it from me, this is a fantastic platformer that uses the heritage of 8-bit games extremely well to it's advantage. It has difficulty that is loved by those who enjoy these types of genres and doesn't hold your hand gameplay-wise. It's sort of the Dark Souls of 8-bit Games. (If you exclude the first Legend of Zelda, which is basically the actual Dark Souls of the 8-bit Era)
SO GO ON MIGHTY SHOVEL KNIGHT!
THERE ARE MONSTERS TO KILL!
CHECKPOINTS TO REACH!
AND RIVALS...TO BE CONQUERED!!
FOR SHOVELRY!!!!!
Tutorial Analysis Level map:
