''Shadow Knights - The Shogun of Death'', also known as ''Budo - The Art of Ninja Combat'', is a

platform game A platformer (also called a platform game, and sometimes a jump 'n' run game) is a subgenre of action game in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are characterized by levels wi ...

created by

id Software id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: game programmer, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer T ...

and published by

Softdisk Softdisk was a computer program, software and Internet company based in Shreveport, Louisiana. Founded in 1981, its original products were disk magazines (which they termed "magazettes", for "magazine on diskette"). It was affiliated and partly ...

in 1991. ''Shadow Knights'' was the first game created for

, who paid $5000 for it as part of id Software's contractual obligation to them. ''Shadow Knights'' was marketed by Softdisk as part of ''The Lost Game Collection of ID Software''.

Plot

The prospering land of Naipusan falls under siege by warriors from the North led by the evil shogun Sashika. For many years Sashika grew in power and began learning dark magic. Some said that Sashika was possessed by the demon Kuskuro. In the wake of the never-ending reign of terror, a ninja born in the east whose arrival foretold by sages comes to remove Sashika from his seat of power and rule Naipusan fairly.

Gameplay

''Shadow Knights'' is a

. The player goes through nine levels, slaying enemies with both sword and magic stars and collecting powerups. The player has limited vitality and magic power to survive. The player can accumulate power by collecting magic orbs. The ninja has healing and weapon powers. Some level areas require the player to defeat a boss monster to progress.

Development

Development for ''Shadow Knights'' was being done in conjunction with '' Slordax: The Unknown Enemy'' around 1990. At that time '' Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons'' was in development outside working hours with

Tom Hall Tom Hall (born September 2, 1964) is an American video game designer best known for his work with id Software on titles such as '' Doom'', '' Wolfenstein 3D'' and ''Commander Keen''. He has also been the co-founder of Ion Storm, together wit ...

designed a few of the levels. The level maps were designed using a custom-made program called Tile Editor (TEd), which was first created for ''Dangerous Dave''. The game engine that was built would soon be reused for '' Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion''.

References

External links

Official website
* {{Softdisk 1991 video games DOS games DOS-only games Id Software games Japan in non-Japanese culture Platformers Single-player video games Softdisk Video games about ninja Video games designed by John Romero Video games developed in the United States Video games set in Japan