24/02/2026 : Wow ! A blog ?! (main inspirations and stuff)

hi. This is KPWU, the developper of Knight Lobster. I want to start making regularish blogposts about the development of this game... so i'll try. bear with me !
I wanted to do this first one to speak about the big inspirations behind knight lobster (and my creative process in general) and the philosophy of this goddamn piece of shit i call a game.
Years ago, by chance, one way or another, I stumbled on a little game called Mu Cartographer. It was on 100% sale at the time, so i played it, and i think it like, fundamentally changed something about me. The game is somewhat basic : You are presented with a 3d map, similar to a mountain range. Over the screen, you see controls and vials, which are all unlabeled. As you tinker with those, you start to understand what they do. You start to piece together the goal of the game, and its story via travel logs left by characters. In the end, the unfamiliar and unparseable world of the game becomes understandable, familiar, even comfortable. This feeling is one I find very interesting, and aim to the best of my abilities to reach in Knight Lobster, but also in most of my creative works in general.
So you know La Mulana. Probably... If you don't, you should immediately play the og freeware version. It's a metroidvania in which you explore a giant set of ruins. The game is known for its very cryptic and difficult, sometimes unclear puzzles... Yeah. Yeah this is a big influence. Yeah I will include some of that in Knight Lobster. Yep. A big part of La Mulana is the very interconnected world. Comprised of a bit more than 20 areas, quite a few puzzles require you to think about how they fit together, and the general structures of the ruins. A lot of the game can also be done non-sequentially : you could for exemple clear the first area in last. (Un)fortunately, Knight Lobster is desperately linear. It's a goddamn fucking tower, not a sprawling set of ruins. The last big point about La Mulana is its sheer hostility towards the player. Not as in thousands of enemies, but rather... like, you need to buy the save system. The map system is complicated to even access. It's one of these games, and I love it, and I will try to replicate that. Worry not, for there will be a manual, but be-fucking-ware.
Shin Megami Tensei is pretty big. You know it, you know persona, that's SMT baby. I played SMT 1 when I was in highschool, and then again in uni, and then again now, and it's a game I like a lot. The atmosphere is incredible, just the perfect blend of too real and dream-like. The exploration also really gets me in a very comfortable rhythm... And it's a big inspiration to me in general, especially the cathedral, which is very much my favourite dungeon in any game ever. But a game that is more relevant to Knight Lobster is probably Shin MEgami Tensei 4 (and 4 apocalypse.) These two games are probably among the games I played the most ever. The thing that I really, really love about them is the combat. It's fast paced, fluid, strategic, and unforgiving. SMT4A especially pulls this off incredibly well, with it's gimmicky but very thought out and strategic bosses.
I Really Like David Lynch. Somehow I only discovered his filmography like, a year or so ago. It's criminal, I know ! I knew who he was and some of the things he did, but it's only recently that I watched his films (and twin peaks), and it's... It's like I Get It. I understand it. Inland Empire is one of my favourite movies ever... What really strikes me as interesting is the way he kind of... refuses to conform to viewer expectations. A lot of his works revolve around central questions, but their answer is never the focus of the work, instead focusing more on how these questions affect the lives of people. This can be seen in Twin Peaks (in which he originally never intended to reveal who killed Laura Palmer), but also in Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire... The sheer absurdity of his works is also one I really really like. Just some all around bullshit (in the most endearing way possible). I too, want to make some fucking bullshit. Rest in peace Mr Lynch.
You've heard of LSD dream emulator. Who hasn't heard of LSD dream emulator. The poster child of wierd japanese games. What were they one duuude what did they smooooke. But the work of Osamu Sato I find more interesting is Eastern Mind : the Lost souls of Tong Nou. Its a point and click adventure game about an island that steals souls, and so you, soulless, set out to that island to recover their soul. And in doing that, you die a lot. Not because the game is hard, but because when dying you will be reincarnated into nine different beings, all with their own story and goal to complete. Multiple puzzles require you to either know info from other lives, or items from other lives. In total, it makes for a very fun game that makes you feel really smart. A huge par of it is also the worldbuilding. The world building is all centred around the number 5 : there are five elements, five lands, ten (5x2) playable characters... And it makes for a very rewarding and cohesive worldbuilding. You can bet your ass that almost all the things I make are influenced by that now...

So... What of Knight Lobster ? I said I'd talk about the philosophy of that game, no ? That's now. Knight Lobster is a game I want to be hostile. I want it to be unexplained, vague yet too precise. It's a game of perceptions as well : a key thing in this game is the fact that what you see on the game screen is not what the characters see or a rendition of it, but rather they interpretation of the world around them, after being taken by their numerous biases. I wonder what reality is like... But, well, that's all I'll say on that matter.
A thing you may have seen in the works I talked about above is also hostility towards the player. Incomprehension not as a medium, but as a goal in and of itself. If you've played the demo, you've very likely seen that. I want this game to be complex, but to let players discover that complexity, to let them get submerged wholly by it. It's an exercise in interpretation, confrontation with reality. There is no ultimate knowledge... And even mine is not complete. Why would I know the perfect themes and conclusion of the story I wrote ? What gives me that right and privilege ?