Spiral Knights
Intense overall intensityWhat's in it
Real-money 'energy' can be converted to in-game currency and used to craft and level gear, which affects play, and randomised prize boxes are sold for cash.
A daily-regenerating energy pool gates how far a player can descend each day unless they pay to continue, and some gear is tied to limited-time seasonal events.
Cartoon, stylised combat against monsters, gremlins and robots using swords, guns and bombs, with no blood, wounds or lingering bodies.
Some dungeon floors are graveyard and shadow themed, with skeletal undead, ghostly enemies and little horned devil creatures set to eerie music. The art stays bright and cartoonish, so it reads as spooky rather than scary.
Beast-type enemies such as wolf-like wolvers are fought as ordinary combat.
Who can reach your kid
What it is
Spiral Knights is a free-to-play online action game in which you control a small armoured knight stranded on an alien world after a crash landing. From the town of Haven, knights descend into the Clockworks, a shifting underground dungeon, alone or in parties of up to four, battling crowds of robots, slimes and beast-like monsters with swords, guns and bombs while dodging traps and solving light puzzles. The art style is bright and cutesy and combat is bloodless. Players share the town of Haven, form guilds, trade, and chat by text, and there is an optional player-versus-player mode. The game is monetised through 'energy', a purchasable commodity that is spent to play and exchanged for currency, materials and progress; randomised prize boxes and seasonal limited-time gear are also sold, and much of the game's later content revolves around long grinding for equipment.
How it's framed
The game frames its combat as heroic cooperative adventure — knights of an order working together to explore a planet and reach its energy source — and keeps violence abstract and playful rather than dwelling on harm. Its commercial design is central to how it plays: energy meters access to content and can be bought, and progress toward the strongest gear is built around chance-based boxes and grinding, so speed and outcomes shift toward players who spend.
Details
- Developer
- Grey Havens
- Publisher
- Grey Havens
- Released
- Jun 14, 2011
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