The trowels are not what they seem.
In the Secret Fountain levels, I fell in love with the water.
I didn’t notice it at first.
But then I started getting hit by fish.
Quite a lot of fish.
Fish from the fish cannon, scarlet and slappy and properly doing me in.
I realised that the fish moved across the water - they could travel wherever it flowed.
And I realised that I could break blocks and channel the water where I wanted it to go.
Maybe I could do more than just reroute the fish?
What would happen if I steered the water over to that promising waterwheel?
Shovel Knight Dig review
Shovel Knight Digis a fresh spin on theShovel Knightseries of Duck Tales-inspired platformers.
Like Shovel Knight: Pocket Dungeon, it’s sort of a sidestory.
Pocket Dungeon turned the action-heavy core of the games into a block puzzler.
Dig initially seems like a blend of Mr Driller and Downwell.
You dig down through soil and rock, collecting gems, fighting baddies, travelling through themed worlds.
And here a little history is unavoidable.
More importantly its games were marked by wild invention and polish.
Nitrome sounded out possibilities and didn’t move on until an idea was absolutely wrung dry.
(And jeepers, there were a lot of them.
It’s all pretty humbling.)
With Nitrome involved, Shovel Knight Dig becomes something extremely special.
This is because Shovel Knight Dig is carefully procedural.
It’s both procedural - a surprise!
- and heavily curated, which means you get randomly shuffled set-pieces.
So Secret Fountain always has the water, but it doesn’t always have the water wheels.
And maybe you’ll dig through a minefield.
Maybe there will be huge chomping snakes hidden in the earth.
Maybe fuzzy things will float by that will make you tiny.
And maybe being tiny will allow you to explore new areas.
These choices are sometimes locked off, which means you have to find keys.
Fast travel’s handled in a deeply Shovel Knight manner, which I won’t spoil.
The hub is also riddled with secrets: I’ve found some and I’m sure there are more.
And a nice owl.
What I’m getting at is: this game is made of stuff.
And that’s the thing that makes it truly brilliant.
It’s that mixture of generosity and imagination that Nitrome has been serving up for almost two decades now.
Together these teams have made something absolutely luminous.
The boundless imagination and the generosity.
