spiral-knights Coming soon to the free-to-play MMO market, Spiral Knights released by SEGA and Three Rings Design looks like it ahs all the necessary elements to be a wonderful time-waster. Even with its business model that seems to want to limit the time you can play (unless you pay them.) Kyt Dotson over at GameOgre covers the game with a first impressions article,

The Clockworks, which account for the dungeon system of Spiral Knights, are accessed via kiosks attached to elevators called Clockwork Gates. In Haven there is only one static Clockwork gate called the Firefly Gate–the rest of them exist in the Arcade and they cycle in and out of accessibility with time. The concept means that every few weeks you gain access to new Clockworks dungeons and old ones get cycled out (I suspect they return.) This means that you’ll always be able to choose from a new Clockwork every time you return, increasing the game’s playability hugely.

So far there’s a lot of screenshots of the level design, the game seems to have a Gauntlet-esque feel combined with a 3D Castle Crashers style. Cute clockpuk characters crash-landed on a clockpunk world trying to survive. All the hallmarks of a fairly solid MMO. It appears to currently all run on one shard – of course, that might have been for the preview only.

The actual game launches on April 4th.

Link, via GameOgre.