37. Knightmare: The Computer Game

(Various Home, MD Software, 1987)
"Where am I?"
Knightmare, the TV series, was Bad.Ass. Broadcasting from 1987, Tim Child created the children's gameshow which was inspired by the Spectrum classic Atic Atac, no less. The show featured contestants super-imposed against a computer drawn series of dungeons, facing monsters, riddles, puzzles and physical tests in order to conquer the deadly kingdom. Blinded by a helmet, the player had to be guided by three arguing friends and the dungeon master, Treguard, a dark but likeable man with a twisted sense of humor.
At it's peak, it was the best children's show on television, maybe just the best show on ALL television. As with everything, it got watered down as it went into the 90's, becoming a Scrappy-Doo bastardized version of it's season 1-3 peak. Knightmare is a staple of my youth. Though dated now, it was children's TV at it's finest, the kind of show that children today are missing badly amongst their tacky faux-anime cartoons and pint-sized reality show shit.

I was over the moon when a videogame of the show was announced, I came crashing back to Earth when I played it. Knightmare: The Computer Game is a dull and tedious psuedo-RPG. The player controls an avatar in the famous helmet and walks through endless identical rooms, using a text based menu system to perform such deadly tasks as opening doors and picking up rocks.
Very few of the characters, enemies or traps from the show feature in the game, it's just room after room of brick walls and doors, with the occasional guard thrown in.
There are some nice riddle rooms, but no real logic to the items, combat or spells. Other than a nice rendition of the theme tune, some ports of the game play in total silence, there is also a lack of colour and incredibly repetitive graphics.

The issue here is that Knightmare was incredibly cutting edge, using some expensive computer technology, interesting concepts, D&D style characters and of course, was held together by human beings, would could improvise, help or simply yell "cut" if needs be. Ironically, for a TV show that looked and played like a computer game, Knightmare was almost impossible to MAKE into a computer game, taking out the human element and the guiding eyes of the players friends took a lot of the danger and difficulty out of the concept (and believe me, it was a VERY difficult show, with a very small contestant to winner ratio)
The Knightmare game is simply a dull and boring adventure game with little charisma, scares or intrigue. It isn't the fault of the developers, they just jumped on a concept that on paper was custom designed for videogames, but in reality could never have worked. A different Knightmare game was released in 1991 for Amiga and Atari ST, this game was a straight RPG with very little elements of the show at all.
Knightmare is a shining beacon of glory in the annals of children's television, full of excitement, danger and hilarious epic fail, but Knightmare: The Computer Game? Well, to quote the great Treguard himself...

"Oooooh Naaaasty..."

(Visit Knightmare.com for encyclopedic reference on this classic TV show)