Knifetank: The Shuffling is a two player card game I’ve been working on for a bit. After a year or two of playtesting, I recently started working with two artists in Italy and I’m really liking the results so far.
KnifeTank
A Game Designers Dream
Warning: if you haven’t played Knifetank: The Hauntening yet, there are spoilers in this video. In fact, it is all spoiler.
As a small time game designer, it’s rare that I ever get to sit around when someone experiences one of my games out on their own. We released Knifetank: The Hauntening (iOS or web) in 2010, a couple years later I stumbled upon the above video of a player doing a walk-through. It’s one of the most satisfying experiences I’ve ever had. I love hearing his reaction to everyone of my bad jokes, to each creepy note that Crashfaster played, and to each page of art that Mike created. Knifetank is a short game, where you hunt around an empty mansion and discover clues. The way he describes his experience as he plays was totally lined up with what we wanted him to think. We led him hook line and sinker through the experience.
“Oh my gosh, I’m stacked with knives. I could become a rogue.”
In my short career as a game designer, this video is one of my highlights. Hearing him experience every plot twist, every puzzle, and every terrible pun out loud was wonderful. Huge thanks to Sebo for posting this wonderful walk through. I’m sorry we killed you twice.
Appy Halloween, Knifetank is out now for iOS!
Our newest game, Knifetank: The Hauntening is now available for iPhone/iPad. Get it free here.
The Hauntening is a bite size point-and-stab adventure game I made with some friends back in 2010. It started off as a web game, which is still online, but the app version has a few extra goodies and just feels sleeker. I’m really happy with it and proud as hell to have shipped two games to the app store this year.
Knifetank: The Hauntening
A few weekends ago, some friends and I spend 24hrs at Noisebridge creating a follow up to our original Knifetank game. We got far, but decided to spend 6 more hours polishing the game into a gem. The end result is Knifetank: The Hauntening, a web based point and click adventure that works with most browsers (including SafariMobile and other mobile browsers).
The Knifetank character is a ton of fun to work with, but I was surprised at how fun it was to use him with a “choose your fate” kind of game. Just about every clickable item is full of jokes, and I think the art is some of Mike’s best yet. The game feels fantastic on touch devices too, so try it out on your iPad if you get the chance.
The game was coded by Lilia Markham. Mike Hales did all of the fantastic art. The eerie music was written in MIDI GM by Crashfaster. The writing and basic game design was by Doctor Popular (me). To be honest though, everybody had a big hand in the writing in the game… especially at 4am (17 hours into our dev cycle) when started going a little crazy.
Crashfaster plans on releasing The Hauntening soundtrack next week on our bandcamp page, with remixes by myself and others.
Enjoy the game, click until you find every joke possible, leave comments below (no spoilers!), and feel free to ask me any questions here.