Floppy Knights reminds me of a high quality 3rd party DS-era game for some reason. Probably because it’s a strategy game in the vein of Advance Wars or Fire Emblem. The twist is that it’s also a deckbuilding game - each turn you draw a hand of actions from your deck that let you summon new units, move, buff a guy, or attack. I think it is a very fun spin on things because it constrains the decision space a lot for what you can even do each turn, and I like being prevented from strategizing too far in advance. It makes for a chiller experience because you’re unable to panic when your long con suddenly fails. You have to think on your toes. There are also non-story puzzle levels where the cards you draw are predetermined, and that really mixes it up, turning everything into more of a puzzle with a specific solution than a strategy game.
Were people talking about this game when it released? I feel like no? I don’t know what’s up with that because this is a solid, solid game. I think it’s the name. Relative to how fun it is, Floppy Knights might be one of the worst-named games I’ve ever played. Imagine if Inscryption was called like Magical Animal Cards and you’ll get the idea. In the fiction of the game, “floppy knights” are hard-light projections saved on floppy discs that are used in strategic combat situations. But in terms of the actual game, they aren’t floppy discs at all, they’re playing cards, and none of the characters you summon are actual knights. So I feel like they could have done better name-wise. That said, I have no ideas.
The character design here is really on-point. Cards belong to one of several themed deck types, be that the plant guys you start out with, demons, robots, and more, and all of them are really expressive and have a lot of personality. The art direction really suits the gameplay, it’s higher-res than your classic Advance Wars aesthetic but it maintains the flat chessboard look.
So yeah, I give this a solid A, good stuff. I think if it got ported to the Switch it would sell like crazy, I would love to carry this around with me.
[[ backlog master post ]]