Knytt Stories is a game about stories. Any story, really. "Juni" acts as an interchangeable protagonist in the platformer version, hopping and skipping throughout the world to collect items, dodge traps and solve people's problems. Even though it's a simplistic game, it has a lot of appeal. The drive to leave no stone unturned throughout the simplistic but aesthetically-pleasing environments keeps you playing more and more.
What would Knytt Stories be like as a forum game?
Primary focus: player stories. Each player would join with a small story behind their character and a goal they still want to accomplish. This could be finding a lost artifact, rescuing the lost child of a friend or even ascending to godhood. Throughout the RTD, they could either assist other players in their quest or head out on their own, attempting to achieve a personal goal solo.
Secondary focus: exploration and world-building. Level design is a big part of KS, so I think it should be similar for Forum Stories. The players would all start out in a peaceful, somewhat generic area - maybe a town or a hill side - and as they explore outward, they find surroundings built specifically for them. If a mother's lost child is "in a cloud city," expect a cloud city to take up quite a few spaces on the mini-map. The players would be able to easily visit previous areas and explore new ones.
Tertiary focus: skill and intelligence. Puzzles are a big part of KS, but having it in forum format gives me new opportunities. Since I wouldn't be using dice rolls, players would be free to try lots of combinations of actions until they start to get the gist of a problem. Items would also be important for puzzles, but visually intuitive: if a player sees a long gap they can't quite cross, they might try coming back once an umbrella is found.
I also don't think that death should be a big factor in the game. As each player's "story" would be short and easily completable, it makes sense that a "death" would merely serve to boot the player back to where they were last, forcing them to think of another way around a problem.
If you have any input or ideas to improve this I'd love to hear it. Don't plan to start this, but I wanted to write it out just in case I ever did.