Review: White Knuckle
- Guilherme Ribeiro
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
Escalate as quickly as possible or accept the consequences.
THE GAME
White Knuckle is a parkour and horror game developed by Dark Machine Games and published by DreadXP. Climb through the most diverse and strange environments while a type of slime rises to chase you and pressure you to act quickly but accurately. Otherwise, accept your fate.
MY IMPRESSIONS
White Knuckle has a very unique dynamic: doing parkour while being chased by a slimy entity. You must quickly analyze which path to take to climb, being as careful as possible because one slip can make you fall and make things even more urgent. The climbing mechanics are simple, using the mouse, each button is equivalent to one of the hands, which are used to grab and climb. However, your hands will weaken if you stay grabbed for too long, which requires managing to grab with one hand while the other rests. You can also use momentum to swing and gain momentum, which helps you reach more distant platforms. There are also certain tools and items that can help you in your climb, such as iron bars or climbing pins that will help you reach places that you might not normally have access to. You can also buy these items from machines that appear during the game, if necessary. There are other dangers as you climb, but it's more fun if you discover them yourself. Just remember that not everything that looks like a rope is actually a rope. The main idea of the game is quite interesting and should attract many speedrunners, especially since the game itself gives you the option to set a timer so you can track your time. In my case, because the game is very frenetic and fast-paced, the movement in the game ends up causing me motion sickness, which means I can only play for short periods of time because it gives me headaches. If you have this problem, keep this in mind.
ACHIEVEMENTS
With a huge variety of different objectives, White Knuckle will keep you quite busy if you want to complete 100% of the achievements. These range from reaching certain heights while climbing, to using items and even dying in the most diverse and cruel ways the game allows. So get ready for a lot of climbing and encounters with strange creatures.
CONCLUSION
Unfortunately, I couldn't enjoy the game as much as I would have liked. I liked its premise ever since I discovered it, but the motion sickness prevented me from enjoying more of what the game has to offer. Still, I recognize the merits that White Knuckle has, with a very different idea that generates several desperate and, sometimes, funny situations. I always value developers who create games with different dynamics than what we see in the industry, because it shows that we still have room for creative and fun games.