Knock Knock – Preview

A wooden house stands in the forest. A single man lives there.The house receives visits from unusual guests that knock on the window inviting this strange hermit to join them in a game of hide-and-seek. To win, simply remain alive and maintain your sanity until sunrise. Approaching the Visitors head-on is a dangerous idea. As soon as the first Visitor emerges from the forest, the countdown begins. Every passing hour brings them closer to the house, and the house’s walls offer no sanctuary. Something is already inside. Something is opening the window and banging around in the kitchen. Something controls the cellar and attic. Floorboards creak softly deep in the bowels of the house…

This time I got to test Knock Knock from Ice Pick Lodge. For those who don’t know, Ice Pick Lodge is a Russian based company, usually known for their rather bizarre games. So it goes without saying that I was pretty psyched about this one. Having watched the trailer, I was immediately drawn to the aesthetics of the game which are just superb.

This is a game with a darker setting and the style matches it perfectly.Remember the kid in kinder garden who always had dark rings below his eyes and you never wanted to really talk to him? Yeah it’s like he drew this while on sleep deprivation. It’s like somebody has snuck into the house of Hannibal Lectre and tore a page from his childhood drawings. From the main character to the creepy crawlies designed to make this demented adventure a short one. But the main selling point of the game, at least the preview version, is the sound! Every single aspect of the sound is capable of conveying the mood this game is supposed to be set in. Even the absence of sound is so well placed one cannot help but wonder how the game makers are capable of managing to figure out when it is necessary to just be silent.
As far as story goes, from what I was able to gather: the game is set in a house in the forest. A dark forest, with creepy sounds, trees with branches like claws, fangs and to top it off: spirits roaming around. Your character is a hermit, living alone in said house. He doesn’t seem to remember who he is, so he has to go around his house to find clues. Worst part of the whole situation is that the aforementioned creepy crawlies try to get to you. Doors don’t stop them and they are out to get you.

Gameplay is fairly simple. The arrow keys are used to move your character about and the spacebar is used to interact with the surrounding. You move around the house to find clues about as to who you are. Each room has a lamp that needs to be turned on, sometimes you need to stick around longer in the room. This is supposed to be so your character can adjust to the light and when he finally does, things around you become visible. More often than not it’s a hiding place that becomes visible. Sometimes extra lifepoints/time will be available. Your lifepoints are indicated by a clock that moves forward, the longer you stay alive the more lifepoints you will have, so it’s in your best interest to stay alive. Now things do bump in the night, in this game they usually come banging on your door only to subsequently slip through it and crawl through your house. Now the more lights you turn on in your house, fewer ghosts come seeping in. If you are quick enough you can have the whole house lit in just a few minutes. This would make the game boring though, so occasionally a light will just fall out. The choice is yours to either repair the light or risk more ghosts seeping in and wait it out until time is up. There is no way to defeat ghosts and they set you back quite a bit when you encounter one, sometimes they even let you start from point zero. How much damage each ghost deals is a mystery to me but I suppose I’ll get to find out at the final release of the game. There are ways to dodge ghosts by hiding behind hiding places you have discovered before. Hiding will take some portion of your lifepoints, the longer you hide, the longer the time will be that you will need to play the game. The sound is also an important factor for the gameplay. Sometimes voices will give you clues as to what to do. Like stay in place or not open the door (if they tell you to not open the door, don’t).

So this concludes my preview of Knock Knock. I am honestly very impressed by what I have seen. Graphically and sound-wise, the game is solid as can be. Each element works in perfect harmony with each other to create this bone-chilling experience. As far as I am concerned, I will be buying the final release. I’m positively crazy about it….