I intended to do a few things around the apartment when I got home for lunch today, but Shovel Knight. I beat two more of the Order of No Quarter, beat two optional bosses on the field map, and I beat Mr. Hat (not the puppet from South Park). Seriously, this game is good.

@PogueSquadron

Agreed.

I downloaded and starting playing this game, defeating two bosses. Very addictive and fun! Kudos to the team that made this game. No qualms so far!

So one thing I've noticed is the checkpoints...the flames look different after I pass each one (noticed this on the death screen). I know if I break them, I get treasure (and lose out on a checkpoint), but do the flames indicate the amount of treasure in a checkpoint? Does that make sense?

EDIT: Nevermind, Yacht Club Games covered it in a blog.

I grabbed the 3DS version so I had something to play this weekend away from home.
So far I've beaten two bosses and acquired a few power ups.

I love this game!

Also, they weren't sloppy with the 3DS version. The 3D is quite nice.

Just got the game the moment it became available on the Wii U eShop. They've done a lot more work on this than any of the trailers suggests, and that's evident from the title screen alone. After having played through the first couple of stages and exploring some of the side-quests, minigames, optional areas, and seeing some of the secret characters, I believe Yacht Club deserves more for this game than they're charging so I'll be picking up the 3DS versions in addition to my Wii U one. If they make the soundtrack available on the Google Play store I might buy that, too, just as a personal tip to Virt and Co.

I have to admit, "easy but you can make your own challenge by not using upgrades and stuff" isn't really the same as "challenging" to me. And I know they were Demon's Souls inspired, but "go back a long way when you die" isn't really the same as challenging to me either (and was one of the things that I didn't get into about Demon's Souls), although it does add some tension, which I guess is something. It'd be cool if they released some DLC uber hard mode that was like straight up challenging.

Still, the game is sweet. So fun.

True but it is pretty optional how many life upgrades you get. You could do a low health run (which I'm sure is a Feat, though I haven't checked).

Just dropping back in to say they DO have the soundtrack available. Enjoy!
http://virt.bandcamp.com/album/shovel-knight-original-soundtrack

Just beat the game! Very fun and incredible game. I thought the challenge was just right but I also held back from buying some upgrades so that probably increased the difficulty a bit for me. Still, all I want to do is jump back in it and find the remaining items and fully upgrade myself and then tackle new game +

So far, so good with this one! It's quite a fun game, and the amount of upgrades and bonus areas make it addicting.

Is it okay that this game makes me feel inadequate? As an indie dev, it's a little intimidating playing something like Shovel Knight! I hope people don't expect every indie game to be this...professional...

Beat the game and got most(?) of the collectables first time through. Great game. Will probably go for all the achievements once they patch the game -- one of the Feats I accomplished in-game didn't activate in my Steam profile, and apparently this is a common thing because they addressed it in the last Kickstarter backer e-mail.

@OrbitalBeard What changes in New Game +? I played through the intro stage and didn't notice a single change after playing through it in regular mode immediately beforehand...

@TriforceBun It's also made by a pretty big team, most of which have years of experience making games. Don't compare yourself!

@TriforceBunive felt pretty inspired myself. I really want to get back into things with my game making.

@nate38

Any idea if the feats are glitched on Wii U too?

@nate38

Only two checkpoints per stage and enemies do double damage. Also, no health pickups in the levels (they've all been replaced by bombs).

You can sometimes still find health by fishing though.

@OrbitalBeard Sounds like that should diffuse any qualms about the game being too easy?

@Zero

Yeah, it definitely makes the game quite a bit more challenging.

They're adding a challenge mode via a free update sometime this year. Can't wait to check that out. Hopefully it features some crazy levels reminiscent of the challenge stuff in Mario U.

Hmm...I'm missing Music Sheets #42-46. I think I might have missed one in the final full stage, but where do I look for the others?


@OrbitalBeard That's a tad disappointing, I was expecting something more like Mega Man 9's Super Hero Mode, where enemy spawns and platform placements and boss patterns are tinkered with. But it's better than nothing, I guess.

@Secret_Tunnel Well, what needs patched is the game's Steam achievement system, specifically. All the in-game Feats seem to activate perfectly fine within the game itself, just not outside the game in the player's Steam environment*. So I would think the Wii U version's Feats would work just fine, since there's no system-level achievement system to worry about there.

*Most of the achievements in Steam work just fine, usually they activate a few seconds after the in-game message pops up. The one that didn't work for me was finishing a level without dying: the in-game message popped up, but the Steam-level achievement didn't trigger.

@nate38

Yeah, that would have been cool. I loved the Hero and Super Hero modes in MM9.

They are adding a challenge mode in for free later on this year though, as well as a 4-player battle mode and three playable boss knights through the whole campaign (King Knight, Specter Knight and Plague Knight), complete with new abilities. virt is also making NEW MUSIC for the extra modes!

Oh yeah, also a gender swap mode, where you play as a female Shovel Knight and have to fight the Enchanter!

@OrbitalBeard Yeah, I was a little surprised that those things weren't available at launch, but I'm still pumped for whenever they arrive. Hopefully not too late this year, though considering all the delays for the base game, I'm not gonna hold my breath for a speedy update.

But I'm still really disappointed that The Enchantress didn't get voted as one of the playable bosses! Her concept sounded the most interesting by far.