Knights of Pen & Paper +1 Deluxier Edition

Drew has pledged to slowly but slowly churn his way through his sizeable stack of Nintendo Switch games for his ‘Beat the Backlog’ feature. Check out his main article to see what games he’s completed already!

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Looking back, I think I must have downloaded Knights of Pen & Paper +1 Deluxier Edition during a particularly bad spell of tabletop roleplaying withdrawal. Aside from a humorous and lengthy title that only Fall Out Boy might contend with, there’s something quite fun about the idea of playing a videogame where you’re playing a TTRPG, and despite the simple looking visuals, I clearly thought enough of the idea to part with some of my 2021 Christmas money to give it a try (albeit 4-years later!).

To be honest, my intro paragraph sums up most of what you need to know about Knights of Pen & Paper. In the game you play as a whole tabletop roleplaying group, battling their way through a Dungeons & Dragons-inspired game opposite their Dungeon Master. As you squash umpteen familiar monsters in turn-based combat, you’ll earn XP and gold which you can use to upgrade your party and their gear. What’s more fun is that you can actually spend your gold outside of the game, upgrading your TTRPG experience with more players around the table, miniatures, loaded dice and even snacks, all of which translate into additional benefits in the game. 

Just at a quick glance you’ll realise there really isn’t anything to write home about on the visual or sound fronts.  The simple pixel art does just enough to get you through, but aside from a few fun character designs, it’s quite clear that the graphics are just a means to an end. The sound is just as basic, with a few scratchy sound effects to punctuate the various attacks and the relentless organ grinding of the same three 8-bit battle tracks that will surely drive you insane if you keep the volume turned up for your entire playthrough.

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At a Glance

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This feeling of simple repetition permeates Knights of Pen & Paper and wantonly spills over into the gameplay.  Your group of buffoons are charged with travelling from one place of interest to another, slaying the 2-3 types of monsters that live there before returning to a town to complete the quest, earning you loot and experience points. However, the game draws a surprising amount of playability from the fact that all of the gameplay is broken down into micro-tasks (as you might expect from a game also released on Android and iOS) which go by in the blink of an eye. Battles each take just 2-3 minutes to complete, and the quests themselves usually equate to only 5-6 short lines of set up and payoff dialogue. I think I found myself drawn into completing runs of missions simply because I’d hardly registered the fact that I’d literally just accepted and completed the one before.

Battling is done in throwback turn-based combat fashion, where each character rolls initiative and then takes an action when it’s their turn. Each character has four different skills they can use, tailored to suit their D&D-inspired class, and you’ll pound away at the baddies until they all fall over or until your party gets wiped out. Anyone with a modicum of tactical character building can create a heinous group of characters, allowing you to stun half of the enemies into inaction for the entire battle, allowing you to mop up waves of their pals and snag maximum loot with minimum effort. Like everything else in Knights of Pen & Paper, this isn’t a nuanced and subtle system – it’s a basic vehicle for fun fantasy scraps and shenanigans.

While the rapid gameplay drives the game surprisingly well, there will be a whole bunch of players who grow tired about halfway through, as there just isn’t a whole lot to do. Looking back on my playtime, I was surprised to see I ploughed about 20 hours into one hundred percenting the game, and while huge chunks of that time just fell away through sheer “I’ll just do one more mission” repetition, I could feel the fatigue set in around the 65% mark. The last couple of hours are a particular brand of grind, where the enemies have become incredibly spongy and no longer perceptible to your best attacks, making everything a much more drawn out and dull affair. That said, I ploughed on through as I had already committed to reaching the end and I drove on through willpower alone.

What I do like is that Knights of Pen & Paper wears its heart on its sleeve, lovingly championing its inspirations whilst poking fun at itself and at tabletop roleplaying in general. This is a game made by roleplayers for roleplayers and it shows. From the half-baked ideas thrown around by the players in out-of-character dialogue, to the dungeon master shamelessly reusing entire plot elements and missions, to the waves of non-sensical external references added sheerly for shits and giggles, all Table Top fans have been in a game like this one. There’s a tremendous amount of fourth wall breaking in the game and endless wink-and-nod references to infamous TTRPG behaviour that I just loved. Playing Knights of Pen & Paper reminded me of my early teenage forays into roleplaying and how quickly things can devolve into hilarious madness when you’re just screwing around and throwing dice with your friends. 

A simple but effective throwback to simpler times, Knights of Pen & Paper +1 Deluxier Edition is a love letter to tabletop roleplaying games and the fun you can have acting daft with your mates whilst throwing dice. If you’ve come looking for a deep and layered plotline or a finely balanced battle system, you’ve come to the wrong place. This is the land of the min-maxing, meta-gaming meat shields and their party of pals. Best enjoyed by existing TTRPG fans who want to churn out a few micro quests whilst taking a break from something more taxing, there’s fun to be had here if you enjoy the simple things in life.

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