Knightmare

Knightmare is a role-playing game created by Mindscape in 1991, released for Amiga and Atari ST. It's based on the TV show with the same name.

The title was developed by Antony Crowther and designed by the same Crowther with his brother Chris. The two guys previously worked on another Amiga RPG called Captive. Knightmare, in fact, uses the same engine of Captive.

In the TV show, created by Tim Child (who also contributed to the design of the game), four kids need to complete a quest in a virtual fantasy world. It was one of the earliest examples of virtual reality. Crowther was in charge of translating the concept into a videogame. Not for the first time since there is also a "Knightmare" videogame created by Activision in 1987.

As you can see from the screenshots, this Knightmare is a classic dungeon crawler, with a first-person, pseudo-3D, point of view, like Dungeon Master.

However, if you start playing it, you will notice the two games are different. First of all, Dungeon Master is set in classic epic fantasy, with D&D monsters, fighters, clerics, armors, weapons, and magic. Knightmare is set in a dark, almost scary, fairy tale world. The color palette is dark, and the style reminds me of the movie Labyrinth. The gameplay is also a bit different, because the difficulty is hard, and especially at the beginning, where your party will be barely armed, combat will be more tactical. If you miss some hits, it will be better to escape if you won't want to die soon. True, combat is in realtime also in DM and Eye of the Beholder, but in this case, it's more action-oriented.

Overall, Knightmare is an excellent RPG. Great atmosphere, thanks also to the fantastic sound effects, great difficulty but well balanced. If you like this type of game, and especially if you have loved Captive, you cannot miss it.