Spiral Knights

Three Rings is a studio located in California which specializes in developing online games. It is previously unknown to us. However, its reputation has grown significantly since it closed a deal with Sega to publish its latest project Spiral Knights. It is certainly one great piece of news, given the high quality of this free MMO which is playable directly in browser.

Thanks to the cooperation, Spiral Knights has the distinction of being published by Sega, a renowned Japanese firm. This also gives the game more visibility than the average in this highly competitive market of free-to-play browser MMO. The downside is that Spiral Knights has to meet a lot of more demanding needs of players than its competitors. Let’s wait and see whether it can cope with the challenges!

The concept of Spiral Knights is relatively simple. You play the role of a little robot which crashed on a foreign planet and whose ship was destroyed in the process. The miracle is that you are not alone in suffering such an accident. Your fellow survivors of similar crashes have even established a base camp in the town of Haven with the help of local residents. And you will soon join in the camp and start off your unusual exploration.

Shortly after you land on the planet, you will be entrusted a challenging mission, that is, you have to adventure into an underground compound populated by monsters of all kinds, to bring back a certain amount of minerals.

The real charm of the game lies in its gameplay. Spiral Knights stands out as a pretty basic action-RPG. After deciding the look of your avatar, you begin your adventure with a short tutorial. In the initial stage, the little robot possesses two main weapons in addition to a shield, including a sword for body-to-hand combat and a gun for ranged attacks. Besides, the robot also has some basic equipments, consisting of a helmet and an armor. Do you think the equipments are too crude to help you through the difficult times? Don’t worry! There are various special items in different levels for you to earn. Later, you can even use bombs in combat. It is very easy to control your robot since the actions can be summarized to move, attack and protection. All these moves can be controlled with a mouse and a keyboard or a joystick.

As the robot levels up, it will have access to increasingly advanced equipments, including weapons and shields. There are many different ways to develop its capabilities. You can purchase upgraded items from the in-game shop or turn to a crafter for help.

The entire adventure takes place in a variety of dark dungeons. In fact, the game offers you four different doors (similar to dungeons) that provide access to various distinct paths, leading you into the depths of dungeons. These paths are composed of twenty floors that equal to twenty levels. It is not easy to explain the principle, but everything looks pretty clear once you are inside.

Of course, as you venture deeper into the underground vaults, you will face more severe challenges as well as more formidable and numerous monsters. But the principle will remain the same at all levels. In detail, we start from point A to reach point B. En route, you will pass through different rooms, fight against various enemies and solve some puzzles which are triggered by switches. Spiral Knights borrows a lot from Legend of Zelda in terms of mechanics which is not necessarily a bad thing given the outstanding quality of the latter. Even though the principle does not change much, the design of each level still brings some variety to the game.

Some rooms require a lot of talents to pass through due to difficult obstacles around, making the adventure more thrilling and engaging. Besides, after each quest, the game offers the choice to rise to the surface or to go on exploring the dungeon. Do whatever you want!

Do you feel it is hard to get out of the clutches of your gelatinous enemies? Since Spiral Knights is primarily an MMO, you can join in a group of up to four players to embark on the adventure together. If you don’t want to take action solo, it can be very helpful for you to seek allies. Above all, it is more interesting to have companies at your side. Of course, you can also form guilds, for convenience.

In fact, the true originality of this door system is that you can change your own future in the game. In addition to four permanently open dungeons, there are still four closed ones for you to shape and unlock. During an eight-day period, you can make a significant change with the harvested or looted minerals. The storyline will be directed to different ends according to your construction process. To put it in detail, you can build with fire, ice, poison or other materials and as a result, you have different landscape to explore. Except for the landscapes of the dungeon, the change also embodies in the enemies you encounter. After eight days elapse, the active doors will give way to the closed ones which are permanently established and shaped by you.

The most contentious part of the game lies in its economy system based on micropayments. At first, we must know that we can enjoy the entire contents of Spiral Knights without paying a euro, which is not a common case in the world of F2P MMO. Thus there is no Cash Shop, as in most MMOs. But the developers have implemented a system based on the use of energy points. Basically, you have in your possession one hundred points per twenty-four hours. The trick is that it is possible to exhaust all the energy points because you have to spend energy to resurrect your character and move forward in the game. As the points greatly limit your play-time daily, you have to spend a little money to get back and continue your exploration. There is also a market in the game for you to buy and sell power with Crowns, the virtual currency of Spiral Knights which can be earned from defeating enemies or reselling equipments. In other word, the market is regulated by the principle of supply and demand.

This system tends to be disadvantageous to the beginners who can not help but play for merely two hours per day for lack of funds. And it may also eventually discourage players from continuing in Spiral Knights and curb the potential renewal of users. But we can argue for Three Rings that it has to find a way to make money, especially given that the content is still fully accessible. This is currently under debate within the community. Wait and see!