Knightmare a la Maison

If I was to reboot the series I would want to lean into plot lines for the characters in the way they began to touch on in series 6 and series 7. In this Knightmare what or who would you be/like to see? I've made a start by coming up with a profile for a new original character as an example. What would yours be? Names Corvus the Green Corvus the Wanderer Attire Green and brown robes with a hood. Usually carries a staff but sometimes a wand. Family Prodigal son of Hordriss the Confuser. Elder brother of Sidriss the Confused. Residence Usually found in levels 1 and 2. Home is a tower in the Green Wood, overlooking Wolfenden. Alignment While technically neutral Corvus despises Lord Fear and endeavours to keep opposition forces out of level 1. Corvus sometimes enters level 2 at Greystag's request to hunt and drive off opposition forces. Relationships Corvus will not work with his father but is very close to his sister and very protective of her. Corvus disproves of Hordriss pushing Sidriss into becoming a sorceress when the vocation is clearly not for her. Corvus is respected by many as a result of his work fighting the opposition though his work has led to him being used as something of a blunt instrument by Queen Greystag. Corvus however respects Greystag’s rank as Queen of the Grey Sisters. Corvus respects Treguard but believes he has grown too old and cautious to effectively lead the Powers that Be. Corvus frequently teams up with Gwendoline the Green Warden to root out Opposition Forces in the woodlands of Level 1. Elita is careful never to insult Corvus making him somewhat unique. There are hints that on their first meeting Elita was in fact her usual self but that something occurred that caused her to show more respect in subsequent encounters. Motley has been known to annoy Corvus leading to the latter spellbinding him on occasion. Corvus frequently harasses Julius Scaramonger for his deceitful trading practices and is convinced the merchant is dealing in black magic goods for Lord Fear. Corvus frequently uses Ah Wok and Rothberry to source rare magical items for unknown purposes in exchange for providing potions and charms for them to sell. Corvus admires the determination of dungeoneers and is pleased to help them thwart Lord Fear but sells his skills in exchange for magical clue objects. Abilities Corvus has mastered many forms of magic on his travels and so the Opposition hold no fear for him though he does fear for those who cannot defend themselves as he can. Corvus possesses a ring of power which among other things allows him to reveal causeway codes and passwords. Corvus will not use or trade in Spell Casting spells as he sees them as a dumbing down of true sorcery. Backstory Corvus fell out with his father many years ago as Hordriss began to pressure Sidriss into becoming a sorceress, a vocation to which Corvus knew she was unsuited. At this time Hordriss also showed clear favouritism towards his daughter and so ultimately Corvus left to explore other lands. When Corvus eventually returned to find all levels of the dungeon riddled with Opposition forces he set about hunting them down and driving them out of the upper levels, quickly earning the respect of their residents and of Queen Greystag. Corvus blames his father and Treguard for allowing Lord Fear’s virtual conquest of the Dungeon Realm and so avoids contact with both. Something happened to Corvus on his travels which apparently left him greatly changed though he does not speak about it.

As an older teenager myself, I think this sounds awesome. The characters seem pretty intriguing. I especially like the idea of leaning more into the dungeon as an entity, and the idea of trying to communicate or reason with it. The dungeon is dangerous enough as just a place, but it's always thrilling when the land around you consciously and actively wants you dead. Thank you, this is really helpful!

Obviously the concept of a Knightmare "champion of champions" is purely hypothetical, but it's interesting that it assumes the eight winning teams would automatically be eligible, plus a couple of "nearly" teams. But would that actually provide the best selection of teams? After much deliberation i created a list of "Knightmare's top ten teams" and ironically only five of the eight winning teams were on that list. I actually rated several losing teams higher than the winning team from their respective series. Ok, maybe that sounds absurd, but it takes into account the fact that certain losing teams were excellent teams who either made a single mistake in level 3 or were extremely unlucky, whereas several winning teams had fairly unchallenging quests or in one case had several blatant reprieves which effectively guaranteed that they would win. (Admittedly these inconsistencies are down to the producers, not the teams.) Losing (or undefeated) teams that i rate as better than some of the winning teams include: Leo S3 T4 (in my opinion, the finest Knightmare team ever) Martin S3 T11 Giles S4 T8 Sophia S6 T6 Nathan S8 T3 There were a few other losing teams who narrowly missed out as well.

I'd like to see a new season where lord fear has 'won', castle Treyguard lies in ruins, and by and large, the entire land is under his control. Hi segaz. You might be interested in The Techno Colour Tales, available here; - https://dunshelmplayers.wordpress.com/dramas/the-techno-colour-tales/ The series sets up a full-length sequel play that is indeed set in an Orwellian-type 'dystopian future' of the Knightmare universe, although at present, that's in development limbo due to sheer lack of available time to record and mix it. It could still be made, mind you. It was originally going to be called Knightmare-Eighty-Four, but we came to realise that it suggested other things. The working title now is Tech-Topia.

The only time I liked the eye shield was the end of episode 1 in series 7 where Simon was in the dwarf tunnel. It should have been used in more scenarios like this.

OK, I can't believe I haven't done this yet! Annie already specified Treguard, Lord Fear and Lissard... so that saves me having to use one of my spaces for Lissard. Five more I'd like to see back are: Motley - always my favourite character. He's funnier than Folly (and the acting's a bit better), and I wasn't keen on Sylvester the Jester - I've no idea what they were trying to do with that character. Paul Valentine's a great actor and I loved him as Sly Hands, but if I had to choose, I'd say Motley. Greystagg - as has been said before. I like her neutral stance and the fact that she could aid Dungeoneers, but be almost deadly too (although she never killed anyone, so...). She was played well, and there's much more they could have done with her. Hordriss - although I preferred his more neutral stance from series 4 ('bad' Hordriss in series 3 didn't work for me and 'pure' Hordriss in series 8 also didn't!). We developed, once, an updated version of Hordriss for Knightmare RPG - a return to his unaligned stance, but he still rewarded winning teams with trophies, as it was such a rare occurrence. Something like that would be good. Someone Dangerous - there needs to be, somewhere, a constant threat: a genuinely dangerous character who could and would kill a Dungeoneer. I don't like Skarkill very much, so who else? Snapper-Jack? Raptor? Cedric? Automatum? Personally, I'd invent someone new to do this, but I'm sure there's somebody threatening enough to be so. Daisy - I'm of the opinion, really, that Treguard needs an assistant. Both Pickle and Majida have had their time, and for what it's worth, I liked Daisy! Other characters I'd like to see come back include Smirkenorff, Hands, Merlin, Theodora, Greystagg, Bartram, the Grimwolds, Garstang, and Stiletta! I'm very tempted, obviously, to include Robin as well...

Just wondering whether there are enough new ideas to make Knightmare work. Hugo Myatt said in 1994 he thought it could run for at least another couple of series. But most of the suggestions I've come across seem to revolve around 'improved graphics' or a debate about VR. What about the actual gameplay, if we assume the quintessential helmet remains? Should the reach wand become a drone controlled by a team member, for example (or perhaps that was for the Satellite Game?!). More centrally, somewhere I read that Tim Child said during Series 8 that (four series on) the Corridor of Blades was the best test they had for a co-ordination challenge. Is that still the case today?

It seems to me that 'going back' could actually benefit the quality of quests, and that it could be managed in a controlled way. Not least by rockfalls, pursuing opposition and other factors that make going back obviously not an option in many scenes. But also by having several transporter pads, and perhaps a token system to use them. I just think this could add something useful to the quests if thought through in a way that permits some revisiting of characters and places without, of course, making the quest repetitive or tedious for the audience.

I think they could have gone up in the forest, sort of Go Ape meets Knightmare (in a gentle way). You could have had the Opposition in some sort of log castle up there, and it would have enabled more physical puzzles with swinging and balancing etc - obviously nothing too dangerous or high up though.

I thought Pickle was quite nice and helpful even when he was being naughty [in Treguard's view]. Majida was more like a strict school teacher to me and i think she treated Treguard like a child a bit. I guess everyone sees things differently. I like Daisy as well. Feel we need more elves in the dungeon! Please Tim can we have some more....... elves? What about an Elf magican who was trained by Merlin.

I understand that the advisors will see the blades via the eye shield but why can't the dungeoneer face the rear while holding the shield in front of them? That way the directions wouldn't be backwards. Apologies if I'm misunderstanding you - it's been a long week I was thinking towards the backwards directions being the whole point, though you've just pointed out the one stumbling block with that concept. For this idea to work there would need to be a genuine reason why the dungeoneer can't simply turn around and tackle the the problem that way, and I can't tbink of one Since posting that idea I also realised that if the dungeoneer were to simply rotate the shield round his arm so that it still faces outwards when held to his back, the shield (and therefore the video feed) would be upside-down. To get the shield to be the right way around he/she would have to take the shield off his arm, flip it over and then put it back on - a fiddly process that he or she simply might not have the time to actually perform.

Yeah, I know a revival is extremely unlikely at this point, but still - can be fun to brainstorm, so... Here's my current thoughts on one (The TL;DR version - Basically the riddles of S1-2, the floor puzzles of S5-8, and the presentation of S3 combined into one, while using motion capture for a sort of live puppetteering to allow for more dynamic monsters and less human looking characters if that's technologically feasible) Overview: Knowledge, navigation, problem solving and quick-wits are the primary things that I feel a revival should test. Possibly 'and interaction' but it's difficult to actually test that as opposed to allowing teams to screw themselves over if they choose to, though stuff like Cheer Up The Gargoyle is a fun, if fairly insignificant in terms of challenge, obstacle. Riddles: Not necessarially just be in the form of characters asking questions, and certainly shouldn't require as high a percentage as S3 (Nor should there be nearly as many as it felt S4 had). A winning quest should be possible without resorting to luck or exceptional amounts of roleplay with around a 75% success rate across all riddles, though the allowed mistakes should lean towards the early levels. About 8 riddles total - including stuff like scrolls hinting but not stating what should be taken - feels right. Floor Puzzles: Should be present, and should involve puzzles rather than just the password/solution of the S5 and (occasional) S6 causeways. Can be used for pure navigation tests (Causeways with passwords), and probably for pure problem solving tests. Life Force: Should exist as a soft clock, that can be used to force teams who made an error causing damage but not death to do something a little challenging to continue (Food in a bomb room, dodging a to get a pie, etcetera, or just navigate an otherwise simple for the level challenge quickly) and to act as a timer for the end game. Tension only comes with peril, so teams should be able to starve to death, but it actually happening should be extremely rare and, outside of using it as a time limit during the end game, only actually possible if a team made a mistake that causes life force damage but not death. Story Structure: As much as I love Lord Fear as a character, the early year's more exploritory nature rather than defined alliances feels more interesting, and allows for more nuanced characters - Hordriss could be ally or enemy in the early years, but even before he joined the Powers that Be properly once Lord Fear came aboard Treguard had to admit that he usually chose to align himself with the Powers that Be rather than the Opposition, a far removal from his 'Dark Grey' origins. I think either approach is valid, to be honest, but have a slight preference towards the former than the latter. Look and Feel: You should be able to compromise between the beautiful, hand drawn, environments of S1-3 and the benefits of CGI to change camera angles (Seen, iirc, in S8) via what I've seen referred to as 2.5d matt paintings which I believe is projecting a mat painting onto a rudimentary, simple, 3d archetecture. The eye shield should be absent, it just slowed proceedings down. If it's desired to bring things out of the dungeon more than the Dwarf Tunnel's of S3 did (And even they slowed proceedings down somewhat), just do it by stating that doors and threshholds are magical portals within the dungeon dimension, where you leave from here and wind up... There. Sometimes there is a mere room away, as you would define geography, other times the distance spans what you would view as entire continents, or even further. (This also can be used to 'explain' inconsistencies in the layout of the dungeon) Difficulty: I'd mainly make Level 1 a series of introductory exercises, warming the team up for the actual challenges of Level 2 and 3, but also test the essentials - An unprompted clueroom with an obvious red herring (possibly a literal one, as some S1-2 teams got, more likely a weapon) here, a slightly tricky navigation challenge such as diagonal gap path in S3. Stuff that's fundamental to a successful journey, but in a way that nothing should result in the death of more than about 10-20% of teams. The bulk (Entirity?) of the allowance of wrongly answered riddles should be here. I think ideally about half, maybe a slim majority, of dungeoneers should die in Level 2. If there are 13 quests over the course of a season, the difficulty should be catered so that about 7-8 will die in level 2, around 2-3 in level 1 (Which, as I indicated, should basically just be stuff that they should be able to do but which they might slip up on due to the pressures of a studio environment) and of the 3 teams who make it to level 3 only one should win. Don't force the issue on any team via making it particularly hard because there's already been a winner or particularly easy because there hasn't. And select for personality and ability to interact with characters as well as problem solving, some of the early dungeoneers were... Very awkward when interacting with characters. Sometimes painfully so. Season End: Editing the boring bits but into a coherent view of the game, possibly across a couple of quests (So you just don't show a team who successfully navigated a causeway and then died in the next room of something else crossing the causeway, for example), but showing the entirity of any winning quest, and the vast majority of all quests, to fit the entirity of the final quest into the episode length constraints you have rather than cutting a quest short (S4) or god forbid including short cuts, however brutal the challenge on the short cut is. Other: I think it's possible to do live motion capture, these days. Virtual puppetteering, if you will. If so, this can and should be used in a revival, to allow more interactive monsters than the giant animals of the past and less human-like characters than the slight bit of monster makeup.

Absolutely BRILLIANT IDEA!!!! (says the Russian) celebrity shows always boost the popularity of the non-celebrity counterparts.... this could be a really good boost to the knowledge of Knightmare among the general people.... you- are- a- genius

I have come up with my idea for a darker Knightmare. Check it out on Fan Creations; some of you may like it even though the team's a bit dense to find out that much about the place.

There's a guy where I live who looks EXACTLY like Sylvester Hands! Maybe if said actor isn't available I can ask old Frank

I can add the list with the Boot Street Gang, Grange Hill and Uncle Jack and the Snow Spider trilogy. There's a T.Bag one out there too but it goes for silly money.

Definitely not! As the maintainer of the BBK website, I see all the comments that get sent in for the petition. Almost every single one is a strong opinion of what a new season of Knightmare should be like. Very few of them agree and fewer still actually provide a sensible reason for the justification. The problem is that you just cannot isolate individual facets of the show. For example: Due to the level of technology used in season 8, combined with the 'medieval' perspective of the show, you could make a season 9 of Knightmare identical in style to season 8. But because technology has moved on so far, you could just as easily make an even more technologically advanced, better graphics version. The idea of a dungeoneer wearing a helmet is classic to Knightmare. But let's not forget that it was mostly accidental. The original requirement of the helmet was because the dungeoneer could not see the dungeon. But with VR helmets, advanced computer systems and FPS games, that's no longer the case. The dungeoneer COULD see the environment. So do you keep it 'retro' or do you advance the technology? Does that decision change if you consider your answer to question 1, above? If your dungeoneer can see the dungeon, does that affect the number of advisors? After all, you don't need anyone to guide you if you can navigate around yourself. The questions really go on. Whatever your answer to one question, another three spring up. Unless you were to keep things exactly as they were (which, let's face it, you wouldn't), the tree of possibilities just becomes far too difficult to manage. The questions go on whatever method. Now... I'm not saying we should, in general I seem to find shows that the creators have a certain distance from the fandoms tend to come off better (which isn't to say that audience reactions are a bad thing, or that creators should never communicate/etc with fans, but... Look at the mess that 'listening to the fans' made of Heroes, for example) Saying that: I'd go with a combination of 3d environments and handdrawn ones. I believe the term is '2.5d matte paintings', where a matte painting is overlayed onto a simple 3d model, allowing dynamic camera movement within a matte painting - Thus getting the hand drawn goodness of the first three seasons combined with the ability to do dynamic camera angles which I believe has been stated was the reason for the shift to CGI environments. Also - A dungeoneer that can see the dungeon seems to not quite work 'right', based on the KMVR pilot, in my view. Keep the three level rolling structure, and don't go for live I think. Either reinstate the life force to its dominance in the first three seasons or drop it and come up with other methods of hurrying teams along. And there shouldn't be any filler rooms (And I think I'd include dwarf tunnels as in S3 in that category, if you want to go for the more varied vista, just call them 'magic portals connecting there to here, sometimes there is is a single room away from here, othertimes a continent', and I'd certainly include Eye Shield segments in that.)

The idea puts me in mind of Dungeon Keeper.. And even then, the Dungeon Advisor always made me think of Treguard, right from the very first, "Welcome, Keeper.."

It has to be Treyguard. It always has been him and it will always be him.

The trouble is that Jackanory was still immensely popular, meaning a guaranteed large audience. Whilst Knightmare was popular in its day it currently has a following that could only really be considered a niche market and as such would probably be a big financial risk for anyone to take on. Although I do of course love the idea of a new version of Knightmare (if it's done right) I seriously think our efforts would be better spent pushing for more repeats. At least if we could get them shown on a more mainstream channel it might interest more bigwigs in putting in the cash for a new series.