''Shadow Knights - The Shogun of Death'' (Also known as "Budo - The Art of Ninja Combat") is a

platform game A platform game (often simplified as platformer and sometimes called a jump 'n' run game) is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are charac ...

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: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and ar ...

and published by

Softdisk Softdisk was a 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 owned by paper mag ...

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...

. 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 also 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 basic

with many element similar to the

NES The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in American ...

Ninja Gaiden is a series of action video games by Tecmo featuring the ninja Ryu Hayabusa as its protagonist. The series was originally known as in Japan. The word "gaiden" in the North American ''Ninja Gaiden'' title means "side story" in Japanese. The o ...

'' games. 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 the time

Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons ''Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons'' is a three-part episodic side-scrolling platform video game developed by Ideas from the Deep (a precursor to id Software) and published by Apogee Software in 1990 for MS-DOS. It is the first set of ...

was in development outside working hours with

Tom Hall Tom Hall is an American game designer best known for his work with id Software on titles such as ''Doom'' and ''Commander Keen''. Career Hall attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he earned a B.S. in Computer Science. In 1987, ...

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 ''Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion'' (also known as ''Dangerous Dave 2'' and under the Froggman title, ''Rooms of Doom'') is a 1991 sequel of the computer game ''Dangerous Dave''. It was created by John Romero, John Carmack, Adrian Carma ...

References

External links

Official website
* {{Softdisk 1991 video games DOS games DOS-only games Id Software games Video games about ninja Platform games Video games developed in the United States Video games set in Japan Softdisk Japan in non-Japanese culture