Knight’s Retreat is minimalism, for better or worse.
What Minimola said is true: This is a chess game, not a chess game either. Your goal is to arrange the horse chess pieces so that they occupy a bronze square on each card. Each piece moves in the same way as its chess copy, but the game is not about capturing pieces. Just make sure that all your Bronze Knights arrive at their destination in the form of bronze.
There are a few elements here that add an extra level of difficulty to the overall experience. First, your knight cannot return to a tile where he has landed before, because an arrowhead destroys that tile immediately after you leave it. You must also move other gray pieces to open a path for your knight, again following the rules of chess. You must control queens, bishops, ravens and other knights. Although they can move freely in the level without worrying about destroying the previous tiles, they cannot land in a place destroyed by the arrow.
It is actually one of the easiest puzzles in the game, believe it or not.
As you can imagine, the first levels are easy and pose no challenge. I must congratulate the developers for creating a difficult but extremely fair difficulty curve. There was not a single moment when I noticed a sudden spike in difficulty. That’s not to say that the game taught me how to play from the beginning. With its minimalist visual approach, Knight’s Retreat didn’t even bother to explain to me the layout of the buttons or how the mechanism worked. I had to solve everything myself. Although learning the rules of the game went well, I was annoyed by the lack of explanation of the many types of rewind buttons included in the game.
The “bare bones” approach is cute at times, especially when it comes to the artistic style of the game. What I didn’t like, however, was the near absence of AI and the lack of explanation of the controls and rules. I also wasn’t a big fan of the sound design, which is just as minimalistic as the rest of the game. It’s not necessarily bad, as they are original compositions, but it is very forgettable. As you play, you barely notice that there is music in the background.
Other pieces, such as tokens and crows, will be added as the game progresses.
Knight’s Retreat may have some problems with its overly minimalist approach, but I have to congratulate the developers for creating a completely unique and highly addictive puzzle. It doesn’t take much time, as it only has eighty puzzles, but it’s good while it lasts. A game like this is a good choice if you want something that somehow resembles chess. After the jump, you can watch Queen’s Gambit on Netflix.
The minimalist artistic style is actually pleasing to the eye, but the game could have had a better user interface design. | Knight’s Retreat uses classic chess rules to dictate how each piece moves on the screen. The principle of the game is clever and the controls are simple. However, the game is so simple that it forgets to teach players all of its mechanics, nor to explain the location of the keys. |
Like the rest of the game, the soundtrack is somewhat minimalist. You’ll barely remember the music playing in the background. | The principle and design of the puzzle game Knight’s Retreat is so good that it more than makes up for the breadth of the presentation. |
Final Verdict: 7.0 |
Knight’s Retreat is available now for PS4, Xbox One, PC and Switch.
Reviewed on PS4.
A copy of “Knight’s Retreat” was provided by the publisher.
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