Trying Knuckle Sandwich
I'm the kind of guy who likes weird stuff. Contemporary music with mixed meters, modern art that you have to stare at for a while to 'get,' and anything with a unique, captivating art style or feel.
Knuckle Sandwich is a weird game, but in a really, really good way.
It has quirky music, a charming art style with goofy characters, and a plethora of creative minigames to offer, on top of being a narrative RPG.
I first came across Andrew Brophy's wonderful (entirely self-made and amazing for it) creation in a forum post talking about Earthbound-style RPGs. I am a longtime Mother fan who has never played a Mother game (never owned a SNES or a Wii U to get Earthbound and we all know the sorry state of an official Mother 3 port), so I wanted to find something that was just as good. After Knuckle Sandwich was recommended multiple times, I had to try it.
I only had a chance to play the demo, and I hit a glitch in the Windows version that halted my progress indefinitely. However, in the short passage I played, I fell in love.
Knuckle Sandwich has hilarious writing that seems thorough and meticulously crafted. NPCs either have a lot or nothing to add in RPGs, and every NPC I've come across has a quip that makes me smirk.
The game also has beautiful artwork (yes, I called cartoony pixels beautiful, they are). The main character walks like a total dork, and I love it so much. Settings are simple but carefully drawn. And the art style changes in minigames, taking on a more fluid look and sometimes (though not in the demo) full 3D. The changing appearances make this game's art unique and adds to the potpourri charm it takes on.
The music is incredible, too, if you like a good ear-worm. I know I do, and in the days and weeks since I've last tried the demo (I keep trying to find ways around the crash glitch), the music is still running through my head. I plan on listening to the rest of the soundtrack before the game even comes out (it’s already out on Soundcloud), and I look forward to revisiting it during my hours and hours of play time.
One of the mini games in the demo, which I got serious DDR flashbacks from.
In the short demo I played, I tried a few minigames and was very impressed with their diversity. They reminded me of DDR, Galaga, and Animal Crossing, but all with a signature Knuckle Sandwich twist.
The only element of the game I barely interacted with was the RPG mechanic. The demo crashed before I could move on, but I am still intrigued enough with everything else to know that I will preorder and buy this game. As long as Brophy's final version is polished (which I trust it to be), Knuckle Sandwich will be a landmark game in the indie community.
Knuckle Sandwich is an RPG about a boy who moves out of home and starts looking for work in a new city. After landing a job at a run-down diner, he accidentally gets wrapped up in a missing persons mystery that involves a ludicrous gang and a fanatical cult.
Knuckle Sandwich started as a Flash prototype back in 2013. At the time, it was a small, one-hour little game with silly art and an even sillier premise. Sometime after that, Flash died and the project was shelved.
In early 2015, it was reimagined as a full-scale RPG and brought back to life. It is currently being made in Gamemaker Studio.
Knuckle Sandwich is coming to Steam sometime this year. Get excited.
For more on Knuckle Sandwich and its progress, visit knucklesandwich.biz/ or follow the project (@kncklsndwch) on Twitter. You can also wishlist it on Steam and join the game’s Discord server.