I played it.

"The Knight was recruited into the Spiral Order with the influence of another fellow Knight ... Due impact with the surface of this preceding planet, the Knight thought nothing of their career, but rather, had found a selfish interest into the particular; a helmet from a rather bulky man by the name of Saxton Hale, seemingly from the other dimension of mercenaries thought to be called 'Team Fortress 2'. And so, wandering the lands of which the Knight crashed, they found the Knight Recon mentioned as 'Rhendon' and a few rather semi-fluid and subdued beast-like creatures - the Knight had fought a 'real' opponent.

After reaching this so called 'Rescue Camp', found to be slightly inhabited ... quickly lost interest after seeing the camp to be empty once returning the power. At this point, the game held on by not a thread, but a rope of the deluded Knight, as they continued exerting within their other dimension. Very quickly, however, their career as a Knight would ravage their mind, continuously bringing them back to the world of wandering energy, finally crossing the chasm to the grasslands of the unknown, later known as... Haven.

They had not discovered the helmet previously foretold, however, the Knight was learning more and more, and as crowded as Haven was, only brought more motivation to the newly titled Apprentice. Their knowledge was questionable, but they soon learned of the mysteries below known as the Clockworks - They now knew where to look. Along the way, they had found the other Knight whom insisted them to join the Order, and fought alongside one another until they earned the titles of Knight Elite, where, unfortunately, upon finding the helmets, the other Knight met their drastic end and quickly returned to the nothingness... never to be seen again.

But the land of Jellies was this Knight's new motivation. The other dimension was nothing to the Knight now.
Taking advice from Veterans of the Order, they gradually pushed themselves through the Jelly Palace, learning more about how enemies attack, how to defend and dodge, methods used to quickly disperse them - until, finally, they could manage the runs themselves. Their confidence was high, barely passing through each time, earning more crowns to convert into Crystal Energy to continue moving through the Palace, with little profit each time. They grew in knowledge, until there was few left to explore.

Finally, the Knight claimed the title of Defender, just before the acclaimed influx of oddities known as Battle Sprites today, and the overhaul of all Mist Energy, after years of research; the Order designed the system of powering elevators and the functionality of Knight's suits to be infused with the Mist Energy, powering the elevators and allowing the use of a new mechanic - Emergency Revives. This was a major factor in changing the Knight's perspective onto the world, allowing for more things to be tested, more things to explore, more... of everything.

Everything this world had to offer was embedded within the Knight's head as they approached the title of Vanguard. There wasn't quite anything that they couldn't figure out... And yet, to this day, that Knight is still learning new things, wandering the slowly decaying lands of Haven and the Clockworks, until, somewhere in the future,
There is nothing
To explore and
All that is left
Is the Knight's heart"

TLDR: A friend introduced me to this game for the hat to TF2, he lost interest after getting it, but it only motivated me to keep going rather than stop. And besides, at least, the community back then for SK was wonderfully better compared to TF2, and, as I assume, where Lockdown wasn't a huge mess of 'those' players.

Saw this on Kong as a f2p MMORPG and then I started playing. Loved the art style and the simple gameplay instantly adored it.

My older brother had played the game at college and came for the summer. He practically beat the game there and had no friends to play with so he got me and my other brothers playing. I was almost instantly hooked. The grinding didn't even bother me. I got frustrated at times, but the game had me. I still love it and its community to this very date. (Though I don't play as much)

taking refugee at the Rescue Camp after regrouping with the Red Recon Knight, Rhendon
See I never did that. Rhendon confused me for the longest time, as did the artifact. I never recovered an artifact and everyone was going on about this thing that I never recovered while I'm standing around in my accessory-less proto armor like "what".

But in all seriousness, my situation was very similar to Octolash's. Was on a Mac, when Steam had first come out for Mac, and not many games were available. Saw Spiral Knights for free, and I jumped to it. The fact that it had stuff for Team Fortress 2, another one of the sparse Mac Steam games at the time, made it a plus. Then I just got hooked, after a while took a long break, then came back to it a year or so ago.

Honestly I think Spiral Knights came out at a great time on Steam... But they jumped the gun on making Spiral Knights work on Steam on Linux machines when Linux started being supported on Steam.

Saw an ad for SK in 2011 and thought "ehhh this looks dumb".
Found it again in February and thought "didn't this game die?", so I downloaded it and now I'm hooked.

Thanks to the flash game site Kongregate, I found this. (It also hosts a lot of other online games.) Spiral Knights, out of hundreds, was the fourth most famous Multiplayer game, which pretty much made it permanently ingrained on the front page. When scrolling over it, it had a screenshot of graphics which I could TOTALLY get into. Not only that, but you just don't see a lot of LIVE action games around (It's about "click to stab to loot to win and maybe press Num1-10 for skills" games. [this was before pets, or even missions were invented]).
Not to mention the fact that it was the loveliness of the simpleness that was both attractive AND FPS safe (Using a laptop doesn't help with online games. :T).

Randomly found it on steam Good time waster!

Saw someone's post on another forum about having played this game soon after it's release. so I decided to check it out for myself...

I was really bored before school was going to start in the fall (2011). I went to miniclip.com for the first time in several years or so. I saw an ad, and tried it out.

I came for a hat, stayed for a game.......

https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Spiral_Sallet

I'm pretty sure I was searching google for free mmo's when I found this. Just so happened to be the first week that game was out and I didn't even know it was a new game till after I installed it, started playing and was going through the forums for more info about the basics of how to play. Overall, so happy I lucked out into finding this 3.5 years ago.

Kongregate introduced me to it, and I came back after a year or a half. On and off ever since, and consistently belittling players who think they know about the game when they don't is what keeps me coming back, if not the updates and events.

And of course, Guilds.

I remember joining the game when it was first released. I still have the same character and everything. Which bothers me, by the way. I hate my character's name, but I can't change it. And I refuse to delete since I've played like 133 hours on it.

I don't remember how I discovered SK, except that somehow I eventually had a 4* pistol in my inventory and no recipe or anything spent on it. I really don't remember how I got it. Anyway, the art style at the time charmed me. And the stellar soundtrack hit all the right notes, pun intended.

I miss the old system, before the Energy Overhaul. My four-star gear didn't need fire crystals to level up back then, it just leveled up. That made it a lot easier to grind out better gear. Oh well. I still have my goal of achieving 5* gear.

Jelly King helmet, Acheron, Barbarous Thorn Shield, and Skolver Coat. Once I have that, I'll be done.

I hate my character's name, but I can't change it.
Actually, at a price, you can change your knight name! After you get all the gear you need you can work towards getting that pass if you still want to play the game.

EDIT: And my glory was stolen by Neometal. Ah, well!

My friends talked me into playing it despite the fact my computer could barely run it at the time.

I was only here for the free Spiral Sallet, which turned out crap.

I was having my cousin, a computer wizard, over from the nearby city to help me upgrade my computer one day. We chatted happily, having known each other for pretty much all of my life, and laboriously transferred electronical organs from a 1994 Gateway premade computer case, which my frankenstein of a system had once been, to a custom box with glowing lights and plastic windows, the smell of heatsink paste heavy in the air as the system was lifted to new heights, processor, motherboard, graphics card, RAM, all fresh and modern. As the last thumbscrew fastened the display panel into the main body of the case, and the lights came on, I was happy. My cousin opened up his laptop and turned on a game.

Spiral Knights was not released yet, and what I found myself looking at was a closed beta. My cousin's knight spawned in at the main entrance of the Arcade, and he immediately fell into familiar patterns of socializing and passing the time. The aesthetics of the game intrigued me, having always been into that steampunk sort of look, heavy machinery and brass pipes, cogs and boilers... and I'd been introduced to Japanese culture very early in life, so the cutesy nature of the knights barely phased me. I questioned him about the game, and he offered to send me an invite to the beta.

I was immediately charmed by the game, entertained by the solid feeling combat and the modernized topdown presentation. It reminded me vaguely of a very well made Flash game, made of good materials and polished to an inviting glint. I needed only take my journey through the relatively simple tutorial level, and as I arrived in Haven's town square, not an auction house in sight, I was hooked. From then to the end of the beta I played most every day, though I wasn't good at it, and managed to defeat the Jelly King before all was reset. I never did get a new Cutter...

Really, what's always enthralled me most is the world itself. A clockwork planet, made of countless fragments of other worlds. The cosmopolitan passages all whirring with machinery intrigued me at every turn, and as I played I asked many questions about what made things as they are. Why is there a race of cat ghosts? Who is Tinkinzar? What in all the stars IS the Core? These have all been more or less answered, but more keep arising. Though the people making this game have stated they don't put much emphasis on story, I saw all the points on the canvas unite in a brilliant harmony, and the many creatures and locales of the Clockworks haunt my imagination even today!

Despite having a lot of more fun games now, and despite the development going down the toilet on the slow spiral of production pressure, Spiral Knights has and does hold a special place in my heart. I knew it was special from the time I first laid my eyes on it all those years ago, and even if it dies, the story will live on in me.

JUST like onions. And the Swarm is the little green things that sprouted out when it was left in the sun.

" I came for a hat, stayed for a game.......

https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Spiral_Sallet "

That one