Developer Atooi Games released Mutant Mudds on iOS way back in 2013, then under former studio name Renegade Kid, and it is easily in my top 5 favorite platforming games of all time. Since then Atooi has dabbled in mobile releases with Totes the Goat, a game that Crossy Road-ifies Q-Bert, and Mudd Masher, a game that also Crossy Road-ifies Q-Bert but with a couple of unique twists and the familiar characters of Mutant Mudds. After not releasing any mobile games for a couple of years, Atooi is getting after it once again with their new title Knight Fright.
Now, on first inspection you might just think “Hey, isn’t this just Totes the Goat or Mudd Masher with a spooky theme?" and it’s easy to see why you’d say that, but actually that’s not entirely true. Yes, it appears to be the same engine and basic concept of those other titles, but much how Mudd Masher mixed things up with the Mudds being able to switch blocks back after you’d already lit them up, Knight Fright has a new mechanic that drastically changes how you approach the game.
Your job is once again to light up every title in a level by hopping onto it, but in Knight Fright if you light up 8 tiles consecutively you’ll transform into a Knight that’s capable of stomping on and defeating enemies. You also get a score multiplier while in this state. However, the moment you hop onto a square you’ve already lit up, your Knighthood will vanish and you’ll go back to being the regular old person in boxer shorts that you started out as. A cute nod to the Ghosts ‘n Goblins series, I should add.
Like I said, this seemingly small mechanical addition totally changes how you play Knight Fright compared to Atooi’s other Q-Bert-likes. No longer are you mad-dashing around trying to hop onto unlit tiles all willy nilly, as this forces you to think and strategize your moves in order to maximize the potential of being in your much more powerful Knight form. It’s a lot of fun, and like its predecessors, Knight Fright will have a very friendly free to play model based around ads (with the option to pay to remove them) as well as character unlocking. The game has been submitted to Apple and should hopefully be going live in the next couple of weeks, just in time for Halloween at the end of the month.
