MK-ULTRA Games, Inc.
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If you’ve played Knight & Damsel since release, you might have noticed there were a few niggly edge-case bugs with some of the game’s blocks—notably the ice bucket and water barrel could on rare occasions cause one player to get trapped in a loop.
We’re happy to announce that we’ve finally managed to locate and fix those bugs, and Knight & Damsel should now be the bug-free experience it was intended to be, whether downloaded via Steam, Humble Store or Itch.io.
And joyously, the update coincides with Humble Store’s Winter Sale, meaning you can now pick up Knight & Damsel for 30% off! It’s the perfect time to get some un-cooperative multiplayer in!
Mathew talks to Motherboard about how the Mario series inspired him, and the development of Knight & Damsel.
(”It’s true—slicing up level “chunks” of the original Super Mario Bros. while learning level design while making Sound Shapes went on to inspire the “(managed) random selection of designed chunks” level generation in Knight & Damsel. I guess endless runners do the same sort of thing? But I never really thought about those…”—Mathew)
Buy Knight & Damsel: Steam, Humble Store or Itch.io.
Hi guys, MK-ULTRA Games’ Mathew Kumar here, and I’m here to say that we’ve finally locked down a release date for Knight & Damsel on PC (via Steam, Humble, Itch.io at launch) and OUYA (via, uh, the OUYA store on the console, like) and it’s August 20th, 2015.
Yes! Knight & Damsel has been a slightly more protracted development than we thought—being developed almost entirely part-time by a loose group of developers, and our first release—but no longer are we saying things like “summer 2014” or “spring 2015” or whatever ridiculous variety of release windows we’ve had. It’s August 20th! Unless the world ends before that date, which would kind of blow. And not to bury the lede, Knight & Damsel will be $9.99 / £6.99 / €9.99 but with a 20% launch discount for the first two weeks taking the price down to $7.99 / £5.59 / €7.99. The game will not be discounted again this year, so get it while the getting is good!
(You can also pick up Maggie McLean’s soundtrack for Knight & Damsel on Steam for $3.99 / £2.79 / €3.99 (also discounted by 20% on launch!) or as part of our Deluxe Edition.)
Anyway, Knight & Damsel is a special project for us, being first developed as a quick jam game for the Toronto Games Jam 2013 with the help of some Capy developers, and eventually going forward with full development because… I don’t know, it just felt like a good idea. Since then we’ve had our ups-and-downs, the game has changed a great deal as we scaled up, scaled down, and then scaled, uh, around, but in the process we’ve been able to show the game as part of things like IndieCade’s eSports Showcase and at the IndieMegaBooth at BitSummit, which has been fantastic.
It’s an “un-cooperative” couch multiplayer game that we hope is subversive fun, as two players compete to rescue the other on a papercraft stage, warping the fourth wall between the 2D screen and world space. It’s got four settings, a quick campaign mode and full customisable arcade mode—and with levels created from random selections of designed screens, every match is different.
We see Knight & Damsel as a competitive twist on the Damsel in Distress trope, fun for all ages, and we hope you like it. See you on August 20th!
Well, now that we’re back and pointing out things like that we’ll be at BitSummit this weekend, might as well go the whole hog and mention that Mathew wrote a cool article for this year’s Game Career Guide from Gamasutra, called “Starting A Company: Giving It (And You) The Best Chance To Survive.” It’s (more or less) a tighter version of the micro post-mortem he gave at GDC 2015, but if you don’t have 40 minutes to give up for that, or you just like reading or something (what a nerd) it’s right at the start of the magazine so you don’t even have to flip that many pdf pages to get to it.
Anyway, it’s full of probably controversial wisdom for starting an indie game studio, but it was all true for us. Enjoy!
In sort of a last-minute fashion our founder Mathew Kumar was invited to do a Micro Postmortem at this year’s Game Developer’s Conference as part of the Game Career Seminar, and it’s now available, free for all, on the GDC Vault.
A “post-natal” of the formation of MK-ULTRA Games, it’s full of lots of sorta dry business tips for anyone looking to form their own game studio, even if it’s just a small shop with a few collaborators! However it’s delivered in Mathew’s, uh, fast and hopefully charmingly sweary fashion, so it’s probably not that boring. Check it out if you’re interested!
(And stick around for the following two micro postmortems, covering Catacomb Kids and #IDARB! They’re good!)
Crikey, we’ve been rather quiet, haven’t we? Well, all that’s soon to change… probably, but we’ve been busy working to make Knight and Damsel as good as it can be. On that level, we should really announce that we’ve been working with some new people to make that the case! Terrifically proud to announce that Noreen Rana and Yuliya Boublikova joined the project as artists a short while ago, and here they are to introduce themselves:
Noreen Rana (@neomonki), UI Artist/Designer, Art Direction
Heyo, I’m Noreen Rana, a UI artist that’s pleased to be helping out MK-ULTRA on Knight & Damsel. I’ve been working in the games industry since 2009, and I’m also an illustrator and comic colourist; so if I don’t have my nose in a video game, it’s either in a painting or another comic book that needs to be coloured. In my spare time, I entertain three cats, am a member of a professional axe throwing league, and participate/volunteer in many of the Toronto gaming community’s events such as DMG (Dames Making Games), Toronto Global Game Jam and Gamercamp.
Yuliya Boublikova (@YBoublikova), Animator
Hey hey, Yuliya Boublikova here. I’m super excited to be part of the Knight and Damsel team as an animator. I work mainly in TV animation and dip my toes into game industry from time to time. Some of the productions I have worked on include Ugly Americans, T.I.’s Holiday Hustle and Turbo:F.A.S.T. When not arting, I can be found snacking and looking up cat video’s on the interwebs.
Noreen and Yuliya’s work is amazing and we’re super excited to share it with you, soon!
Upcoming indie games such as Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, Knight & Damsel and Below help give major gaming platforms an offbeat edge.
We’ve been a little quiet since TOJam as we’re wrestling with the unwieldy beast that is video game development; however Mathew headed out to E3 last week to help support our pals at Metanet—who were showing the superb N++—and take some appointments at the show, showing Knight & Damsel to interested press and so on. Surprisingly for a show generally considered to be a hellmouth it was a super powerful experience, seeing the work of local indies such as Home and Lovers in a Dangerous Space Time given pride of place on major booths, and other unique titles like Night in the Woods and Quadrilateral Cowboy shown at events like Horizon. Everyone was super excited to show their works in progress and the passion was apparent and very, very inspiring. Genuinely!
Anyway, here’s an article about some of the folks from Toronto who made the trip down what we got included in. Including a new screen! So that’s nice.
Knight & Damsel from MK Ultra, an indie studio with members from the Sound Shapes team, is a cute play on the damsel in distress trope. One player controls a knight on the top of the screen and player two is the damsel on the bottom. The knight runs from left to right while the princess runs from *right to left.* Eventually, both characters meet in the middle with a humorous “shocked to see you” expressions.
Our GDC build got covered by Siliconera!
MK-ULTRA Games was formed in August last year, and since our formation we’ve been working hard on making Knight and Damsel a reality with as small a team as was viable. However, we’ve recently been able to hire some new folks to work on Knight and Damsel, which has been super exciting! Rather than do a canned announcement we thought we’d give them some space to introduce themselves.
Izzie Colpitts-Campbell (@iColpitts), Gameplay Programmer
Hey, I’m Izzie Colpitts-Campbell, an escaped artist who enjoys making things, coding stuff and wearing many hats (both literally and figuratively.) Here at MK-ULTRA I’m quite happy to be wearing my front-end developer hat while working on Knight and Damsel.
Robby Duguay (@RobbyDuguay) Sound Designer
Hi, I’m Robby! I’m a composer, sound designer and the resident AV/event coordinator for Bento Miso. I’m doing the sound design on Knight and Damsel. My background is in audio production—I’ve recorded bands, TV, theatre, and events for clients like Allergan, CBC, KPMG and Warner Brothers. I’m really into anime and JRPGs, and I love Christmas more than anyone you’ve ever known.
Maggie J Mclean (@mjnmclean) Composer
Hi, I’m Maggie and I’m so pleased to be making music for Knight and Damsel and working with the fantastic team at MK-ULTRA! A little about me: I’m a life-long lover of games and game music. I’ve worked in games and television in various capacities for most of my adult life, but I’ve found that making music for games suits me the best! I’m a proud founding member of Bento Miso and an enthusiastic participant and committee member of Dames Making Games. My time in the Toronto game community has been spent working on projects with incredible local developers like Damian Sommer, Rokashi, Katie Foster and more! My favourite game soundtrack of all time is Final Fantasy 6 and I think sky pirates are pretty rad.
We are jazzed to have Izzie, Robby and Maggie on the team and are really excited to show you the work they’ve been doing—if you’ll be at GDC, you can come check out Knight and Damsel at the OUYA booth at the GDC Expo. If you won’t be, we’ll have lots to talk about after the show, we promise!
Meet your fellow GDC attendees from Ontario and get the inside scoop on GDC. We’ll have a panel discussion focused on marketing & PR, designed to help you prepare to meet the press and make the most of your time at GDC.
The panel will be followed by networking and an optional Intro to GDC discussion for those who are attending for the first time this year. This session is co-hosted by the OMDC and IO, and sponsored by Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development.March 5th
5:30-8:30pm
Jack Astor’s - 133 John Street (Just south of Richmond Street West)
Probably should have mentioned this earlier because pre-registration closes today, but if you’re a Toronto-based developer heading to GDC, I will be moderating this panel! (If you aren’t a Toronto-based developer this is of limited interest, I suppose.)
finjigames:
For almost 10 years we have been saving and scraping and learning and trying new things (and gotten some insanely lucky opportunities along the way) and having a few spectacular failures (and lots of little ones), all with the ultimate goal of getting to do exactly this: collaborate with who we want, when we want, on the games we love.
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Amazing peoples Adam and Rebekah Saltsman have started a new studio, Finji, which not only has a logo that’s almost as beautiful as ours, but is an exciting as hell new venture that we hope—and believe—will shake things up in this here industry. You should read their words and then follow them!
I interviewed Brenda Bailey Gerschkovitch, CEO of Canada’s first female-owned and run games company, Silicon Sisters. Then, because I was interested in the mechanical design of their games, Brenda suggested I talk with Kirsten Forbes, the COO of Silicon Sisters, who runs the production side of their company. A few days after that, a friend sent me a Gamasutra article about a feminist game called ‘Knight and Damsel’ that a newly formed company, MK Ultra, was producing. So I contacted Mathew Kumar, CEO and Creative Director of MK Ultra, and we had a ‘back-and-forth’ via email.
The following interviews are not to do with the importance of why, but are instead an exercise in asking ‘why’. I wanted to explore what feminism meant to three people in different stages of different careers in the games industry, how this showed in their work, and their thoughts on the impact of feminism in the industry.
Shortly after our company launch Jaymee Mak, a game design student at Vancouver Film School got in touch with us about an interview as part of a wider article about feminism in the games industry. It was an honour to be included, and we hope it’s of interest.
vorpaldinger:
I’m looking to hire an additional animator with traditional 2d experience to finish out some character sprites for our adventure game Thunderbeam. We have lots of work done but need help filling out some missing animations and characters in a matching style. If you are interested, please shoot me an email with links to your work at wiley@karakasagames.com. Thanks!
Our pals Karakasa Games are looking for an animator to work on their “retro-futuristic” adventure game Thunderbeam!
On December 7, 2013, Bento Miso hosted the Bit Bazaar Winter Market. Organized by Jennie and Henry Faber, it was a fantastical! With about 30 game developers, artists and food vendors, and an estimated 2000 visitors over the course of the day, the free event was a huge success.
We’ve been kind of lazy since Bit Bazaar and haven’t done a wrap-up post for what was the first public showing of Knight and Damsel (with its new art style, too!) but what with it being the holidays and all we’re not sure you’d be paying attention. We’ll talk about it in the new year, we promise! While you wait, the lovely folks behind The Phantom PI, Rocket 5, have blogged their own impressions of what was a brilliant show.
The name isn’t coincidental, but then neither is it intentional. It was actually suggested a long time ago by Metanet Software (for nothing in particular) as “MK” are my initials (Mathew Kumar). Ultra has a nice “gamey” sound (see: Super, Mega, Turbo, etc.) and as my other brand exp. is basically ungoogleable as a game company name, it stuck. I’m a little uncomfortable with the self-aggrandising nature of having my own initials in the company name, but then… why not, I guess.
expalt:
Hello! Last weekend at the Toronto Independent Game Jam I (Mathew Kumar, in case you’re lost) and a team of developers—Capy’s Vic Nguyen and Frankie Leung, Andrew Carvalho (previously of Queasy Games) and Shaun Hatton (offsite as “DJ Finish Him”)—created Knight and Damsel, which I describe as a “competitive two-player feminist puzzle platformer.”
As there’s been a bit of interest in the game since Vic shared some of his work online (including coverage from, of all places, Kotaku) I thought I should share some screenshots of the game being played and describe it (roughly.)So! Knight and Damsel’s inspiration actually comes from a few places, but one worth mentioning is Feminist Frequency’s first Tropes vs. Women in Video Games video, Damsel in Distress. I’m not particularly interested in this context of debating the quality/value of the series, but one thing that struck me was an aside that in your average video game, if a princess is captured, she waits passively to be rescued. Yet for heroes, being captured is just another challenge to be faced (and heroes getting captured happens all the time. It’s basically all James Bond does.)
Hence the set-up: in Knight and Damsel, one player takes the role of the Knight, questing to save the Damsel, and one player takes the role of the Damsel, who can quite happily save herself.
The twist is: what is a knight without a damsel to save? To avoid losing face, the Knight must do what he can to stop the Damsel rescuing herself, something she isn’t too happy about. So we worked up some video game magic that allows the Knight and Damsel to affect each other’s screens by throwing the blocks, axes and bombs that litter the level onto the other’s screen, allowing them to hurt or trap their opponent, while, at the same time, doing their best to navigate further into the level before their opponent.
Both the Knight and Damsel are inevitably heading towards each other, however, and at this stage of the game it becomes a tense, shared-screen face-off, with the Knight attempting to grab the dodging Damsel before she can run back to town. Once the Damsel either rescues herself or is “rescued” scores are totted up based on who managed to get further (plus some bonuses) and either the Knight is praised by the unsuspecting townsfolk for his heroism, or the Damsel gains new respect for proving she didn’t need to be rescued at all.
And that’s the game! As we only had a weekend, it’s currently only a proof of concept, but one that (I feel) definitely works. The majority of the team have other obligations right now (Super Time Force, for example) but we are looking at ways we can take the time to not merely “finish” it as a jam game but polish and tune the play and add a bit more content to put it out properly. I personally very much hope that we can.
Hey! This is the original post in which we revealed the TOJam version of Knight and Damsel. If you’re interested, you can click through and see Vic’s original art. hopefully this answers some questions about the genesis of the game you might have (though it continues to evolve/is a bit different already, obviously.) Enjoy!
Hello!
We are MK-Ultra Games, Inc., a new games studio in Toronto. Yes, another one of those. We exist now! Officially! We are proud to announce that we exist (just did that) and that we’re working on Knight and Damsel, a new competitive puzzle platformer coming to OUYA in 2014.
(Though we actually quietly announced all this at wonderful Toronto event Gamercamp two weeks ago, if you were lucky enough to be there.)
If you’re reading these words with your eyeballs or maybe your fingers because you’re the guy in Sneakers who reads the internet in Braille (awesome!) then you probably want to know more about us and stuff. OK, so here’s the deal! We’re a really wee studio made up (right now) of three members of the team that made Sound Shapes. At this point you’re like, “OMG, Jon Mak and Shaw-han Liem!” or maybe you’re confused and you’re like “OMFG BECK AND DEADMAU5???” but we’re going to nip that in the bud right now. We are none of those guys, as lovely and talented as they are. We are Mathew Kumar (Creative Director, Overlord), Andrew Carvalho (Technical Director) and Colin Mancer (Artistic Director.) We may also become more dudes/dudettes than that! But not right now.
OK, so you’re like “whatever grandpa, tell us more about Knight and Damsel!” if you didn’t already close the window when you discovered I wasn’t Jon Mak (but you’re now confused and think I’m your grandpa.) So here’s that deal! Basically in May of this year Mathew and Andrew went to TOJam (with some Capy folk) and made a slightly wonky prototype. You can read all about that here. It’s a two-player competitive puzzle platformer, with a neat little twist: The Damsel isn’t just waiting to get rescued by the Knight, she can handle herself. It’s all about getting to decide who gets to rescue the Damsel: the Knight, or the Damsel herself? (Or maybe she’ll rescue the Knight?) They do this by chucking blocks, bombs and axes and things like that at each other.
It makes sense, we promise. We even (whisper it) intend it to be a wee bit feminist in its message. But look, don’t quote us on that, we know how much the internet hates that sort of thing. You know, the idea that men and women are equal, or something. Imagine that!
We don’t have anything from Knight and Damsel’s new version to show quite yet—though we are beavering away at it—as, you see, the art was originally done by Capy’s Vic Nguyen, but he’s so busy being a superstar on Super Time Force he couldn’t spare the time. That’s cool! We’re sure you’re going to like our brand spanking new art as much as we do when it’s ready to be seen.
The first chance you’ll be able to see Knight and Damsel—in fact, you’ll be able to play test it—is at the Bit Bazaar Winter Market at Bento Miso in Toronto. It’s a super neat video game event as zine fair type of thing, where you’ll be able to see other games like Super Time Force, Lovers in a Dangerous Space Time, and buy stuff from our pals at Attract Mode. It’s happening on December 7th! All the details are here! Come!
