The simplicity of Knights and Bikes lies within its need to revisit your childhood and remind you how much fun life can be, even when the storms are intense. It brings a great narrative to the table, throws some fun puzzles in the mix while delivering beautifully playful visuals that request you go on an adventure with a good friend. The game’s intentions of stupid fun might outweigh its execution, but it succeeds in capturing the imagination and delivering a fun experience that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Joy. We need that in our lives. All of us. When the bad times arrive, you need a heaping-helping dose of joy to get you through them. Could be in the form of a movie, a game, or even a hug from someone. Regardless, we need joy. That doesn’t mean you don’t work through the bad times in an orderly fashion, but it does mean that at the end of that rough rainbow of life, joy waits for you in some way, shape, or form. You need that, gamers. This game might deliver a sliver of it for you.
That’s the sort of vibe I get when I play Knights and Bikes, where there is a large storm of life ahead, but somewhere inside there is joy. You just have to find it.
Let’s dig into it a bit.
Knights and Bikes’ story follows a random happenstance meeting between two very different personalities, Nessa and Demelza. Nessa shows up on a barge to an island where Demelza and her father reside. One person appears to be genuinely and literally lost in life (Nessa), while the other appears to be genuinely lost purposely in life (Demelza), which you get hints about both during the narrative (not revealing much). Together, they experience a random action-adventure across the island, sometimes with serious tones of life, while other times with imaginative tones that open up life’s valves. Foam Sword keeps the story balanced with light and dark moments, but usually resets it all with humor. They do this quite often throughout. It’s like playing a video game version of a Taika Waititi film, where you’re going to find some super sincere moments of drama and are brought back to the light with humor. Anyway, much like the characters, which appear to personify light (Demelza) and dark (Nessa), the game plays off both their paths and crisscrosses their respective destinies throughout, which creates a mixture of fun and serious tone. That combination makes the game incredibly engrossing and engaging, while still making it all fun.
Happy joy, joy aside, the gameplay of Knights and Bikes is best-played co-op with a friend, though solo can be an option, where the computer controls the second player (the way I played when reviewing this). The latter of the two isn’t perfect, as sometimes the computer-controlled character doesn’t like to cooperate too much, but it’s manageable and doesn’t get ‘too’ in the way of things. For example, during one of the levels, I was controlling Nessa, who had to stand on a plate to unlock a section of said level. Demelza had to do the same on another plate. Sometimes the CPU decided that it didn’t necessarily want to stay on it as long as Nessa and the level reset. That didn’t happen all the time, but it did have me wishing my wife would take a controller and jump in the game with me. Again, the game was meant to be co-op (local/online), so the option of sharing an adventure with a friend is there. Regardless, the CPU eventually cooperated and all was well. It’s not hit or miss really in this regard, rather it’s just occasional miss that, as I said before, don’t really get in the way of gameplay.
Getting back to the gameplay, the point of the game is to work together, communicate, and just enjoy the hell out of the experience. The gameplay itself is somewhat unstructured in nature, kid-like, and playfully designed. You will understand this from the opening credits where a child singer is screaming (nicely) into a mic, “I want to ride my bike!’ It begs you from the opening credits, where you’re actually controlling the characters onscreen as they ride their bikes downhill, to simply open your mind a bit and have some fun. It doesn’t demand more than that from the gamers and the gameplay design backs that sentiment up quite well. Again, it simply wants you to go on an adventure and just have some fun with your best bud. Or your spouse. Or whomever.
To further this point, the gameplay design doesn’t give you a lot of onscreen hints to work with when it requests a task from you, rather it just tries to tell an imaginative story that encourages you to explore and discover, while at the same time providing you with fun tasks to complete to push everything along. For example, one of the first quests asks you to feed a bunch of noisy geese. Once you feed the geese, which are only located by sound, then you move on to finding a mini-golf course that tells the story of brave knights in search of ‘ultimate treasure’. There is nothing too specific with the treasure task, rather it’s made up of multiple mini-puzzles (which aren’t terribly difficult) and that eventually lead to said treasure. You’ll find a lot of tasks here that lend some substance to the gameplay, and that push the story along so that you get to know the main characters (and their purpose) a bit more. It works hand-in-hand with the narrative, which shows how well thought-out the game was from the start.
Back to the gameplay, both characters are armed with specific talents to get the above puzzles solved. Nessa has frisbees, while Demelza has really strong boots. The frisbees can hit things from long range, which include moving targets on the golf course, while the boots can smash (puddles and lands). It’s simple gameplay mechanics that don’t get in the way of the story or progression. Nothing too violent, but simple actions that keep the game quickly moving. For this type of game, you want your attention focused on ‘what’s next’ and on the story, while certainly not stuck on gameplay mechanics. Knights and Bikes scores high in this category.
Ultimately, you get some action-adventure elements of the game going and simply have stupid fun. The gameplay is shaped purposely to harken back to one’s own childhood that ran on imagination and ridiculousness, something most adults have regretfully lost (we so have). The game is relentless when it comes to keeping up with this type of gameplay. Knights and Bikes continues in this fashion from place to place and allows you to get lost in it, which creating a sense of joy along the way. I understand that sounds a bit silly, but honestly, the game is just wild fun for no good reason. Most games these days, even in the indie community, stay on rails and play it safe, but Knights and Bikes honestly wants you to be a kid again through imaginative lands, tasks, and rewards.
Of course, the gameplay design isn’t the only attractive element of this game to push this narrative.
The actual visuals help to back-up the gameplay design and intention. The game looks like something a child would put together in their mind. You have a lot of cardboard cutouts, paper dolls, and visually active worlds that are teeming with life. For example, those geese mentioned above were ‘honking’ well before the game wanted you to go feed them. They are noisy, but they are an example of how alive this populated world is and are an element that shapes it. In addition, the game’s landscape is filled full of puddles to play in, rain to deal with, and animals to poke around (playfully — not violently). The story is based on an island, but it doesn’t feel restrictive, nor does it give any visual sense that it has boundaries. This goes back to Foam Sword wanting you to explore the place, get ‘into’ the environment, and feel like a kid again. The devs successfully gain that essence with the game, both visually and through gameplay, which is how you keep gamers locked into it all for the long haul. In the end, the presentation is rich and just absolutely reinforces the design. It keeps you in a kid’s world and doesn’t crack to show you otherwise.
Overall, the simplicity of Knights and Bikes lies within its need to revisit your childhood and remind you how much fun life can be, even when the storms are intense. It brings a great narrative to the table, throws some fun puzzles in the mix while delivering beautifully playful visuals that request you go on an adventure with a good friend. The game’s intentions of stupid fun might outweigh its execution, but it succeeds in capturing the imagination and delivering a fun experience that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
