From TES issue 2 (March 1996)

Series 5/6. Level 1/2/3.
CAUSEWAYS.
The floor puzzles contained various sequences, numbers, letters, weapons, colours, even earth, fire and water !

Provided the dungeoneer had earned the necessary information, all that was needed was a swift guidance across the correct slabs on the board.

However, this is where things got nasty. As the dungeoneer stepped warily across the puzzle, slabs behind them would crumble away with a sickening crunch ! At this point, panic begins to set in. The guiders become convinced that the entire puzzle is about to fall away along with the dungeoneer - causing a blind and often misdirected rush to reach the tantalizing exit!

Again, like the block and tackle, there are many possible fatalities to point to, yet I have decided to highlight one of the best ever scenes in Knightmare's history !

Cast your mind back to series 6, in 1992, when Ben and co. strode forward to conquer the dungeon. Within this quest was a gigantic, two-part floor puzzle in deepest level three. Ben was left with the floor collapsing around him, yet his team didn't know the combination for the puzzle. A mad burst was decided upon, and Ben progressed towards meeting Lord Fear, just as the floor fell away from beneath him !!! Pure tension, and classic Knightmare - there were many more like Ben, few were as lucky !

DIFFICULTY: 7 Panic can spoil everything !
KILLER INSTINCT: 7 You can't argue with fact.
GORE FACTOR: 4 A quick disappearing act
FAIRNESS: 6 It should be easy !

Written by and submitted with the kind permission of Paul McIntosh.

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From TES issue 64 (July 2010)

Series 5/6. Level 1/2/3.
CAUSEWAYS
As I have agreed recently with my good friend Ross Thompson, the ideal way to get the causeways into Knightmare would have been to take the variety of sequences from series 5 and the timers from series 6, and marry them together. It’s a much better idea to have those four quite interesting causeway varieties (Aggression vs. Defence; Fire, Earth & Water; Rock, Paper & Scissors; Red, Blue, Green & Grey) rather than endless number sequences, which are far less pleasing visually and get very boring, but the addition of the timer is a good development because it clearly shows both the team and the watchers how much time is allowed to get onto the next hexagon, thus eliminating the potential for rather suspect scenes such as Alex’s death in series 5.

Causeways were the one aspect of Knightmare that I did start to get rather bored with after a while. Yes, they provided some very nice moments of tension, as precision guidance was always required, but having one on every single level (sometimes leading to two in the same episode) was definitely overkill in my opinion – indeed, Ross and I have also agreed that it would have been much better to have a level one causeway followed by the Great Causeway on level three, taking a break from the all too familiar puzzle format on level two. But that wouldn’t have fitted in with the quest format of series 5 and 6, would it? You get your objects, you do your task for the level, then (and only then) you die if you’ve made a mistake at any point, either because you can’t get past the causeway or you don’t have the password for Dreadnort or the blocker.


However you feel about the causeways – I have somewhat mixed feelings, as you can probably tell – there can be no denying that they garnered an impressive tally of fatalities… but then they were certainly given plenty of opportunity to do so, weren’t they? With three victims in each of the two series, six quests came to an end on causeways, which is the greatest victim total of any single puzzle, character or creature. Catherine and Jenna both fell off the Aggression/Defence causeway, while Alex lingered too long on Earth, Fire & Water. Matt and Alan both stumbled on regular number causeways, while Sofia died on the Great Causeway in a rather suspect situation also involving a depleting life force.

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Series 3 of El Rescate del Talismán, Spain's version of Knightmare, had at least one causeway. Consisting of numbers on different coloured hexagons against a stony photographed backdrop, it used different CGI and sound effects from the causeways on Knightmare.

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