I genuinely hated working in an office and hope I never have to endure it ever again! That said, a handful of titles have made the workplace more inviting (usually with some element of wanton destruction), from the likes of The Company Man to Last Man Sitting. We’re back in that sort of territory once more with We Made A Thing Studio’s Box Knight.
Now, I didn’t quite know what to expect from this, so when starting it up and seeing a troll’s member exposed in the credits, thought this could result in an HR management sim where you have to educate staff on sexual harassment. Also, who are the trolls exposing themselves to – other trolls? Humans? Ogres? It’s a can of worms. The best way to defeat any sort of troll todger is through paper cuts and elemental charges. Cue the hero knight of the game.
Not much is known about our hero besides them being an office worker stuck in the monotony of whatever button they have to push on their keyboard, or whatever piece of paper they have to push. You select either one of two characters: one with an innie, the other with an outie, then the rest is to fate. A dubious janitor enthrals you with the story of the Box Knight: a lineage of office workers sent out to defeat the drudgery of the workplace with the most creative paper helmets known to mankind.
Choosing from one of three elementals, you can opt for shock, fire or ice damage, and the rest is through your papercraft sword. Initially, you will run through the office dungeon being introduced to new wrong ‘uns (all variations of the toxic workplace now manifested as farty goblins and oversized gnat-looking things), and thus learning the methods of how to defeat them.
At your disposal are basic attacks, jumping/stomping attacks, charges, and dashes. As you may surmise, you have a health bar, but also a buzz bar that generate and execution move to insta-kill an enemy. The caveat is that should you get hit while building the buzz bar, it resets. It accumulates quickly, so never fear. Each environment will feature some waves to defeat, and at the end of each one, you are awarded a grade. If you get the top ranking, you can select from several boosts that improve your power, health, buzz accumulation and more.
Outside of the runs (because you will die – it’s a rogue-like), a couple of staff members will help you improve, such as one helping you permanently level your Box Knight with improvements to damage and levels of evasion among others, while another staff member offers weapon choices, helmets and garments that not only further boost those stats, they look cool as well, but are mostly cute. In fact, Box Knight is a really nice-looking game with cool animations and character designs that are a teeny bit like Family Guy. Only a little.
But with all good things within the workplace, there has to be some element of HR to spoil the fun, and in this case I’d have to say it was the difficulty. Though you can jump back into a battle without always having to start, the bosses are massively overpowered. I get that this is a rogue-like and you can build up to it, but when you have spawning enemies attacking you from one direction, and the boss casually attacking from another, then wiping you out with one hit, it’s frustrating. Granted, you can keep piling through the levels and grind it out; it just takes a bit of time. On top of that, you have to get to around level 15 before you can do the horde mode.
The combat in Box Knight can be somewhat basic, too, though that’s balanced out with the difficulty spikes that encourage some strategy not just with the specific run and how to outwit the boss, but also with choosing the right stats and the appropriate gear. For example, the Cloud Strife-like sword was bloody brilliant for crowd control, but slow. Critical hit damage is ace, but unless you stock up on your consumables for replenishing health, you’re a goner. The skinny though? Box Knight is a fun byte-sized rogue-like that’s good in bursts; just be mindful of the necessary challenges with the bosses.
