| Legacy of the Altered Kingdoms | The Light Sentinel | Act 26 | ver. 1.2 |
(Image found via google image search)
King Jace wakes up one day to discover what appears to be an out of place instruction manual bedside table to some game that he's never heard of before .. "huh?" ... "I wonder who put this here?" .. Curious, he opens the manual up and begins to read.
"Showdown of the Light Knights" [FREE TO PLAY]
[ circa Stardate e-774 ]
| Instruction manual / Game Review Written by "Dhat Siu". | [ 4/5 stars ]
In this classic two player game, the player who has taken on the role of "the dark Queen" is allowed to move around the game board (chessboard) in the same conventional pattern that we see in the classic version of chess .. the other player takes on the role of "the Light Knights". The Light Knights move in a pattern that feels awkward at first, which is the classic "L" shaped pattern that we also find to be played classically in chess as well .. The Light Knights are also the only pieces that are able to jump over other pieces, in the same fashion that we find in the game of chess.
In this game, there are a total of SEVEN "Light Knights" and ONE "Light Priest" that "the dark Queen" is supposed to take on during this unique games playthrough .. one of the few differences between how this game is played and how the game of chess are played however, is that there are no other moveable pieces outside the 7 Light Knights, 1 Light Priest and the piece that represents the 1 dark Queen.
[ To further illustrate what I'm explaining .. in these following images, the green boxes represent the spaces in which the Light Knights, the Light Priest and the dark Queen are able to move during their respective turns. ]
The Light Knights (Image found via google image search)
The Light Priest (Image found via google image search)
The dark Queen (Image found via google image search)
(In this game, there is no "castling" (chess rule) allowed, and if a stalemate comes to occur, the game ends in victory for the player who is playing the role of the Light Knights.)
The gameplay is simple .. Before the game officially begins, the player who is playing as the Light Knights gets to tactically decide where to place the pieces of the Seven Light Knights anywhere they wish upon the chessboard, and the Light Priest may be positioned anywhere the player chooses along the far end of the chessboard .. however, the dark Queen may only be positioned in the same spot that we find in the game of chess, which is also right beside the dark Kings piece.
After the Seven Light Knights and the One Light Priest have been placed in their selected positions, the side that represents the dark Queen begins their turn with their pieces placed in the same way that we find in classic chess placement (meaning - the dark Kings piece must be placed immediately beside the dark Queen). One of the few rules that is different in this game than what we find in the game of chess is that in this game, if any of the pieces that represent the Light side come within two spaces of the dark Queens piece, the dark side immediately loses the game, and then must forfeit their crown.
As long as the Light Priest is still active on the game board, the Light Priest is able to revive any fallen Light Knights who had previously been taken down at the cost of one turn and If the dark King's piece is claimed by the Light Knights, it is Victory for the Light.
Over the years, many have criticized the gameplay dynamics, claiming that these rules end up making the game far too easy for the Light Knights to win .. however, this gameplay dynamic was balanced out by allowing the player who has taken on the role of the dark Queen to be given the first turn in the match .. There was also a second, inactive piece that we find beside the dark Queen on the game board, and that is the piece that represents the "dark King" .. however The dark King's piece is merely a symbolic representation, and isn't capable of moving.
- Cut to short impromptu gameplay cutscene of the digital version of the game
The dark King's position is the same typical placement that we also find in the game of chess, but one of the major differences that we find in this game is that the dark King is not allowed to move, since according to the game's historical lore, the dark King had become mysteriously paralyzed from a swift attack that was inflicted upon him by a professional renegade who managed to sneak his way into the dark throne room one fateful day and managed to gracefully escape the scene completely unscathed .. all of this took place while the dark Queen had been away on an important diplomatic trip. It was later discovered that her trip was merely a ruse.
According to the games lore, the dark Queen came back from her trip only to discover the dark King that fateful day in the throne completely paralyzed on his throne, left totally immobilized, utterly frozen in time/space, found with his mouth gaping wide open, as if we are to assume that the dark King must have been surprised during the moment the attack had taken place, implying that he must not have seen it coming .. the dark Queen knew that the dark King must have been cast under some advanced sleep paralysis spell that had been formulated and given to one of her Seven Knights by a Spellmeister, since the Light Knights were the only ones who had access to the throne room.
According to the Legendary lore, what the dark Queen fails to initially realize was that it was in fact all Seven of her closest Knights (which were her only soldiers around at the time) who had devised and planned together an ingenious "coup de tat" and made the collective decision with each other in secret to conspire against the dark Queen, due to the evil, despicable nature of the dark King and the dark Queen, and her extremely vile, wicked, hateful ways .. the dark Queen can be seen to represent the essence of putrefied malice, and that what we understand to be what history calls "evil".
(FUN FACT! - It was shortly after this game's initial inception that history shows that "evil" became an element of the past, leading many historians to speculate that this game had actually reflected the moment that peace had been restored to our land.)
Immediately upon the discovery of the the paralyzed body of the dark King, the dark Queen grabs the dark Kings magickal scepter and aims it at each of the Knights in the throne room, who are at this moment all disguised and adorned in the same colour as of the dark queen. The Knights knew that this was an important moment .. this was the moment they they needed to somehow come together and coordinate a winning strategy together so that they may miraculously usurp the dark Queen together,
While pointing the magickal scepter at the Knights, the dark Queen hastefully commands "I call upon the remnants of the wretched bloated crone within my ancient tome, to tell me who been conspiring against me!" .. In that defining moment, the Knights armor change from red now to shining radiant White Light, in the blink of an eye, exposing true divine nature of all of her Knights who were in secret, actually beings of Light." ..
[ Cut to short impromptu gameplay cutscene in the throne room of the digital version of the game. ]
"FOOLS!" the dark Queen wretches loudly out of her foul, wicked, mouth and she begins to cackle quite loudly to herself, in a horrid, hollow manner .. "You think you can kill me?" .. "I have a magickal scepter, even though their may be more of you, you Fools have nothing!" she arrogantly boasts.
However, what the dark Queen fails to realize is that among the ranks of the Light Knights, one of them is actually an ultra rare, legendary being known as a "Light Sentinel", which is an advanced, ascended Neo human known for their exceptionally rare, powerful, advanced, and extraordinarily magickal functionality who are far more powerful than even the strength of a nation, the only problem is that this particular Light Sentinel hasn't actually realized his fullest potential .. yet!!!
In our story, this is where the game actually begins, and the chess board is supposed to represent the throne room.
According to the games lore, Legend has it that one day a Legendary Light Sentinel would emerge, as if from the heavens and would finally restore balance to all of the land .. If you haven't heard the story by now, you must be living under a rock. because anyone who's anyone is familiar with this ancient Legend .. at some point within the games history, the dark forces managed to attain forbidden knowledge, and developed a mastery of what is known as "necro-magick", and they've been using it as a means of exploiting the "grand stage" that humanity has played upon for an aeon, using it as a means of syphoning off life force energy from all of humanity for their own wicked intent, against everyone's Highest Will.
(FUN FACT! - Before the game begins, the dark Queen has sat upon her throne for longer than anyone even knows when it comes to the history of this games lore.)
What is typically seen while observing a common match take place from the sidelines, is that there is often some initial frustration that can be observed from the players who have taken on the role of the Light Knights, due to the awkward, atypical movement style which initially makes this game such a challenge to play, and plan/coordinate at first .. however, For an intelligent player, it is typically seen that the Light Knights DO eventually manage to get their frustrations in order and coordinate their team of Light in harmony, and they rapidly come up with a winning strategy as history has shown, taking down the player who is playing the role of the dark Queen once and for all, crowning the player who is playing the role of the Light Knights as being the final "Winner!", "Champion!", "King!" (Light), or if you're a female Light Knight, you'd be a "Queen!" (Light),
(FUN FACT! - Every original game box came pre-packaged with a number of tokens that were meant to be distributed to every player who beat the dark Queen .. On one side of the coin clearly illustrates the symbol of a purple shield with a "T" in the middle, and on the other side of the coin reads "Haza!" .. these original rare coins were said to be worth more gold than anyone could imagine!)
According to the games historic lore, after the Light Knights are victorious and the Light Sentinel finally becomes activated, the polarizing, spiritual war that had been ravaging mankind finally comes into balance, and peace is finally restored to the world after the dark Queen is taken down .. it is then that the dark King awakens from his paralysis, and suddenly becomes aligned with Love and Light, however he realizes that his true passion isn't in Kingship anymore after all .. he realizes that he's actually an exceptional artist, and he spends the rest of his days making beautiful art, after handing over the crown to the Light Knights.
(FUN FACT! - According to the game's fascinating lore, upon standing up from his throne, there was a large mysterious egg that he had discovered that was in place on his former throne .. this is where a new Legend begins .. but I won't get into that right now, as I'm beginning to digress.)
According to the story, once "the trick" is finally figured out, and the Light Sentinel completely awakens to his fullest potential, the Light Knights rapidly usurp the dark Queen, and everything comes together .. it is then that the Light Knights establish a new monarchy .. a monarchy that is based around a Higher values .. the Light Knights represent a Loving, fair, virtuous world system .. one that is focused around equality, and "service to others". .. It was then that a new aeon began and the land became prosperous, and wars would become a thing of the past.
Generally speaking, after the game has been played long enough, a winning strategy for the Light Knights becomes so obvious and easy (honestly, even one play through is often enough!) the process of beating anyone who has taken on the role of the "dark side" becomes so easy that even a novice could likely pull it off if they were looking for a challenge.
Once a player has figured out the games "trick" for themselves ("the trick" is "the exploit", according to the lore .. get it?) the Light Knights rapidly find certain victory .. I know that I personally attained the legendary "Light Sentinel" status for myself eventually and I managed to beat the game rather early, but I am a gaming expert after all, so you're mileage may vary, as they say!
People who choose the role of the dark Queen are usually the types of people who would rather not have much of a challenging game experience, and often have a much more frail, selfish, villainous, cowardly spirit, since the mathematics behind the movement of the piece that represents the dark Queen are a far more basic and simplistic movement in symbol and style when compared to the movement and spiritual symbol of what the Light Knights represent .. The dark Queen represents what we knew at one point in our history to be what we've come to refer as being what they call "evil" ..
One of the few criticisms that I have with this game is that there just isn't much work required to formulating a winning strategy in order to keep the dark Queen beaten, now that the dark team has attained the embarrassing status of "Loser" .. Upon winning a game token, the winning strategy becomes obvious and easy .. much of the time, the person who chooses to play the role of the dark Queen think they have a much greater chance of success and victory before they start playing, since their piece is far more dynamic in it's ability to quickly move from point A to point B, and far distances across the game board quite quickly.
If you haven't noticed by now, it should be apparent that there is something different about this particular game, and that is a spiritual component to the gameplay .. One of the aspects that makes this game so unique is that the mysterious game designer was allegedly quite adamant about incorporating a particular spiritual dynamic into the games design that we haven't really seen in any other games before the original inception of "Showdown of the Seven Light Knights". It is is said that the mysterious game designer was a very spiritual person, and had a certain degree of spiritual awareness that few people carry .. one of the interesting rules that we find even to this day, was that if anyone made the decision to play this game, they must first make a prayer to the creator/God and cleanse their spirits/aura first before partaking in any gameplay.
FUN FACT! - All of the legendary lore and game rules can be found etched perfectly in ancient amethyst tablets that were originally discovered in a temple in the Highland ruins of the Tiav-Ticro national capital.
According to the history books, it was instructed by the mysterious game designer that once the Light Knights attained victory, and the player shouts loudly "Haza!", winning them the legendary game token, the game designer specifically instructed anyone playing this game take their victory quite seriously, because on a microcosmic scale, the representation of the game meant harmony of spirit and balance of polarity on all levels .. It's obvious that to anyone who has played this game that it's just steeping in Divine, Holy vibes .. the spiritual component is an absolutely essential gameplay dynamic to the game to have the proper functionality in which history has shown.
What I've always found to be extraordinary and exceptionally unique about this game is that although there is very little replay value for this game, the gameplay style is one that can be played by both novices and experts alike who are both looking for a challenging game that they can play together simultaneously .. and the famous lore that I've kept mentioning is worth doing a bit of digging around for, and researching as well! .. the historic texts were etched in amethyst tablets , and have managed to survive the test of time .. Legend has it that it was this very game that helped to usher harmony upon the land long ago upon it's original release, although skeptics have long disputing this possibility over the ages.
For the sake of style, the company reproduced this game with a second run version in which the Light Knights are packaged to be "Blue" and the dark King and dark Queen are packaged in the color of "Red" .. you can also even find this game packaged in a third run version in which the Light Knights were found to be "White" and another version of the game in which the Light Knights are "Purple" and the dark King and dark Queen are "black". The color variance does not change the game play dynamic, and the rules have never changed over the years, since it has been said that the mysterious game designer was allegedly quite adamant with his instructions throughout his life that the rules and the storyline of this game should never be changed under any and all circumstances .. it has been told that the game designer made anyone involved with the design features of this game swear an oath never to have the rules changed.
The original game designer passionately told his team members that if they are to be involved, the integrity of this game must remain in tact, so his team got together and got to work to constructed what we find here today to be what on the surface is a very simple game design, albeit the title is a classic masterpiece of a game, especially when one understands the lore. It was apparent the structural integrity of this game never really needed to change. It's been a long time since it's inception, but this game was immensely popular in it's original day.
We believe that the color varieties were merely designed for style alone. Historians speculate that the game creators must have created these different color style varieties as a way of keeping the game fresh over the years. It must have worked, because upon the launch of this game, it became a worldwide success and favorite cult classic among board game enthusiasts ever since this titles initial inception. this game was greatly popular among a different castes of people all over the world in it's time.
It was upon the advent of Artificial Intelligence that a new version of this game was developed, aptly titled "Showdown of the Light Knights: Man Vs. Machine" .. in this modern redistribution of this long time classic, the human player must only play as the "7 Light Knights", and the Artificial Intelligence must only play as the "dark Queen" .. this was a critically important gameplay mechanic, since Victory was impossible to achieve if the Artificial Intelligence were to play as the Light Knights. This dynamic was sealed in place, and never changed since it's inception. All the rules stayed the same in this version of the game.
Most players who choose to play the role of the Light Knights eventually win, since there is an unseen tactical advantage that the dark Queen just doesn't have the capability of ever having, no matter what basic strategy the dark Queen can ever devise, since at the core of the strategy that the "dark side" has, there is actually an unbeatable strategic advantage .. this is the reason why I'm only giving this game a rating of "4 out of 5 stars", since after I won .. once you've figured it out a winning strategy. The game loses it's novelty quite quickly .. with that being said, this game was quite popular in it's day in age, and I feel honored to have been granted the opportunity to give an honest review of this age-old classic.
FUN FACT! - Critics harshly criticized the rules of the game when it initially launched, however this didn't stop the game from becoming a worldwide success as history has shown.
[4/5 Stars] [GREAT!]
- by Dhat Siu
BLESSED BE!
King Jace puts down the short manual, and begins to enthusiastically dig around his castle to find his dusty old chess set .. he finds it! .. King Jace then runs around the castle to find wee lil Peppermint Butler, to solve a long running dispute they've had with each other .. King Jace and Peppermint Butler have had a long running game play rivalry with each other and have always enjoyed challenging each other with various games over the ages.
As is instructed in the manual, before they begin their game, they both pray and they call upon their higher guardians and the room becomes radiant in Divine, Loving Light filled energy .. it was apparent at this stage that the angels were bathing the room in immense divine Light, protecting them from demonic attack while they played the game .. "Ahh, so I understand now why the designer incorporated this into the game .. Brilliant!" King Jace says .. Peppermint butler shrugs, but nods his head in agreeance with King Jace, implying that he was a bit salty about this aspect.
King Jace chooses the side of the "Light Sentinels", since King Jace is always looking to challenge himself .. They each set up their pieces upon the game board, and begin playing .. at first, Peppermint Butler seems to have what appears to be the upper hand for a brief amount of time .. Peppermint Butler smiles a smug, crusty grin .. after some initial frustration, King Jace begins to grow slightly discouraged .. but suddenly, he stops himself to think .. as he is studying the game board he suddenly makes an important realization and everything comes together .. King Jace shouts:
King Jace shouts loudly, "AHA!!! I GOTCHYA BUDDY!" .. "LIGHT SENTINAL MODE ACTIVATED" .. King Jace immediately organizes his pieces in a particular way .. King Jace exclaims "BADDA BING, BADDA BOOM!"
After a few moves, King Jace quickly takes down the dark Queens piece and King Jace jumps up out of his seat rightfully proclaiming loudly "WINNER!" .. (He's already a King anyway.) "HAZA!" King Jace victoriously exclaims.
Now, at a loss for words, Peppermint Butler shouts a vapid, pitiful profane squelch from his dry, crusty lips and he the expression on his face begins to grimace a rather unique look of surprise and becomes juxtaposed and transfixed in what appears to be horrified paralysis, quite reminiscent of the dark King from the games story.
Being the sore loser that he is, Peppermint Butler makes a quick motion with his hand and gives King Jace the middle finger .. looking rather glum, Peppermint Butler sulks off and begins to walk out of the room with his tail between his legs .. King Jace begins grinning from ear to ear .. "I think we've finally settled this dispute, now haven't we my old rival?" .. You don't have to be so darn salty about it thought! .. King Jace motions a respectful salute with his fingers to Peppermint Butler as his long time rival walks off to do daily chores .. Peppermint Butler begins twitching slightly while walking out of the doorway .. Peppermint butler has always been a bit of a sore loser, but this game seemed to have an unforeseen spiritual impact.
King Jace collects the chessboard, and all the game pieces together and stashes "Showdown of the Light Knights" back in storage, after he cleanses all of the various game tools with the smoke of sage.