I believe that every office worker has fantasised about a reality in which they are the hero and their boss, the villain. Arguably, these scenarios play out every day, but perhaps not in the way that our imaginations, or Box Knight, depict. Nevertheless, there is a simple beauty in button mashing your way through a horde of corporate zombies on the way to confronting the Demon CEO at the top of the tower.
Box Knight, developed and publish by We Made a Thing Studios (hard to argue with that), is a roguelike that evokes memories of play stick figure fighting games during IT class, which might explain why I’m doing this rather than something more lucrative (I’m so underpaid). Combined with a cartoon style and an irreverent sense of humour, Box Knight aims to have you coming back for one run after another.
And to a certain extent it succeeds, roguelikes live or die on their replay-ability which can come from a number of avenues. First is deep combat, Box Knight has a number of attacks, regular, charged, ground pound, execution. Introduce a small variety of weapons and some extra abilities and Box Knight is deeper than than it looks.
Second is a enthralling story, Box Knight is fairly generic on that front, defeat various monsters on the way to the top of the skyscraper. Confront the new boss, and defeat him to save the day and your worker’s rights. The humour is what stands out here, whilst none of it breaks new ground, it is silly enough that the various descriptions of the enemy types illicit the occasional chuckle and the overall office zombie metaphor works well (join a union folks, fight the power).
Lastly are engrossing boss fights, games like Dark Souls, Black Myth: Wukong and even Cuphead show that difficult, tactical boss battles will win hearts if done well. Here Box Knight does fine, boss battles are simple enough strategically, and their difficulty comes from swarms of grunts getting in the way, rather than any gruelling hit boxes or unfair attacks.
I must confess, as I have in previous reviews, that I really suck at these types of games, so I can’t promise that the game continues to impress beyond it’s first few hours as I have spent too long smashing myself against a brick wall to no avail. But I never felt cheated when I lost, only that I needed to improve, choose better bonuses or try a different tactic. The more you want to get out of Box Knight the more you will, I’m sure there’s a meta build that you can try to achieve, or you can go off-piste and try something more fun if that’s your jive. For just shy of £13 you are getting plenty for your hard-earned (hopefully not in an office) money.
As mentioned above, the button-mashing nature of the combat and the overall aesthetic remind me of flash games in the early to mid 00’s. Combined with a cool synth score and comic book sound effects and you have a feast for the senses. Hits on enemies create a satisfying thwack combined with multi-coloured splashes of blood and gore all the while a lazy beat hovers under the carnage on-screen. There are AAA studios who produce lower quality sound mixes than We Made a Thing Studios have here.
In terms of criticism, I can see the humour grating or falling flat after a while. Irreverence can only take you so far before becoming annoying, at least in my experience (They should have stopped after the first Deadpool). Additionally, the rooms full of spawning enemies get a little stale over time, the enemies are interesting, but when the goal is just defeat them all as fast as possible every time, you may lose interest. Finally, whilst I rarely engage in framerate discussions (30 is fine, chill guys), there are reports of drops on Steam so buyer beware.
However these are fairly minor complaints, Box Knight is a excellent debut for We Made a Thing Studios (will they have to change that if they make another game?), and is a must for fans of roguelikes.
