Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon (NSP, XCI) ROM + v1.1.0 Update

Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon is a roguelike puzzle game co-developed by Vine and Yacht Club Games and published by Yacht Club Games. A spin-off of the platform game Shovel Knight, the player takes control of the namesake adventurer as he becomes trapped within a magical artifact, the Pocket Dungeon, and is forced to fight his way out while battling other knights who befell the same fate.

Gameplay is set on an 8×8 grid, on which the player can move in one of four directions. Enemies appear at the top of the grid, and the player attacks them by moving into the spaces they occupy. The contents of the grid move down the screen every time the player moves or attacks, and a game over occurs if the player loses all of their health or if the grid becomes filled. As the players defeat the game’s bosses, they unlock new playable characters with their special abilities.

Yacht Club Games was inspired to create Pocket Dungeon after meeting with Vine, a solo developer working on a project called Puzzle Knights. Noting similarities between both games, the developers recruited Vine and helped him establish a development team. Development took place over three years on a budget of $1 million. The game was first released on December 13, 2021, for Windows, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch. It received positive reviews from critics, who praised its playable characters, soundtrack, and graphics, many highlighting the game’s difficulty. A downloadable content expansion called Puzzler Pack was released on June 6, 2023.

GAMEPLAY

Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon is a roguelike puzzle game. Players take control of Shovel Knight and other playable characters as they attempt to escape the titular Pocket Dungeon. The player character is set on an 8×8 grid, on which the player can move in one of four directions. Enemies spawn at the top of the grid and gradually move to the bottom. The player character attacks foes by moving into the spaces they occupy, reducing their health.

Damaging enemies causes the player character to lose hit points, though this loss is avoided if their attack kills the monster. If the player attacks an enemy that has at least one creature of the same type adjacent to it, the connected enemies take an equal amount of damage, allowing the player to defeat several foes at once. Lost hit points are restored by collecting potions that intermittently spawn alongside the enemies.

Enemies and other obstacles move down the screen every time the player moves or attacks and continue to move at a slower rate if the player remains idle. A game-over occurs if the player loses all their hit points or if the grid becomes filled with enemies. Defeating enemies grants gems and fills a meter which gradually depletes over time. Adding to this gem meter allows the player to yield an increasing amount of jewels. Gems can be spent at shops in exchange for items called Relics, which provide useful effects such as more hit points.

New characters are unlocked by defeating bosses and progressing through the game, and each features its special abilities. For example, Specter Knight can regain hit points by slaying creatures, Prism Knight teleports around the grid, and Plague Knight poisons enemies after attacking them. When the player experiences a game over, they keep a portion of their gems; kept gems can be spent to unlock new Relics that can be purchased or discovered inside levels. The game features accessibility options that are used to alter the playable character’s health and attack damage and a two-person multiplayer mode where players face each other on a split-screen. In this mode, players compete to slay as many enemies as possible through chained attacks, and killing enemies causes the grid of the other player to quickly fill up.

PLOT

A mysterious cube appears at Shovel Knight’s campsite. When he investigates it, he is trapped in a realm inside the box called the Pocket Dungeon. There, he meets a man named Puzzle Knight, who has remained inside the cube for many years. He tells Shovel Knight that the only way to escape the Pocket Dungeon is to traverse the realm and defeat a being called the Pocket Dungeon Master. Later on, Puzzle Knight informs Shovel Knight of the existence of a magical key inside the Pocket Dungeon that was broken into four parts, asking him to collect its missing fragments. While journeying through the dungeon, Shovel Knight encounters other knights who become trapped, defeating and recruiting them to his side. On the final level, Puzzle Knight reveals himself to be the Pocket Dungeon Master and that he sent the knights on a quest to find him to identify a powerful warrior who could act as his replacement, allowing him to escape. The chosen playable character defeats Puzzle Knight, escaping the Pocket Dungeon alone.

By collecting the four key fragments, the player experiences the true ending. After the battle with Puzzle Knight, a warrior named Prism Knight appears and informs him of the key’s completion, and Puzzle Knight uses it to unlock a secret level called the Tower of Fate. Inside, the three knights meet the Enchantress, who reveals that Prism Knight was responsible for trapping all of the characters inside the dungeon; the Enchantress had manipulated her into using her powers to lure knights to the cube, claiming that doing so would allow her to locate her missing father.

In the absence of the knights, she plans to dominate the world and turns Puzzle Knight into a monster to ensure they remain trapped. The chosen knight defeats the monster and reverts Puzzle Knight to his original form. The Pocket Dungeon collapses, and all the knights escape. In a post-credits scene, Puzzle Knight is revealed to be Prism Knight’s father, relating in a conversation that he first became trapped in the dungeon while searching for an heirloom. He gives Prism Knight this artifact, a magic telescope that causes a shooting star to appear in the sky.