I put in some decent effort while working as a part-time reporter for The Echo of the Northern Gate. If you don’t know yet, there will be a series of reports on social media. The pilot post is already up; check it out and subscribe, all the links are at the end. Don’t miss out—I’m very satisfied with my first report. Self-satisfaction is my main motivation. As it is for our whole team? I’m sure that I'm not alone in admiring the fruits of my own labor. Every creator from our studio thinks to themselves when playing Knock, “Man, isn’t this game great!” Or at least that’s my assumption, anyway.

I remind you that through me you can ask any KOTCL character any questions. That way it’ll be even more fun, I think. If you haven’t found an answer to some question in the game, or if you want to ask something just for laughs – don’t be shy! If the answer is a spoiler, I’ll give an appropriate warning. And now…

We’ve released a non-ordinary patch, in which, beside bug fixes and UI improvements for consoles, there is a small and bright green button for Steam Deck. Knock on the coffin lid is now officially compatible with the little box from Valve. The game was tested by Valve specialists, and they gave us the highest rank of compatibility with their handheld device. Congratulations to all of us!

We’ll still need to tweak the font and image sizes (we want everything to be perfect), but this is a real achievement. Hooray, comrades!

As for the final re-balancing announced earlier, I don’t have much to share with you for now, except that work is in full swing, and it’s thorough, systematic work. These aren’t just quick fixes here and there; we are not going to fix one thing only to have something else break elsewhere. It’ll take some time, but the “director’s cut” of the balance might turn Knock into the game you were expecting from the start. In the meantime — make sure you get your fill of the vanilla version.

And now…

In the last entry I told you how we come up with jokes for our game, and it seems to have turned out quite well. I hope you were able to mentally experience that process. An open-door strategy is common practice for the gaming industry. We see our players as part of our team, but even a hint of formality or clichés can often spoil the whole idea. Well, there won’t be any here: I’ll try to plunge you into the little world of our studio without any theatrics, so make sure to take a deep breath.

[discord.gg][www.twitch.tv]Oh, right! I promised you Vanadis’ autobiography! Here’s the first part:

My name is Vanadis. I was born in a peasant family. All my childhood was spent in housework, but I had some joyful moments, too: my father taught me how to shoot a bow quite early and he took me hunting with him. I liked shooting and hunting most of all. I can’t say I felt unhappy about my lot.

When I grew up, a guy from a nearby village courted me. I had liked him for a long time, so I agreed to marry him. The wedding preparations started.

One day, I went to the fair to pick out fabric for my wedding dress. Unfortunately for me, I caught the eye of the local landed lord. He quickly found out where I lived, and started bothering me. He was persistent, and brazen, and unnecessary, and out of place. I wanted badly to start screaming so that father would come and kick him out! But I understood how that would’ve turned out for all of us. So I showed him the door myself every time and kept telling him I was taken. After that, my fiancé went missing. Of course, that scum killed him, or had him killed.

My fiancé went missing, but the lord reappeared, demanding that I belong to him only, getting gropy and threatening… When he tried to throw me down on the floor, I killed him unthinkingly—as it happened, a pair of scissors were close at hand.

I had to flee. I took only my bow with me, nothing else. I hid in the woods for some time. I hunted partridges and hares so I wouldn’t have starved. But I didn’t know what to do next. Besides, I was certainly being searched for. I was certain that my days were numbered.

Once I met a woman who was gathering brushwood. She came up to me, saying,

“Some hired swords are prowling about the wood. I keep stumbling on them every day; they’re looking for a girl. Is that you?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

I told her everything, and she took pity on me and offered me refuge at her farm. I agreed because I had no idea what to do.

I was warmly welcomed at the farm. The sons of the kind woman started wooing me, but I had no time for them. During that peaceful time I grieved the loss of my missing fiancé more and more. But my peace didn’t last long. The old farmer also started sneakily giving me explicit hints. When he realized he had no chance, he started grumbling… “She has to go…” “If they find her, we’re all in big trouble…” “At least have some pity on our kids, you shameless girl! Leave! Don’t abuse my wife’s kindness…” and other words in the same vein.

Long story short, the kind woman helped me pack for my journey. She gave me hiking clothes and shoes, a knapsack with food, and told me what to do.

“Go to New Agreement. It’s a huge city. No one will find you or even look for you there.”

She said something very important before we parted:

“Your beauty can become the biggest woe of your life, or it can be your biggest advantage—if you learn how to use it.”

Those words stuck with me for life.

I had a long way to walk, but I didn’t lose heart. I had enough food, warm clothes on my body, and comfortable shoes on my feet. All I had to do was to not get caught by guards and patrols, so I mostly walked along the edge of the roads at night. That’s how I met two of my comrades in misery – escaped peasants.

I told them my story, and they told me theirs. They ran away when some lord threatened to take away their land and send them to the mines for debts. That’s a common thing. I’d heard enough of such stories since I was a kid. I felt sorry for them and shared my food. But they took away everything I had, even my shoes and my bow.

And that’s when the nightmare started. I had no food and no bow to hunt with. I was barefoot, with just a dress on. I had to go far. I started asking for help at nearby farms, but they drove me away, even threatening to call for guards.

I started stealing from gardens and chicken coops. When someone saw me, I ran away. When they would catch me, I was beaten and driven away. Thankfully, they never turned me in.

Finally, I reached New Agreement. What a sight I was! But nobody paid attention to how I looked. The city turned out to be full of homeless, dirty, poor, and barefoot people. But of garish luxury there was also more than enough. A city of contrasts, you know.

I continued to steal, and I was doing it pretty well, it seemed. I even found a place where I could sell stolen things. But local bandits quickly tracked me down:

“This is our turf. Only we can work here. Do you think just anyone can come here and steal from our clients? No way! Who are you, and where have you come from?”

“I ran away from home and came here to hide… I don’t know where else to go and what else to do.”

I thought they’d kill me, but they didn’t even beat me up.

“Fine! You’re quite the thief, you’ll come in handy. You’re in our gang from now on.”

So that’s how it happened – good people fleeced me, and bandits saved me. I quickly got my bearings among them, got to know everyone, got on with everyone, and learned everything. With these folks you have to stand up for yourself and stick with the strongest, who’ll stand up for you.

Soon, destiny introduced me to a person who would turn my life upside down.

Re-inventing the diary format for the third time, I’ve gotten a taste of freedom. The first diary entry was an introductory greeting. The second one was focused on feedback — we tried to answer all of your questions and even engaged super-busy Innrey for that one (if you had no idea what keeps him so busy, then read the previous entry). This time, we’re not going to bother or distract Innrey. The third entry here will be fully mine. 

And I prefer asking questions to answering them.

But first, an announcement for you.

I’m going to travel around Midian, interview the characters from Knock on the coffin lid, and share the interviews on social media. So be sure to keep an eye on our profiles and pages so you don’t miss interviews with Millenis or Zaratosh.

(Anyone know who this is?)

If you want to ask our characters about anything, you can do that right in the comments down below. I’ll do my best to pass your questions on to them.

And now, let’s proceed to my questions.

Question #1 is, are you afraid of spoilers? 

Don’t worry, the secret report of the Fire Brotherhood that I leaked to you last time can’t be found in the game. But if you liked it, I have a real bomb for you — Vanadis’ autobiography!

What caused her to write it, remains a mystery for me, but the authenticity of the document is unquestionable. And of course, you won’t find anything like that in the game.

As you might already know, by the start of the game Vanadis already knows Mortis. Her autobiography sheds light on their acquaintanceship. There’s a lot of Mortis in the document. The text is quite long. It’s for real lovers of the long-read. Hence, I’ll probably put it in the end of the next entry, so that the unprepared can easily skip past it.

Question #2 is, have you, while playing KOTCL, ever found yourself in a situation that cracked you up/floored you/made you happy, or made you feel more than indifferent in some other way. I’d love to read about that in the comments section.

For obvious reasons, I’m not afraid of spoilers. The plot of Knock is for the most part my brainchild, so I know better than anyone that it’s full of funny, unexpected, slightly creepy and full-on scary events of all sorts, which you can stumble into.

Have you come across the eyes in the dark? When we were creating this battle, we doubted that anyone would notice them at all. But that didn’t stop us.

Also, have you collected all of the goblin legends? All the stories about Lydia? Does anyone actually know who that Lydia lady actually is?

Oh, and have any of you roasted the bear carcass using the elven idol for firewood? Ha-ha, that one is on my personal top list. What’s on yours? As for me, I love the jokes in the game.

There are tons of jokes and references in our game, true, but have you noticed that all that goofing around happens against a backdrop of utter gloom?

We thought long and hard about what atmosphere we should support and decided we’d throw in some jokes on top of our original depressive concept, while mixing in some hardcore stuff here and there.

As a result, the game doesn’t feel like a complete circus (although that would be hard with a plot like ours), but you won’t have to play stone-faced all the time, either— there’s stuff to laugh about every now and then.

It’s especially noticeable when playing as Bjorn. He’s the most tragic hero, deeply unhappy and resentful toward the whole world, so we gave him more jokes than the others. His laughter has a bitter edge, and his humor has a touch of full-scale absurdity.

(While we are having fun here, our artists keep working away)

Do you want to know how jokes for the game are born? If you think that we intentionally dream them up, that’s wrong. I believe that a joke can’t be made up on purpose, and there’s nothing more excruciating than trying to squeeze out some sort of, you know, “humor”.

In reality it’s done like this: we get together to work out how to develop a certain event. Everyone shares their ideas, and we can never do that with straight faces: we crack jokes, we make crazy suggestions, we giggle and guffaw. And during that process good jokes are born that appear in the game and go down in history.

That’s probably all for today. Don’t forget about us—we have a lot of exciting stuff to share. See you in the comments and in the next diary entry too!

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