Many of us video gamers are also fans of a spot of tabletop gaming, so what happens when you combine the traditional storytelling game with a video game? Maybe Knights of Pen & Paper +1 has the answer?
ROUND-UP:
REVIEW-UP:
When going through the Humble Bundles one day I noticed on that day it was one of their usual indie bundles. Hurray! I’m a fan of a good indie game as might be evidenced by some of my past posts, so here we go with another indie game review. When I first installed this I had no idea what to expect, I decided to do no research prior to installation as I wanted to know nothing about the game until I played it.
Developed by Behold Studios back in 2012 the game came out originally for mobile devices and tablets. It works wonders on those platforms but more recently the developers decided to port the game over to Steam where it had reasonable successes. So, what is Knights of Pen & Paper about?
The story of Knights of Pen & Paper is very simple: you are playing a tabletop role playing game with your friends and begin with a small team that can expand to five people. This isn’t five real life people playing the game with you it’s people who represent five characters in game.
You can combine the people (Race) who come to play your game with different classes (Warrior, Paladin, Mage; you get the picture). To get more people to play through your campaign with you, you have to pay a certain amount of in-game gold. This isn’t a ‘pay to win game’ as everything is done with the in-game gold currency system so don’t panic there. I feel this game would be great on a tablet as it’s so small and lightweight yet it kept me amused for many hours. Thankfully Behold Studios thought the same as the game started on mobile platforms with Apple App Store and Google Play downloadable versions of this game. It’s a simple touch command game where you just poke a command and it obeys much like a turn-based game like Final Fantasy, minus the incredibly vast move pools. The lack of moves isn’t a big deal to me as it’s just a small and sweet game.
As the game is another one of those indie games that is friendly for the PC, but started life on a mobile device, Knights of Pen & Paper looks very pixelated. That’s because it’s sprite art and the game doesn’t make any apologies for it. It’s interesting that the launcher appears to share the Unity launchers design, but where it says graphics quality all you get as an option is pixel art. That amused me, but if I am right in thinking this was made in Unity it feels like a waste of power. Nevertheless this doesn’t impact the game in any way, in fact for the type of game it feels like the graphics are spot on.
The music in Knights of Pen & Paper is awesome, for a while. When you go between places it has unique music that ties in nicely with it’s surroundings, so if you’re in a town it will sound like you’re meant to be in a town. The battle themes (normal and boss) are nice too however a problem with the music is very simply: they’re too short. This means you do get a lot of repetition but again note the limitations of going from a mobile operating system to an actual computer.
This holds true for the sounds too: a lot of them are simple, are of a really small sample, and it seems like some of the sounds could have been made by changing pitch of another. With this said for the limited size and power the game was going for it manages to capture unique sounds for moves.
A game like this needs good replay value then, so does it deliver? The short answer is not really. The game suffers with a case of being too simple, it looks like it wants to be more but just can’t be. Pity too as I really enjoyed my time on the game. Basically put then, this is a game that should have a more fluid story system. Pick a new player this time around and get a different story, somewhat. That would make this game fascinating and add a breath of variety. Sadly, as it is, Knights of Pen & Paper is just a linear story.
But for the price of the game this little number will greatly amuse you on a mobile or tablet. It’s friendly but full of naughty lines. Seriously, how many innuendos can a game throw at you without it seeming stale? Not many I would have wagered but since this game is a simple telling of a simple tabletop story, the dialogue is of importance.
What does this game do differently from many others? I’m not too sure in all honesty. From its pixel art to the simple music it feels all very ‘been there, done that’. However, perhaps its innovation comes from the fact its a mobile friendly turn-based RPG? Or perhaps the idea that items you buy in the ‘real world’ affect your progress in-game? That’ll make sense if you play the game, trust me!
To summarise this little game is fun and silly, it doesn’t apologise for being a little indie game and even pokes fun at the industry in cute ways. The first quest takes you to the Den of Devil which has an area description of ‘Act I, Quest I’ making reference to Diablo II‘s Den of Evil which takes place as the first quest of Act I. If you like tabletop RPGs you’d likely enjoy this game but possibly not for what makes tabletop games so great: their story.
RATING-UP:
How did we reach these scores? Click here for a guide to our ratings.
1001-Up.com 