Trivia!
1. One of the earliest designs for the game was called Avatar/Nemesis. It would have played very similarly to the current game but allowed players to power up at various points and become and 'Avatar' that protected protected the party, or a 'Nemesis' that betrayed or stalked parties. It was a neat idea and then, well, Demon's Souls was announced.
2. Early on, the Spiral Knights looked much more like conventional space marines (only cuter). Making them knight-like came a bit later when we determined the space marine look was too generic. Eventually they became 'tech knights.' That name stuck for a long time and to this day they are often referred to as 'tech knights' internally.
3. The stone puppy in the south west corner of the Haven Town Square is named 'Monomi.'
4. Gremlins were not always intended to be a monster that you could fight, but (in part) rather a means of explaining the existence of the Clockworks. We all agreed it would be cool to make them main characters and my original design for them were constructs that had faces like tools: wrenches, screwdrivers, etc. Ian took them in a different direction and I think we're all the better for it.
5. Back when the Spiral Knights were still space marines, the design called for heavy use of 'food' or items that were desired by monsters and could be used to distract them. Giant bees wanted honey comb and carnasaurs wanted meat. Players could carry them (like lift objects) and attract hordes of monsters while the rest of the party sneak past them. We eventually came to terms with the fact that when you give a player a weapon, they will always try to solve problems with it. Food is ignored and monsters are just attacked.
6. The pickup bar at the top of the screen and the vitapods are in the game as a result of my affection for Shiren the Wanderer and other rougelikes. I like the experience of 'leveling up' with every dungeon run and finding an assortment of tools.
7. The oldest surviving tileset (environment) in the game is sky islands (day time) and the oldest levels are the Aurora Isles.
8. The oldest surviving monster is the spookat. Spookats inhabited the earliest working prototype of SK we ever built. Sadly, this prototype no longer exists in a place that is easily accessible.
9. Haven's original look resembled something similar to a Ald'ruhn from The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind. As you might imagine, it really didn't look right. Thank goodness we hired Cory!
10. There's lots of secrets in the game, many that we will unveil as we continue to develop the world. However there is one that players see every day that so far as we've seen, no one has ever figured it out. Curious!
As for #10: You are such a tease, you know that?
Still really neat trivia that I doubt anyone knows. I totally figured out #7 a while back though, it's just kind of a feeling you get when you compare those levels to the current ones.