Knights in Tight Spaces

Knights in Tight Spaces from developer Ground Shatter and Raw Fury is an exceptional game that shows how well a turn-based card game can be when given a thick amount of strategy from good gameplay design and a branching story to help push it all along. While it isn’t perfect, it’s still a bar set for future games in this genre.

Knights in Tight Spaces takes all the good ideas of its predecessor and not only adapts them to a fantasy setting but builds on them in interesting ways.

Knights in Tight Spaces is a perfect blend of roguelike and deck builder, providing impactful combat and engaging gameplay. Fans of either genre will feel right at home playing the game.

After Fights in Tight Spaces, here is the sequel to the tactical card game, but in a fantasy setting with improvements, where it's also a pleasure to deal blows.

Knights in Tight Spaces is a very worthy sequel to Fights in Tight Spaces. Not every new gameplay mechanic hits the mark, but there are enough fresh cards, fresh features, and fresh concepts to make it a genuine delight to play. The party opens up a whole new degree of freedom, and creating a Rube Goldberg machine of chained attacks is fun enough that it could be a game all on its own. Besides, who doesn't like hitting evil skeletons with lightning?

Card battle games offer endless replayability, with little chance of things getting stale because the combinations of cards in a particular situation are unpredictable. Knights in Tight Places has solid and very enjoyable core systems and mechanics. The combat is fun and the new art style helps sell the new setting. The story was perfunctory but it got the action where it needed to go. If card battle games are your go-to genre, you’ll enjoy Knights in Tight Spaces. If you’ve never played this kind of game, it’s an easy one to start with, welcoming to new players and very satisfying to veterans.

Like Fights before it, Knights in Tight Spaces is the kind of game where it's easy to lose track of time. The story will have you reaching for the Skip button by the time you go on your 10th or 20th run, but there's nothing repetitive about the formula, especially as battles get more intense with tougher foes. It turns out that even when the clock is dialed back a few dozen centuries, close quarters fighting is still a grand old time.

Knights in Tight Spaces has a core combat loop strong enough to carry the entire package and more than compensates for the hit-and-miss progression and the trite story. It constantly creates tactical puzzles that make you feel like a genius for escaping an impossible situation or a mastermind for pulling off a carefully laid trap. With a great sense of style and a banging soundtrack, Knights in Tight Spaces is a tough but fair tactical roguelike that will constantly have you playing just one more turn.

It takes too long to grow beyond its predecessor, but once it does Knights in Tight Spaces is an engaging and tactical roguelike deckbuilder.

Knights in Tight Spaces offers a creative approach to combining tactical strategy and deckbuilding in dynamic and claustrophobic combat. Despite an engaging combat system, the lack of diversity in challenges can make the journey predictable over time. Still, for those who enjoy strategic battles and deckbuilding mechanics, the game offers rewarding moments, especially when mastering positioning and emerging unscathed from seemingly impossible situations.

At times, Knights in Tight Spaces feels like two steps forward and one hop back where it counts.

I enjoy Knights in Tight Spaces, but also feel like the game could use a few balancing patches and updates before it hits that roguelike sweet spot. With a few adjustments, this could be a sequel that is the equal of the original Fights in Tight Spaces. For now, it’s just an entertaining game that might put you in a situation where you can’t excel or, in some situations, really win.

For the handful of shortcomings it has, Knights In Tight Spaces is still a worthy successor to Fights In Tight Spaces, and the first deckbuilder to really catch my attention in 2025. Hopefully, this franchise will do what all the best action movies do, and continue to spawn sequel after sequel; after all, everyone loves a good fight scene.

For too much of your playtime, then, the game's charms seem like nothing more than a distant fantasy. [Issue#409, p.120]

And yet I spent quite a bit of time with this, because when things are going well, Knights in Tight Spaces feels just as satisfying as its cool predecessor ... I just hope developer Ground Shatter will streamline the concept a little to ensure quicker battles, speed up the start a little and make the game a little less restrictive on the meta level.

Slightly above average or simply inoffensive. Fans of the genre should enjoy them a bit, but a fair few will be left unfulfilled.

Knights in Tight Spaces expands on every part of the Fights in Tight Spaces template, but an abundance of new ideas swamps the clarity the original game had.

For me, there's just not quite "enough" here to call this an ambitious sequel, and the lack of distractions from the otherwise solid loop made the loop a bit monotonous in the long run.

Knights in Tight Spaces blends tactics and deckbuilding with strategic combat and a unique style. Unfortunately, a clunky UI and unbalanced decks cause frustration. With some tweaks, it could become a classic, but for now, it feels unfinished.