Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon
Developer(s)	Vine Yacht Club Games
Publisher(s)	Yacht Club Games Netflix Games[lower-alpha 1]
Designer(s)	Russell Rafferty
Programmer(s)	César Domínguez Garza Jaime Gifte Juju Adams Joe Dolan Vadym Diachenko
Artist(s)	Russell Rafferty Michael Hussinger
Composer(s)	Jake Kaufman
Series	Shovel Knight
Engine	GameMaker Studio
Platform(s)	macOS Nintendo Switch PlayStation 4 Windows Android iOS
Release	macOS, Switch, PS4, Windows December 13, 2021 Android, iOS June 6, 2023[1]
Genre(s)	Puzzle, dungeon crawler
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon is a roguelite puzzle game co-developed by Vine and Yacht Club Games, and published by Yacht Club Games. A spin-off of the platform game Shovel Knight, the player takes control of the eponymous character as he becomes trapped within a magical artifact, the Pocket Dungeon, and is forced to fight his way out while battling other knights who befell the same fate.

Gameplay is set on an 8x8 grid, with the player able to move in one of four directions. Enemies appear at the top of the grid, and the player attacks them by moving into the spaces they occupy. The contents of the grid move down the screen every time the player moves or attacks, and a game over occurs if the player loses all of their health or if the grid becomes completely filled. As the players defeat the game's bosses, they unlock new playable characters with their own special abilities.

Yacht Club Games was inspired to create Pocket Dungeon after meeting with Vine, a solo developer working on a project called Puzzle Knights. Noting similarities between Puzzle Knights and Shovel Knight, the developers recruited Vine and helped him establish a development team. Development took place over three years on a budget of $1 million. The game was first released on December 13, 2021 for Windows, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch. It received positive reviews from critics, who praised its playable characters, soundtrack, and graphics, many highlighting the game's difficulty. A downloadable content expansion called Puzzler Pack was released on June 6, 2023.

Gameplay

A screenshot depicting the player character Shovel Knight moving across the 8x8 grid

Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon is a roguelite puzzle game.^[2][3] Players take control of Shovel Knight and other playable characters as they attempt to escape the titular Pocket Dungeon.^[3][4] The player character is set on a 8x8 grid, where they can move in four directions.^[2][5] Enemies spawn at the top of the grid and gradually move to the bottom. The player character attacks foes by moving into the spaces they occupy, reducing their health. Damaging enemies causes the player character to lose hit points, though the player avoids this loss if their attack kills the monster.^[2][5] If player attacks an enemy that has at least one creature of the same type adjacent to it, the connected enemies take an equal amount of damage, allowing the player to defeat several foes at once. Lost hit points are restored by collecting potions that intermittently spawn alongside the enemies.^[2][6]

Enemies and other objects move down the screen every time the player character moves or attacks, and continue to move at a slower rate if the player remains idle.^[6] A game over occurs if the player character loses all their hit points or if the grid becomes completely filled with enemies.^{[lower-alpha 2][7]} Defeating enemies grants the player gems and allows them to fill their "gem meter", which gradually depletes over time. Adding to this meter by killing enemies in quick succession allows the player to yield an increasing amount of gems.^[6] These gems can be spent at shops in exchange for items called Relics, which provide useful effects such as increased hit points.^[2]

New playable characters are unlocked by defeating bosses and progressing through the game, and each features its own special abilities. For example, Specter Knight has the ability to regain hit points by slaying creatures, Prism Knight teleports around the grid, and Plague Knight poisons enemies after attacking them.^[2][6] When the player experiences a game over, they keep a portion of their gems which can be spent at a shop to unlock new Relics that can be randomly purchased and discovered inside levels.^[2][6] The game's features accessbility options that are used to alter the playable character's health and attack damage, and a multiplayer mode where players face each other in a split-screen. In multiplayer, players compete to slay as many enemies as possible through chain attacks, and killing enemies causes the grid of the other player to fill up at an increased rate.^[6]

Plot

A mysterious cube appears at Shovel Knight's campsite. When he investigates it, he becomes magically trapped in a realm inside the box called the Pocket Dungeon. There, he meets a man named Puzzle Knight, who has remained trapped inside the cube for many years. He tells Shovel Knight that the only way to escape the Pocket Dungeon is to transverse the realm and defeat a being called the Pocket Dungeon Master. Later on, Puzzle Knight informs Shovel Knight of the existence of a magical key inside the Pocket Dungeon that was broken into several parts, asking him to collect its missing fragments. While journeying through the Pocket Dungeon, Shovel Knight encounters other knights who became trapped, defeating and recruiting them to his side. On the final level, Puzzle Knight reveals himself to be the Pocket Dungeon Master, and that he sent the knights on a quest to find him in order to find a powerful warrior who could act as his replacement, allowing him to escape. The chosen playable character defeats Puzzle Knight, escaping the Pocket Dungeon alone.

By collecting the four key fragments located in some of the levels, the player experiences the true ending.^[8] After the battle with Puzzle Knight, a warrior named Prism Knight appears and informs him of the key's completion, and he uses it to unlock a secret level called the Tower of Fate. Inside, the three knights meet the Enchantress, who reveals that Prism Knight was responsible for trapping all of the characters inside the Pocket Dungeon; the Enchantress had manipulated her into using her powers to lure knights to the cube, claiming that doing so would allow her to locate her missing father. In the absence of the knights, she plans to dominate the world, and turns Puzzle Knight into a powerful monster to ensure they remain trapped. The chosen knight defeats the monster and reverts Puzzle Knight to his original form. The Pocket Dungeon collapses, and all the knights manage to escape. In a post-credits scene, Puzzle Knight is revealed to be Prism Knight’s father, relating in a conversation that he first became trapped in the dungeon while searching for an heirloom. He gives Prism Knight this artifact, a magic telescope that causes a shooting star to appear in the sky.

Development and release

Development of Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon began after the developers had finished creating Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove. An employee of Yacht Club Games found a solo developer called Vine while on Twitter, discovering a roguelike puzzle game the developer was working on called "Puzzle Knights". Interested in both game genres and finding similarities between Puzzle Knights and Shovel Knight, Yacht Club Games established contact with Vine and helped him create a development team.^[9] The game was created over the course of three years,^[10] with Yacht Club Games and Vine splitting its $1 million budget equally.^[11]

The soundtrack was composed by Jake Kaufman, who had done the same with all the previous Shovel Knight titles.^[9] Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon was first released for Windows, macOS, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4 on December 13, 2021.^[12] After release, Yacht Club Games launched a free update to the game containing accessibility controls, and announced three planned downloadable content (DLC) expansions.^[13] Ports to iOS and Android were published by Netflix Games and launched on June 6, 2023 alongside the first of these expansions, Puzzler Pack.^[14][15] The Puzzler Pack DLC adds playable characters, unlockable Relics, and several new locations.^[16]

Reception

According to the review aggregator website Metacritic, Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon received "generally favorable reviews".^[17][18][19] Critics praised the game's mixing of puzzle and roguelike mechanics. Eurogamer called its gameplay innovative and smart,^[22] while IGN was impressed in how the developers had combined several dissimilar genres.^[2] Nintendo Life found Pocket Dungeon to be well-designed and fun, saying that it was a worthy entry into the franchise.^[6]

Critics found Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon to be fast-paced and difficult. Shacknews felt that the game was not a casual experience, and said that the difficulty rapidly increased.^[7] NME said that the pace of each level could feel overwhelming, but considered the difficulty manageable after the player learned each of the mechanics.^[5] Nintendo Life found the difficulty to be punishing when the player made minor mistakes, but contended that the game remained fair despite frequent player deaths.^[6] The accessibility options were positively received. Hardcore Gamer felt that these settings helped the player better fit their desired gameplay style,^[3] and NME said that they helped reign in the discouraging difficulty, although the reviewer was disappointed by the lack of support for colorblindness.^[5]

The soundtrack was positively received. Nintendo Life called the music similar in quality to Kaufman's earlier work,^[6] and NME said that they fit the tone and pace of each of the levels.^[5] The reviewer for Paste related that they would sometimes restart the game just to hear the first level's song again.^[23] Other critics liked the visuals.^[22][23][21] Nintendo World Report considered them visually pleasing and distinct from the rest of the franchise,^[21] while Paste found the character designs in particular to be charming and neat.^[23]

Reviewers widely praised the playable characters.^[3][5][21] Eurogamer said that they were one of the main appeals of the game, and were well-designed, highlighting Specter Knight in particular.^[22] GameSpot felt that their abilities altered how the game could be enjoyed, and liked defeating each of the bosses in order to unlock them.^[20] Nintendo Life thought that the playable knights offered significant replayability to the game,^[6] and Paste felt that they added depth. However, the reviewer felt that some of the knights were better than others, and made the original Shovel Knight character feel boring by comparison.^[23]

Notes

References