Indie Nuggets #6

Clam Knight (2020)
By: Hector Toro & Bibiki Genre: Maze Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: PC First Day Score: 1,052
Also Available For: Nothing

It must be two years or more since I regularly nosed around Facebook (or indeed any other social media), but shortly before my self-imposed exile, one of the many retro pages I follow mentioned this game which caught my eye due to its appealing graphics. It's was made in just 11 days by Héctor Toro (with audio assistance from Bibiki) for the 2020 Summer Game Jam tournament and, though made only for PC, is modelled on the games for Sega's wonderful Master System. It has a backstory from that era too. It's set in a place called Summerland where tales are told of the legend of the Clam Knights who held the forces of the Crabbers at bay for centuries, but were finally defeated. Since then the pesky crustaceans have held Bikini Beach’s castle, but a young clam named Marvin has stepped forward, determined to become a Clam Knight and rid the castle of their filth. Who will help him with this brave, perhaps foolhardy quest?

Strangely, it's a quest that involves mopping up the puddles of water that are splooshed around each of the 17 single-screen mazey stages. In the time-honoured maze game tradition, this is done by walking over them. Several things make Clam Knight a bit more interesting that a normal maze game though. First is how Marvin walks, which is automatically, upon pressing a direction on the controller, until he reaches a junction or hits a wall. Second are the ghastly enemies who move closer to Marvin in steps each time you move him. This combined with the reasonably obvious fact that he loses a life every time one of them touches him, and you've got a brain-teaser as well as a maze game since you'll often find yourself cornered by enemies unless you're able to lure them away or fool them into tumbling down a switch-activated trapdoor. Beware though - they activate the switches when they walk over them too!

There are other traps too, such as spikes and flamers and you'll need keys to access some areas. All this in addition to the aforementioned movement style of Marvin and the enemies means that Clam Knight can be quite a challenge! I can almost imagine it as having been a proper release back in the 8/16-bit eras actually. The graphics are cute and colourful, though they remind me more of the PC Engine that the Master System, and there is catchy music playing throughout which suits the puzzley action well. If it were a proper full release game, the 17 stages would probably be a bit too few, but for a project that went from nothing to complete in 11 days, and made just for fun? It's pretty awesome really, I wish I was that talented (sad smiley). I know there are hundreds of games like this out there but this one happened to catch my eye and they didn't (yet), and I'm glad it did - it's good, simple, innocent fun

RKS Score: 8/10

Special Note: If you fancy picking up a copy of this spiffy puzzler, there's a link to buy it here on a 'name your own price' type deal, which is jolly nice of Mr. Toro. Be sure to give him a respectable amount if you like the look of the game! :)