The World Design of Hollow Knight
September 7, 2020 7:14 AM Subscribe
Hollow Knight takes place in the sprawling kingdom of Hallownest: an underground ant's nest of forests, mines, basins, and waterways. In this episode of Boss Keys [SLYT], I look at the shape, structure, and sequence of exploring this masterpiece game.
A video from Game Maker's Toolkit (previously). Part of their Boss Keys series, a 'game-by-game analysis of non-linear level design in games like Zelda, Dark Souls, and Metroid'.
A video from Game Maker's Toolkit (previously). Part of their Boss Keys series, a 'game-by-game analysis of non-linear level design in games like Zelda, Dark Souls, and Metroid'.
Super spoilery. It's a 40 minute video that shows every area of the game and details all the power-up abilities. It goes into depth about the multiple paths that can be taken around the world, and includes maps with routes.
It doesn't show all the boss fights though, so if that's all you want not-spoiled, I guess you're good.
(But definitely do play the game. It's super great.)
posted by Nossidge at 8:02 AM on September 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
It doesn't show all the boss fights though, so if that's all you want not-spoiled, I guess you're good.
(But definitely do play the game. It's super great.)
posted by Nossidge at 8:02 AM on September 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
I appreciate that they highlight one of my favorite things about this game: you almost never feel "lost" despite the huge scale of the game world. As soon as you gain a new ability you come across ways to use it to explore the areas that you couldn't reach before, and in doing so you make more progress. Some classic metroidvania games sometimes leave you infuriatingly stumped, which leads to boredom and frustration. Hollow Knight keeps you moving through the world without having to tell you where to go so you feel both the satisfaction of solving the puzzle without the frustration of feeling stupid because you don't know what comes next.
posted by dis_integration at 8:23 AM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by dis_integration at 8:23 AM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
I have to say I love Hollow Knight but its beautiful intricate world is also its biggest flaw at the end of the game. The endgame is really all over the place compared to Super Metroid. In a sense it devolves into the second inverted castle in Symphony of the Night: you can go everywhere but there isn’t any logic to where you feel you need to go. I’m looking forward to the sequel game and what they do differently.
posted by papineau at 9:04 AM on September 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by papineau at 9:04 AM on September 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
Hollow Knight is probably my favorite game of all time. My first playthrough went on forever because it was just nice to wander around, and I never wanted it to end. It is crazy how after a while you get to know all the little nooks and cranes and navigation is effortless. Something that is also worth mentioning is that every place in the game has some meaning to it, so it feels like a real place and not just a game world, if you know what I mean (I guess in this sense I don't agree with papineau on the design of the endgame, except on the content from the Godmaster expansion. But getting into why that might be the case goes into spoiler territory, so I guess better to stay away from that...).
posted by fmoralesc at 9:24 AM on September 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by fmoralesc at 9:24 AM on September 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
I've never played Hollow Knight, Metroid, or Castlevania, but this review brought back all kinds of memories of Nifflas' indie freeware games of the late 2000s--Within a Deep Forest, Knytt, and Knytt Stories--all of which I greatly enjoyed for their fine balance of challenge and progression in platforming and exploration. Some of the platforming sequences and his account of HK's labyrinthine but carefully designed world map really echoed what I remember of those games.
So here's a question for people who know their game history better than me: the reviewer didn't mention Knytt when he talked about Cave Story and other indie predecessors to HK. Were the Nifflas platformers a notable piece of this genre's history? Are they somewhere in HK's DNA? Or do I just see them as particularly memorable because I don't know the genre well?
Anyways, seems like next time I want to risk getting lost in a computer game I could do a lot worse than Hollow Knight.
posted by col_pogo at 10:30 AM on September 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
So here's a question for people who know their game history better than me: the reviewer didn't mention Knytt when he talked about Cave Story and other indie predecessors to HK. Were the Nifflas platformers a notable piece of this genre's history? Are they somewhere in HK's DNA? Or do I just see them as particularly memorable because I don't know the genre well?
Anyways, seems like next time I want to risk getting lost in a computer game I could do a lot worse than Hollow Knight.
posted by col_pogo at 10:30 AM on September 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
Wow I like this kind of game and never heard of Knytt. On the to-play list!
posted by thedaniel at 11:03 AM on September 7, 2020
posted by thedaniel at 11:03 AM on September 7, 2020
Papineau, I felt the same way. Once I'd unlocked all the abilities and what was left was a few endgame challenges, I kind of dropped it.
But that says more about what I value in games than the value of this game, though. HK is absolutely top notch in every way. I remember descending into the City of Tears and having the theme hit, and I got shivers.
If anything I feel there was too much in the game — I felt so great exploring every nook and cranny of the place and being rewarded all the time with new abilities, items, characters, vistas, but at the end the reward was really "finishing the game" and that's never been super important to me.
col_pogo, Knytt I think may just not have been as widely played, though I remember it and love it well. If you are interested in other "Metroidvania" precursors, Jeremy Parish has an interesting series on the games that led up to it, starting with Zork (it makes sense when you watch the videos) and currently in the late NES period. But if you want to play the best of the genre from the last decade, HK is definitely top-3 material.
It can be hard though — persevere! When I returned to play it again I found the bosses that were originally difficult incredibly easy, so you level up as well as your character.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:13 AM on September 7, 2020
But that says more about what I value in games than the value of this game, though. HK is absolutely top notch in every way. I remember descending into the City of Tears and having the theme hit, and I got shivers.
If anything I feel there was too much in the game — I felt so great exploring every nook and cranny of the place and being rewarded all the time with new abilities, items, characters, vistas, but at the end the reward was really "finishing the game" and that's never been super important to me.
col_pogo, Knytt I think may just not have been as widely played, though I remember it and love it well. If you are interested in other "Metroidvania" precursors, Jeremy Parish has an interesting series on the games that led up to it, starting with Zork (it makes sense when you watch the videos) and currently in the late NES period. But if you want to play the best of the genre from the last decade, HK is definitely top-3 material.
It can be hard though — persevere! When I returned to play it again I found the bosses that were originally difficult incredibly easy, so you level up as well as your character.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:13 AM on September 7, 2020
you almost never feel "lost" despite the huge scale of the game world
Speak for yourself, Magellan
posted by ominous_paws at 11:30 AM on September 7, 2020
Speak for yourself, Magellan
posted by ominous_paws at 11:30 AM on September 7, 2020
I've always wanted to try this game. Is this game playable on a laptop with a touch pad?
posted by lazymuse at 11:51 AM on September 7, 2020
posted by lazymuse at 11:51 AM on September 7, 2020
col_pogo: in my memory, the oldest of this wave of indie 'metroidvanias/exploration platformers' is seiklus, which I heartily recommend anyone to check out.
lazymuse: yes, definitely. I played with a PS4 controller connected to my laptop, but I also played a little with the keyboard and it's perfectly fine (no mouse needed).
posted by fmoralesc at 11:54 AM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
lazymuse: yes, definitely. I played with a PS4 controller connected to my laptop, but I also played a little with the keyboard and it's perfectly fine (no mouse needed).
posted by fmoralesc at 11:54 AM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
I think people really overrate Hollow Knight because of the art. I think this game has gorgeous art direction, interesting map design, but they left the rest to someone with very mediocre game design sense.
Two of the things that is supposed to happen in a Metroidvania game is that you feel more powerful as the game progresses and you are rewarded for going off the beaten path. Like the first two hours in, the game doesn't do that. It feels like they were going for some form of challenge but it just comes out as obnoxious.
The first power up you get is basically a hadoken. Cool. We have a missiles analogue. Except at full energy you can only shoot three times before needed to go in to recharge and even then you have to land three melee hits to get one shot of this missile analogue. Well I guess that isn't so bad. Except the first enemy that should make you feel powerful using it (the Husk Guard) is still utterly obnoxious to fight. He basically has ridiculous range compared to your melee hit and you need to make 14 fucking melee hits on this bastard to kill it. You get your missile and think "cool, he's going to be irrelevant, right?" but no, he still require 5 fucking missile hits to go down forcing you to melee this obnoxiously designed enemy despite being given a power boost.
Whatever, they want obsolete enemies to be dangerous. Fine. I'll deal with it. The you reach the Moss Knight.
The Moss Knight is an obnoxious fucking thing to fight. He blocks everything unless you basically stand still in front of him. Then he does his windup, and takes a swing. That would be your time to attack and you go in. But then, 50% of the time he takes a second swing. He doesn't telegraph it. He doesn't display any indication if it's going to be one swing or two. He just does it and you're standing there with your pants down and he takes a whack at you. Obnoxious but ok, ten fucking melee swings later he's down. Great. Let's go forward.
Fight the second boss, get your dash. Great! I can wait for the swing, just dash through this asshole, hit him in the back, maybe it'll do double damage as a reward for pulling off my sweet moves, and I get to feel like a badass for doing the move, right?
WRONG! If you try such an innovative strategy you basically get zapped as if you hit the enemy by walking into them. So fuck you and the dashing horse you rode in on. It's not actually for any sort of combat efficiency. No. It's just a way for the dev to cockblock the player and keep them in seqeuence. So now I'm supposed to be more powerful but I still feel like I have the power of a god damned gnat.
Then we get to the real annoyance of this game's combat. The knockback. Any time you land a hit on fodder you get knocked back slightly. This means if you leap up to hit something on a ledge you won't make it onto the ledge. Oh and the fodder needs two hits minimum until a few hours in. And the knockback puts you out the range of the fodder for the second follow up hit. Can you jump the enemy and just one shot them doing a downward slash? Nah.
It doesn't reward a player for doing cool shit. It doesn't reward a player for being strategic. You have to play at this forced glacial slow pace in the name of "challenge" when it's not challenging, it's just obnoxious. The challenge is apparently maintain your cool and not just jumping in to get the slow obnoxious fight over with.
There is no real reason for this game to exist. Both Ori games are far better Metroidvania and Blasphemous is a far better challenge.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:24 PM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
Two of the things that is supposed to happen in a Metroidvania game is that you feel more powerful as the game progresses and you are rewarded for going off the beaten path. Like the first two hours in, the game doesn't do that. It feels like they were going for some form of challenge but it just comes out as obnoxious.
The first power up you get is basically a hadoken. Cool. We have a missiles analogue. Except at full energy you can only shoot three times before needed to go in to recharge and even then you have to land three melee hits to get one shot of this missile analogue. Well I guess that isn't so bad. Except the first enemy that should make you feel powerful using it (the Husk Guard) is still utterly obnoxious to fight. He basically has ridiculous range compared to your melee hit and you need to make 14 fucking melee hits on this bastard to kill it. You get your missile and think "cool, he's going to be irrelevant, right?" but no, he still require 5 fucking missile hits to go down forcing you to melee this obnoxiously designed enemy despite being given a power boost.
Whatever, they want obsolete enemies to be dangerous. Fine. I'll deal with it. The you reach the Moss Knight.
The Moss Knight is an obnoxious fucking thing to fight. He blocks everything unless you basically stand still in front of him. Then he does his windup, and takes a swing. That would be your time to attack and you go in. But then, 50% of the time he takes a second swing. He doesn't telegraph it. He doesn't display any indication if it's going to be one swing or two. He just does it and you're standing there with your pants down and he takes a whack at you. Obnoxious but ok, ten fucking melee swings later he's down. Great. Let's go forward.
Fight the second boss, get your dash. Great! I can wait for the swing, just dash through this asshole, hit him in the back, maybe it'll do double damage as a reward for pulling off my sweet moves, and I get to feel like a badass for doing the move, right?
WRONG! If you try such an innovative strategy you basically get zapped as if you hit the enemy by walking into them. So fuck you and the dashing horse you rode in on. It's not actually for any sort of combat efficiency. No. It's just a way for the dev to cockblock the player and keep them in seqeuence. So now I'm supposed to be more powerful but I still feel like I have the power of a god damned gnat.
Then we get to the real annoyance of this game's combat. The knockback. Any time you land a hit on fodder you get knocked back slightly. This means if you leap up to hit something on a ledge you won't make it onto the ledge. Oh and the fodder needs two hits minimum until a few hours in. And the knockback puts you out the range of the fodder for the second follow up hit. Can you jump the enemy and just one shot them doing a downward slash? Nah.
It doesn't reward a player for doing cool shit. It doesn't reward a player for being strategic. You have to play at this forced glacial slow pace in the name of "challenge" when it's not challenging, it's just obnoxious. The challenge is apparently maintain your cool and not just jumping in to get the slow obnoxious fight over with.
There is no real reason for this game to exist. Both Ori games are far better Metroidvania and Blasphemous is a far better challenge.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:24 PM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
Your Childhood Pet Rock:
I have to be honest, it sounds like you projected a lot of your expectations onto the game, and you're judging it for failing to live up to your expectations.
The game doesn't tell you that you can dash to avoid projectiles or go through enemies or do bonus damage after dashing. There are upgrades that let you do that later, yes. It would be one thing if this were a sequel to a game and they changed how a mechanic worked. But this game stands alone.
Your character is floaty and bounces off things when he hits them. If you don't like that, so be it, but he's a little bug. That's part of the game's charm. It sounds like you're mad because you can't just run in and swing your sword to land many consecutive blows on an enemy instead of carefully dodging and poking. Again, it's you projecting your expectations onto the game.
I agree that the game's combat isn't necessarily the best system I've played, and I tapped out when the DLC endgame was basically just bonus boss fights. But the game is absolutely incredible. The atmosphere of the game, the opportunity to explore, it really is one of the best games of the genre. I don't play these games for combat, really. If I want to beat things up, I'll play Dead Cells.
posted by explosion at 1:35 PM on September 7, 2020 [8 favorites]
I have to be honest, it sounds like you projected a lot of your expectations onto the game, and you're judging it for failing to live up to your expectations.
The game doesn't tell you that you can dash to avoid projectiles or go through enemies or do bonus damage after dashing. There are upgrades that let you do that later, yes. It would be one thing if this were a sequel to a game and they changed how a mechanic worked. But this game stands alone.
Your character is floaty and bounces off things when he hits them. If you don't like that, so be it, but he's a little bug. That's part of the game's charm. It sounds like you're mad because you can't just run in and swing your sword to land many consecutive blows on an enemy instead of carefully dodging and poking. Again, it's you projecting your expectations onto the game.
I agree that the game's combat isn't necessarily the best system I've played, and I tapped out when the DLC endgame was basically just bonus boss fights. But the game is absolutely incredible. The atmosphere of the game, the opportunity to explore, it really is one of the best games of the genre. I don't play these games for combat, really. If I want to beat things up, I'll play Dead Cells.
posted by explosion at 1:35 PM on September 7, 2020 [8 favorites]
I have to be honest, it sounds like you projected a lot of your expectations onto the game, and you're judging it for failing to live up to your expectations.
Even without my expectations it’s still poor design and poor gameplay. Taking a dozen strikes to defeat where an enemy out ranges you or randomly makes an extra hit that can’t be avoided are objectively poor design choices.
Making something a challenge requires things to be well thought out. Just making things into health sponges while walking a tight rope where you can fall off due to sheer chance != challenge.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 2:49 PM on September 7, 2020
Even without my expectations it’s still poor design and poor gameplay. Taking a dozen strikes to defeat where an enemy out ranges you or randomly makes an extra hit that can’t be avoided are objectively poor design choices.
Making something a challenge requires things to be well thought out. Just making things into health sponges while walking a tight rope where you can fall off due to sheer chance != challenge.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 2:49 PM on September 7, 2020
I was hesitating to comment on your play skill, but the Moss Knights just need to be baited into attacking, and then you jump over them and attack them from above a few times.
The game wants you to figure out the enemies’ patterns. I don’t think having a few scary non-boss enemies (who run slower than you and can be evaded) is bad design.
posted by explosion at 3:50 PM on September 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
The game wants you to figure out the enemies’ patterns. I don’t think having a few scary non-boss enemies (who run slower than you and can be evaded) is bad design.
posted by explosion at 3:50 PM on September 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
I’m not even sure the Moss Knights are intended to be fought at that point. Hollow Knight takes some cues from Dark Souls, and one of them is that the player doesn’t ever really get to feel powerful - even when they get their footing, the game is still able to tip the balance. It’s not as hard or as obtuse as Dark Souls, but it’s certainly more so than most games.
I have found that Hollow Knight is not for everyone - it’s a little too big for some people, a little too hard, the combat design isn’t quite up to scratch. But for some people, it’s one of the best games ever made. There is a point in most exploration games where you get a handle on how big the game is going to be, when the map corners start filling in and you’re pretty sure there’s only a couple of surprises left. Reader, I was wrong about three or four times.
I cannot wait for Silksong.
posted by Merus at 6:24 PM on September 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
I have found that Hollow Knight is not for everyone - it’s a little too big for some people, a little too hard, the combat design isn’t quite up to scratch. But for some people, it’s one of the best games ever made. There is a point in most exploration games where you get a handle on how big the game is going to be, when the map corners start filling in and you’re pretty sure there’s only a couple of surprises left. Reader, I was wrong about three or four times.
I cannot wait for Silksong.
posted by Merus at 6:24 PM on September 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
Hollow Knight is easily one of the best games ever made - somehow, it's even better than Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, past hallmarks of the Metroidvania genre.
posted by neon909 at 7:07 PM on September 7, 2020
posted by neon909 at 7:07 PM on September 7, 2020
I'm definitely on team "hollow knight is literally the best metroidvania ever along all dimensions". Really great world, gameplay, etc.
Then we get to the real annoyance of this game's combat. The knockback.
I mean, there's a charm you can buy for not much money in forgotten crossroads (which is basically the first area, though in fairness you don't get to this vendor immediately) that eliminates knockback. Personally I preferred to play with knockback though, it's part of the feel and you can and should get used to it. I don't think this complaint really holds water.
There is no real reason for this game to exist.
I mean, you presumably know that a lot of people won't agree with you and this is just fight-starting, right?
I’m not even sure the Moss Knights are intended to be fought at that point.
Agreed; IIRC there aren't a lot of absolutely required ones and there's lots of stuff to do without fighting the ones you have to get through. They do have a lot of hp but also a relatively challenging movement pattern, they are sort of like minibosses at the time. For anyone wondering what this is about, here's a video.
posted by advil at 7:44 PM on September 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
Then we get to the real annoyance of this game's combat. The knockback.
I mean, there's a charm you can buy for not much money in forgotten crossroads (which is basically the first area, though in fairness you don't get to this vendor immediately) that eliminates knockback. Personally I preferred to play with knockback though, it's part of the feel and you can and should get used to it. I don't think this complaint really holds water.
There is no real reason for this game to exist.
I mean, you presumably know that a lot of people won't agree with you and this is just fight-starting, right?
I’m not even sure the Moss Knights are intended to be fought at that point.
Agreed; IIRC there aren't a lot of absolutely required ones and there's lots of stuff to do without fighting the ones you have to get through. They do have a lot of hp but also a relatively challenging movement pattern, they are sort of like minibosses at the time. For anyone wondering what this is about, here's a video.
posted by advil at 7:44 PM on September 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
I loved the exploration, the map, the charms, the lore, and really almost the whole thing.
Combat is tuned too hard for me though, and as I get older, I get less interested in that sort of bullshit. Not quite at the stage of calling it ableist gatekeeping, but pretty fucking close.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 8:06 PM on September 7, 2020
Combat is tuned too hard for me though, and as I get older, I get less interested in that sort of bullshit. Not quite at the stage of calling it ableist gatekeeping, but pretty fucking close.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 8:06 PM on September 7, 2020
like most people here, I really love hollow knight. however, I do wonder what it would look like if it had difficulty modifiers like the ones in celeste. even though I personally enjoy throwing myself into stupidly hard games, I can't think of any legitimate reason why precision platformers (and all games, really) shouldn't have accessibility options. pretty much all of the arguments I've heard against it are some variety of gatekeeping. In the past, I've tried to get friends to play certain games a certain way *cough*undertale*cough* but the more I've thought about it, the more I've come to believe that no one has the right to tell someone that they're playing a game wrong. allowing for a wider audience to enjoy a great game in whatever way they prefer is entirely a positive thing, imo
posted by Lurch at 11:31 AM on September 8, 2020
posted by Lurch at 11:31 AM on September 8, 2020
Yeah, honestly I think Hollow Knight would benefit from Celeste-style assistance mechanics. It took a while, but now we’ve cracked how to make games easier and more accessible without encouraging more skilled players to opt out of difficulty they can handle, that should be a standard approach.
It’s supposed to have some resistance to it. One of the key innovations of Dark Souls was that if you make it at least a little stressful to get around, shortcuts become a meaningful reward. Hollow Knight is definitely doing the same thing, and is, for me, right on the cusp of just hard enough that dying is undesirable rather than a useful shortcut.
About the only game I feel shouldn’t have assistance mechanics is Dark Souls itself, and that’s only because I feel that giving up in Dark Souls is the canon ending.
posted by Merus at 2:16 AM on September 9, 2020 [1 favorite]
It’s supposed to have some resistance to it. One of the key innovations of Dark Souls was that if you make it at least a little stressful to get around, shortcuts become a meaningful reward. Hollow Knight is definitely doing the same thing, and is, for me, right on the cusp of just hard enough that dying is undesirable rather than a useful shortcut.
About the only game I feel shouldn’t have assistance mechanics is Dark Souls itself, and that’s only because I feel that giving up in Dark Souls is the canon ending.
posted by Merus at 2:16 AM on September 9, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm saving the Souls games for when I retire. I'm going to play them in an emulator that lets me rewind time, and FUCK YOU PURISTS.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 1:18 PM on September 12, 2020
posted by inpHilltr8r at 1:18 PM on September 12, 2020
Were the Nifflas platformers a notable piece of this genre's history? Are they somewhere in HK's DNA? Or do I just see them as particularly memorable because I don't know the genre well?
After the great Metroidvania explosion they may not seem as prominent, but during their era they were certainly part of the conversation and among the best options.
As for challenge, I'm ambivalent about it. There were some damage sponges in there for sure and I found the white palace a bit jarring in its gamey-ness and sudden emphasis shift to platforming (even though it wasn't that hard all in all).
posted by ersatz at 2:27 AM on September 14, 2020
After the great Metroidvania explosion they may not seem as prominent, but during their era they were certainly part of the conversation and among the best options.
As for challenge, I'm ambivalent about it. There were some damage sponges in there for sure and I found the white palace a bit jarring in its gamey-ness and sudden emphasis shift to platforming (even though it wasn't that hard all in all).
posted by ersatz at 2:27 AM on September 14, 2020
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posted by pol at 7:47 AM on September 7, 2020