The transfer to the new site required an excavation of all the deepest corners of the Knightmare online kingdom. What's more, the amount of hidden material that has been uncovered has been astonishing. Keith McDonald shares a few favourite finds, and spells a few hopes for the future of the site.

Something Old

Knightmare in 1987

I must begin with the final discovery, which, after two months of circumnavigation, was spotted only hours before the transfer took place. It is an article entitled 'Knightmare in 1987', previously found through only a single link in the old Series 1 overview page. The technical details complement the articles from Kellyvision and John Minson's 1987 article, Entering The World of TV Make Believe. It is interesting to learn, meanwhile, quite how literal the 'Travelling Matte Company' actually was (and what can be done with 12MB RAM). Also interesting are the allegations that Spaceward, a research company, infringed copyrights, as it reminds us what was at stake in the 1980s with projects like Knightmare in progress and the early symptoms of a digital revolution in place.

CiTV

A more significant underachiever might be the CiTV pages, found chiefly through a link on the Series Guide. Not only are these a rich source of nostalgia, but they also historicize Knightmare by placing it within the context of its feeder programme, its local (and quite addicted) crowd of presenters, and within children's television as a whole. We learn how much Knightmare meant to those who worked in the industry, and how iconic it became for the Autumn months. The pages hold value as CiTV represented the heart of children's programming and an age that, we are told, was ready to leave television behind for computer games. Did CiTV ever recover from the loss of Knightmare? We'll never know how long the loyal millions of Knightmare fans could have held off that demographic transition on their own. The CiTV pages for each year are now featured alongside the series guide for that year.

Le Chevalier du Labyrinthe

The French version of Knightmare, which produced over 100 episodes in only two years (1990-1992), wishes to make a 'coup de main' on Knightmare fans with its impressive section here on Knightmare.com. It has not customarily been the easiest to find, tucked deep in the 'Reviews' section. It includes some excellent images which show how French producers sought to build on Knightmare's Series 3 in the same authentic hand-drawn environment while the English sought out eyeshields and Forests of Dun. It has always been an intriguing question to me: if Knightmare's format had become more prolonged in Europe, would that have given the show enough impetus to survive beyond 1994? More material on Chevalier is forthcoming in the near future.

Interactive RPG

There is plenty to be said about the absence of RPG material on the site, given the extensive effort, energy and expense that went into creating three series' worth of material. However, that should not detract from the original game, which started from the ground with Adam Battersby. The synopsis work is surprisingly diverse and intuitive for an image and text based operation, and Tim Child himself was enticed into the Knightmare Chatroom to play in the early stages. There is a lot of fun following the occasionally expletive ridden textual journey, and a full second season of fifteen sessions definitely warrants attention.

Knightmare Magazine

This was probably the most unlikely and bizarre of discoveries. Accessed through the site via a single 'KM' link in the Adventurers Club page, the Knightmare Magazine was an early fanzine by Anton Benson, of which three issues (of an unknown total) plus a 'Mega Quiz' has survived digitally. They are reconstituted here in PDF for your viewing displeasure.

Choose Your Own

The Knightmare books established part of their folklore on players' choice adventures, carrying on the popular trend inspired by the likes of Ian Livingstone. Knightmare contributors, as you may expect, are no less remarkable. You have to see the scale of Anthony Thompson and Liam Callaghan's efforts to appreciate what an achievement these submissions are. On a similar note, all of the Knightmare books currently reside in the 'Reviews' section, when, ironically, there are no reviews for them. Submissions would be very welcome.

Knightmare in the 2000s

Why not end, ironically, with the new? How has Knightmare fared so far in the 21st Century? For long periods of the 'noughties', the exposure has been very promising. Knightmare was shown on Challenge TV from December 2002. The channel went on to purchase the rights to every season, and repeats continued into 2007. Shortly after Challenge's acquisition was announced, and in what could have been collaborative exposure, Tim Child's new company, Televirtual, fresh from their work on a new game, TimeGate, announced that they were working on a new format for Knightmare. A pilot for KMVR was released in 2004, but no series was commissioned. Nevertheless, Knightmare has continued to feature in nostalgic programming, appearing on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Kids' TV Shows (in a meritable 16th place), and on BBC4's analytical series Children's TV on Trial in 2007.

Something Old?

Apart from the small trinkets hidden to the eye that may now be found, what does 'Something Old' tell us? The quality of some of the material on Knightmare.com spells a clear message: that Knightmare has long continued to inspire heights of research, creativity, and achievement. It has led people to revolutionize their personal lives, and to become groundbreakers in their professional fields. Knightmare may be extant, but it is in no way extinct, and certainly not forgotten. The dawn of a new era of Knightmare.com intimates that the only way is onward... there is no turning back.

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