If you read the various indie gaming blogs, I’m sure you’ve heard the news already: “Within a Deep Forest” creator Nifflas has finally released his long awaited atmosphere-em-up Knytt Stories.

The poor game’s had to endure a hell of a lot of hype – in part, just from being the sequel to the excellent Knytt – but mostly from all the interviews, the previews, the hundreds of people who seem to have got their hands on the pre-release version – all of which seem to have come back ecstatic about new game.

It wouldn’t be easy for any game to live up to all that. And yet, it does. Knytt Stories is fantastic.

First of all, Knytt Stories is not just a game. It is nine games – and no doubt in a few weeks, it’ll be dozens more. Rather than just make a straight sequel, Nifflas has instead opted to make an engine, a good level editor, and a couple of small and very distinct mini-levels. The release pack contains one level, and there are eight more on his site (which includes four “third party” levels).

All the levels are good, but my favourite has to be “An underwater adventure”, which returns to the last level from “Within a deep forest” and is the most game like of the lot.

Wanna see it in action? Tim’s put up a video of the “Strange Dream” level on youtube:

This is NotKnytt. It’s way better. In fact, it’s so good, I’m giving it a place on that all exclusive list 🙂