Knytt Experiment

By: Terry

On: October 30th, 2007

Knytt Experiment
There’s a good chance you’ve already heard the news by now: a week or so ago Nicklas “”http://nifflas.ni2.se/“>Nifflas” Nygren announced the Knytt Experiment, a totally goal-less version of Knytt with one level, built out from the centre of an empty world with user submitted maps. After working on that for a couple of days, he cancelled the project, along with the new Knytt Stories expansion. Apparently, he feels that the success of Knytt Stories has put a lot of pressure on him to produce something at the same standard, and that it’s affecting the quality of his work. On the future of his projects, he had this to say:

I’ll definitely keep creating games, but I need to find the way back to the spirit I had when I created Knytt, when nothing mattered except just the artistic expression. One step in this is probably to keep my future projects secret. You’ll probably not even know about them before the release.

(You can read the full forum post here.)

Nevertheless, Knytt Experiment is basically finished, and released. You can find it here, on his forums. At the moment it’s quite small, but it’s growing all the time – when you first start it up, you’ll only have access to the centre room. To get the latest maps, simply select the “update world” option under each of the level types.

It’s much closer to the original Knytt than to Knytt Stories: the only differences are that the map now scrolls, that your Knytt is invincible (in fact there’s nothing to hurt him), and that he can float in the air with a balloon (making exploration a lot easier). Unfortunately there’s no music (which is a big part of the Knytt experience for me), but I guess that’ll only add to the atmosphere for some people. I played it with the Silent Hill 2 soundtrack in the background, which worked pretty well, heh.

In summary, nice work, Nicklas! I for one can’t wait to see what you come up with next, regardless of what direction you go in.

  • Stwelin

    I feel keeping projects under wraps until release is a good thing. It allows the developer to create his own work, without all of the nitpicking done by others.

    Everything loses focus when a lot of people start getting attached to something the developer could care less about, and then the game ends up taking turns to appease the masses.

    So cheers, can’t wait to see what you come up with.

  • Skyleak

    Don’t forget the fact that most average gamers believe that devs owe them something for being a supporter. The dev is then torn apart by the community when they don’t like what he or she has come up with because the community believes their wants and ideas havent been used.

    In this smaller realm of gaming we call “indie” the fans of the work act the same as the movie or music “indie” group. When the first unknown work is published this small fan base loves it and asks for more. As the fan base increases and newer work with new ideas is released to support the newer followers the self proclaimed “elietest-stormtropper-Iknewthemfirst” group feels betrayed that this new work of art is nothing like it used to be.

    Fame is a bitch.

  • Melly

    It’s an interesting game, this, but the lack of music could have been made up with a greater abundance of environmental effecs. Ah well, it’s very good for something worked on for just a little while. Hope to see more from Nifflas soon.

  • Ted

    Good. Knytt was great, but KS wasn’t really what I’d call a proper sequel. It was more like a Hollywood sequel where everything has to be faster, bigger, louder, and all that. Nifflas is better than that.

    A proper Knytt sequel (aka, a game that is nothing like the first) is what this old dog is after.

  • contra

    If you’re making freeware games then fuck everyone else. Naturally you should take critisism and listen to suggestions but you should never do something that you don’t want or feel is right. You should never feel that you have to justify your decisions about *your* games either. Though I guess it was in part selfinflicted as KS was very community-oriented. Anyhow I see this as good news and am eagerly looking forward to nifflas next project, whatever it may be. nifflas strength as a gamedesigner is his “artistic expression” and I think that it’s great that he’s pursuing that.

  • X_Sheep

    Um, where did you get the information about the next Knytt Stories expansion being cancelled? I seem to have missed that on the forum.

  • http://www.distractionware.com Terry

    From this:

    Neither will I touch KS again, because if I added something to it now, it wouldn’t be because I wanted to anyway.

  • X_Sheep

    I thought that was about updating the game.

  • http://www.distractionware.com Terry

    Well hey, I hope I’m wrong :)

  • rinkuhero

    I can sympathize really. More like empathize.

  • SuperHotChick

    Can someone tell me how to switch to full screen mode?

  • ggg

    why did nifflas stop making this game? it is so awsome

  • Arucard

    “Nevertheless, Knytt Experiment is basically finished, and released.”

    Well the levels were created and uploaded by the community, so it wasn’t him that stopped working on it exactly. What was there was mostly exploration with a few platform rooms, but with only one screen made it’s hard to make a level that connects well.