I hate the Duck Knight. It has been a while since a singular enemy has enraged me in such a short amount of time, but the Duck Knight found a way. I want to cave its beak in. I want to wear its armor in front of the royal flock. I want a new fairy tale full of caution and awe to be born from what I do to the Duck Knight. 

Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me reel it in for a moment and explain: this newfound beef started about 40 minutes into my time with jakefriend’s top-down, action-adventure Scrabdackle demo. After a quick and wordless intro that sees our protagonist and novice wizard Blue thrown out a window of the school he attends, you must navigate the odd land of Scrabdackle to find a way back. However, the difficulty of that task quickly becomes evident once you realize a couple of things. First, Scrabdackle is big, even in its demo form, and is presented as an open world that you must genuinely explore — exploration encouraged by the hints, tips, and stray comments made by Scrabdackle’s strange and humorous denizens — if you want to get Blue back home. Second, Scrabdackle features some of the best distractions I’ve come across in recent memory. Sure, I could work on getting Blue home, but also, what do you mean there are raccoon bandits traveling the land for scrap? Who is the masked being that refuses to give straight answers and just casually floats in the air? And, naively, how could I not want to see the castle in the Ducklands?

Allured by the duck aspect while not appropriately considering what it means to have a castle, I immediately followed the signposts for Duck Kingdom as soon as I came across one. I was feeling especially confident after picking up the first weapon the demo provides, a magic wand that acts as a ranged weapon, and getting comfortable with my favorite part of the demo, the scry ability. The scry ability highlights both Scrabdackle’s emphasis on discovery and its great sense of humor, as the ability lets you document eligible creatures, plants, rocks, and more in Blue’s notebook. Written from Blue’s perspective, these descriptions offer not only useful information on how to attack (or not attack) enemies, but also quaint doodles and the occasional chuckle-worthy observation. This notebook fleshes out the world wonderfully, somehow making all its nonsensical bits more tangible by putting them to paper and showing that they have lives independent of Blue. 

Now, brandishing a tool that erased my ignorance of the land, and another that ensured I could fight back against its less friendly inhabitants, I figured the Ducklands would be a short excursion. This naiveté was dashed the moment a duck archer marked my first death of many. These ducks have shockingly good aim and do a eerily good job of predicting where I was moving. Then there’s the lancers, who got an odd mixture of a gasp and a laugh out of me the first time they used their fists to attack me once their pointier tools were too far away. The biggest shock came from the horticulturalists, whose attention to their crops foolishly made me drop my guard — a mistake I paid for once they noticed my presence and shot painful water projectiles from their watering cans. In short order, the Ducklands revealed that I shouldn’t expect to know what Scrabdackle and its inhabitants hold, making the adventure that much more interesting and exciting. 

This adventure met its biggest obstacle, literally, once I mowed down enough ducks at the castle gates to force its champion out. When I laid eyes on the Duck Knight, I was nervous but still confident in my victory. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall” and all that. However, the ensuing fight once again reminded me that I shouldn’t assume anything in Scrabdackle: after narrowly avoiding the Duck Knight’s sword swings and blasting his health down a sizable chunk, this fowl asshole revealed he could bounce my offensive spell right back at me with his shield. Already on low health from the hits I didn’t dodge, I watched in horror as Blue slumped to the ground after catching the spell meant for the walking tower of feathered violence. 

I shouldn’t care this much about a damn duck. I’ve dealt with stronger bosses for longer periods of time. Keeping in theme with animals I’ve fought, I credit the chameleon boss from Tarzan’s world in Kingdom Hearts for teaching me the cruel definitions of frustration and perseverance. But something about the Duck Knight’s monotone quacks, its nonchalant attitude, its regular sword, its spell-deflecting shield, its big hops — I just hate this duck. I am mad it bested me. I am furious it bested me multiple times. Even after I defeated the Duck Knight and discovered what it guarded so loyally, which turned out to be a close combat spell called a Witchbrand that’s shaped like a sword, my anger had barely simmered. I couldn’t reconcile that I lost time to a duck. I still can’t! I hate that duck!!

When the first act of Scrabdackle comes out, I don’t care what other whimsical marvels and surprises its world has. I am curious about them, as I loved every minute of my time in the demo, but everything will be secondary to marching back to the Ducklands. I will wait outside those castle gates again. I will fight the Duck Knight again. I will slay the Duck Knight again. And then, I will bring Hell to its kingdom.