NIGHT KNIGHT
Sir Bernard is an old knight who was cursed by an evil witch, but rather than developing a taste for human blood or having to obsessively watch daytime television – it’s hard to know which would be more distressing
– he instead has problems with sleeping and needs to take a long walk before being able to nod off. A quick saunter before bed doesn’t sound particularly bad, but having to do so every night regardless of the weather is starting to get to the poor guy, so his friend the Sorceress does a little research and finds a potential loophole: if Bernard roams all eighty rooms of Scarkeep Castle there’s a possibility that this evil insomnia curse will be broken.
Clearing each room of the castle involves walking over all of the floor tiles, changing their colour in the process to show which have been visited and releasing a key which can then be used to unlock the door to the next area. Making that task more difficult are nightmarish creatures which roam the castle’s rooms. To begin with there are just simple old undead creatures that you have to avoid, and they’re not particularly bright. Nastier and more persistent enemies appear over time, however, including predatory werewolves and vampires or wizards who can undo Bernard’s progress.
There’s a 60-second timer ticking down to worry about, but letting it expire will only lose the player a life and there’s a couple of bonus items which can appear during play which either pause or reset the clock. The lives counter can also be topped up by scoring 10,000 points and another useful item is the shield which allows our hero to take two hits from patrolling enemies before death rather than just one.
Night Knight has cute graphics with lots of colour that are accompanied by a jolly in-game soundtrack; it also puts up a solid challenge with some devious level designs and sneaky enemies but, while 80 stages might seem a little overwhelming, each has a password available from the pause menu for those wanting to take a shortcut.