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Seven Deadly Tales Of Spine-Tingling Delight

  • Addit
  • 11/26/2017 04:53 PM
  • 3249 views


A Game Made By: Frogge & psy_wombats
Including The Assistance Of:
OzzyTheOne, lavendersiren, pianotm, Sooz & Kloe
Created Using: RPG Maker VX Ace
It's A: ADVENTURE Game
That Roughly Takes Around: 2 Hours To Complete
And It's A... COMPLETED GAME!!!


*checks calendar* (Wait a minute…it’s November now… Why I’m reviewing another Halloween-themed game again, especially after playing that last one as of recent? Ugghhh…!) *shutters*

*takes a quick swig of vodka*

…Greetings, everyone! And welcome back to another de-lightful game review written by everyone’s favorite half-assed reviewer here as of late: your dearest pal, Addit. And today we got ourselves a special treat! Today we’re going to be playing and reviewing…an RPGMaker.net community game!!! :D



- But at least it’s not as bad as Castles – Masterpiece Set!



Anyway… Tales From Rotten, Moonless Nights (or also known as Tales From RMN) was a Halloween themed chain game that was originally setup by Frogge that centered around participating users being assigned a random object, like, say…a crucifix, a mirror…maybe even an old lantern…and it was then that said person’s job to make a horror-themed related story out of that said object. Each person was supposed to then have one week or so to finish their parts, and then it would get handed off back to Frogge, so he could compile everything and fix any glaring issues up, and then the next person would then finish their chapter, and so on and so on until completion.

What’s a bit interesting here about learning the backstory of this whole event is that initially there were going to be a lot more users that were planning on submitting entries for this event, such as Liberty, Deckiller (…really? You’re going to rely on Deckiller to shit done for this? Lol) and Ebeth to name a few, but I guess those guys couldn’t make the deadline in time or had a lot more other important things to do, so this game was originally going to be much larger than it ended up ultimately being in the end. Plus, the game was initially planned to be released on the day of Halloween itself, but it ended up ultimately getting released a few days later after that – and that’s just fine with me. Better done late than never being done at all - isn’t that right, Befuddle Quest VII!? :D

Anyways – let’s get this over with already and dive into these seven deadly tales of spine-tingling delight! Since a lot of these participants that have entries in this I’ve never played anything from them before in the past as of yet - this will be quite interesting to say the least! Hopefully these guys and gals can deliver the goods and give me a solid experience.

(And – please – not one like Castles – Masterpiece Set.)

The Story





Unlike most chain games where the story is written by one person and then passed off to the next person in the group and forms some sort of a loose cohesion throughout, Tales From Rotten, Moonless Nights doesn’t really follow that type of structure much, other than a very light tie-in towards the end of each story. Instead, you have the option right at the start of the game to choose whichever story you wish to tackle in any order you want - sorta like Megaman. (Well…besides one – but we’ll get into that later…) There is no background text, or really any introduction to speak of once you begin. You basically then control a little blue flame thing, and then go pick your story.

(I will say though, just as a minor complaint, that I wish that the author’s username would be mentioned as well along with the title of the story that you were selecting in the main entry room so I knew whose entry was written by whom – but whatevers.)

Cross Sides
Created By: Frogge

I overall quite enjoyed this one, despite it being a bit too similar in taste to the classic Exorcist film. Hell, there’s even a famous quote borrowed from that movie that’s spoken by one of the characters in here, for goodness sakes, lol.

Basically, you play as a priest named Father Elijah who is sent to this church in order to rid a possessed girl, named Natalie, from a demon that’s controlling her entire body that makes her do some pretty nasty things. As Father Elijah tries to rid the demon straight from the girl’s body by himself at first, he ends up making a mistake and ends up hurting himself through the process of doing so. Eventually, the next day, even more terrifying things begin to happen, such as an elderly old man going into a massive seizure fit and one of the nuns that are there getting brutally impaled upon a cross. (J-Jesus…!) Father Elijah then decides that enough is enough here and manages to, with the help of both Natalie’s parents, rid the evil spirit from the girl’s body and returns her back to normal. After getting thanked by both family members for a job well done, Father Elijah then begins to leave the chruch and return home. But then, suddenly, as he’s about to leave, he then gets a phone call and finds out that there wasn’t just one possessed spirit in there - but also another as well…

I will say that the dialogue written is a bit on the crude side of things here with a lot of vulgar language and a few suggestive themes thrown in, but it all added that slice of humor to the story that I found quite enjoyable to read. But I guess the real bombshell here that caught me off guard a bit was in regards to Father Elijah. As in one scene in the story when the father of the girl, Thaddeus, gets upset that his wife is planning on sleeping with the priest behind his back, Father Elijah then comes out of nowhere and basically says that he’s gay and has no real interest in his wife and both of them soon then have a mutual understanding for each other after that. That definitely came out of left field for me. But what was even more shocking was that basically not even a minute later on you then find out that two of the nuns that are also there are both in love with each other! Now, that’s some General Hospital type of shit! You should have seen the expression on my face after learning about that, because as soon as I saw all of that stuff, I then thought to myself, “Lol, who the heck did all of this; was it Frogge who wrote this?” And then I immediately laughed my ass off after finding out that, “Yeah, lol…it was Frogge who wrote this, alright, lol.”

Now, I’m not saying that having a gay priest and two lesbian nuns are a bad thing to have here - but back-to-back and told the way that it was rather nonchalantly? I think this scene would have better written if Father Elijah just told Thaddeus that he wasn’t interested in his wife, period, because of secretive reasons, or maybe the wife tries to make a move on him and that’s when Father Elijah sort of hints that he’s just not into that kind of stuff, I dunno…

Overall, though…I enjoyed this story. And the ending coming out of nowhere like that was a really nice touch, too. And I guess I’ll give Frogge a few extra points for putting in a gay priest and two lesbian nuns in it, even if it was a bit sloppy of how it was written in.

White Swan
Created By: pianotm

This one was pretty inventive, actually, as the story here doesn’t have a single line of dialogue spoken in it at all but instead told all through its cutscenes, facial and musical cues. That’s really something!

Basically, you play as a young woman that returns to her old home and starts to reminisce about her past memories of her time staying there. Upon analysing various objects found throughout the home, the young woman then begins to remember certain events that triggers something inside her. If you manage to follow the correct sequences of events of what you’re supposed to do here, you’ll then find that this little while haired angel is no real angel at all and that she’s been hiding a rather dark secret over the years that she’s been trying to suppress over time.

What I do like about this story being told this way is that a lot of it is up to your own interpretation of it. I will admit, I really don’t fully understand what’s entirely going on here and who these people are that she’s trying to remember. Is the other red headed girl the woman’s sister, her mother, another girl’s that living in the house alongside with the woman, is the older man the woman’s father, step-father, the care-taker - what? I was then beginning to think that this whole thing was some sort of a jealousy tale or a domestic violence situation gone too far, because there’s one part in the story where the main character stabs the older guy in retaliation and defence, but I suppose it could be either.

But that’s why this story was a surprisingly good one; you can basically piece together whatever you get out of it and there’s really no wrong or right answers to it. Good job, pianotm!

Killing Light
Created By: OzzytheOne

Although this one will probably be most people’s favorite in terms of gameplay side of thing, the story for this particular tale is just as good as the rest. You basically play as an old man and his granddaughter who managed to sneak inside an exhibit that holds a lot of interesting, antique-looking artifacts here. Upon gazing and touching this really old looking lantern that catches the old man’s eye, the pair are then suddenly whisked away to this strange dimensional prison where a haunting light-like lady, named Lucylia, has imprisoned the granddaughter and is now looking for the grandfather in an attempt to kill him and prevent him and his granddaughter from escaping this place. With the help and guidance, thanks to a talking statue (o-okay…), the two of them manage to obtain their freedom, but not after performing last one task for the statue that, unfortunately, happens to be their last…

Since this is was the last story that I played before ultimately finishing the main game, I kind of knew, judging by all the other stories and the depressing endings that they all had that this one was probably going to have the same sort of ending just like the rest. I kinda feel bad for the them, considering how much the grandfather had to go through in order to rescue his granddaughter and all. But the story here was well-written and well done; it kinda reminded me of something along the lines of an old Twilight Zone episode. And the fact that the hero in this story was an old man with his young niece – I can get down with that.

Doomsday Clock
Created By: psy_wombats

This one’s definitely the longest and most complicated out of all the seven tales here, clocking it at around thirty minutes or so to view - but it’s a very fascinatingly told one, nonetheless. Basically, with troubled tensions going on with the west and the Soviet Union, it seems like nuclear war is likely going to happen at any time, and it’s just a matter of moments before the bombs happen to reach the west. The story revolves around a group of students, who are also part-time decoders and stuff, and their last night together leading up to the inevitable strike.

Throughout the course of the night, Martin, the central character, keeps getting strange phone calls from an anonymous sounding voice. He immediately dismisses the calls at first as some sort of a joke put on by his friend Cale but it turns out that there’s something a lot more to these strange calls afterall. I don’t really wanna spoil too much of what happens afterwards - because it really is the best part of the story - but it loosely revolves around different time threads and loops to find the perfect timeline where the damage done by the missiles were either false flagged entirely or the damage done completely minimized. That kinda caught me off a guard a bit. Here I was waiting for the eventual bombs to drop down and I accidently wounded up getting something that involves around time travel and stuff. Very nice. I didn’t expect that.

I will admit, I did find some of the writing and some of the more scientific terms used here a bit overwhelming to follow through at first, but the story, despite it being a bit of a slow pace towards the first act, really gets going in the second act - and I really enjoyed it.

There’s A Bad Thing In The Mirror
Created By: Sooz

This one was pretty good too, simple and to the point. Basically, you play as a little kid who’s excited that Christmas is only one week away – and he’s ever so excited. Every night, the little tyke has to go the bathroom down the hall. But he then finds out that something sinister seems to be watching him in the mirror whenever he happens to go wash his hands, a figure that looks awfully similar to him in appearance… Scared, the little kid, like all little kids do when they’re scared, tries to snuggle up to mommy and daddy in their bedroom to protect him from the bad thing in the mirror. Eventually, the parents start to get a bit tired of their son constantly sleeping with them every single night and tries to get him to go back to his own room so they can get some peace and quiet for a change, despite the tearful plea from him not do so. Eventually, on the final night before Christmas, the bad thing in the mirror makes his ultimate move; and no matter what you do, or how fast you can run, the bad thing in the mirror will eventually get catch you by hand…

There may not be as much dialogue in this one, nor on the same level of complexity like the others, but the story here works just fine enough and it’s as spine-tingling as they come. But that ending, though - Jesus…

Creeptacular Shack
Created By: lavendersiren

After a bad rafting trip goes horribly, horribly wrong, three friends are completely now stranded in the wilderness with no equipment, food, or even any backup clothes at all, as the group not only has to deal with finding a way back home again, but they also gotta to deal with the impending sun now going down, the temperature dropping and the weather drastically changing to rain. (Great…!!!)

The group then agrees that the best option right now is to find and locate shelter for the night to stay in. (Although, I must say there Mimi that you have some – awfully - good friends over there by your side, ditching you like that the moment that they get the chance to, lol.)

After managing to locate an abandoned shack in the middle of the woods, the group then heads on in and manages to light a fire and eventually Mimi, the central character, is reminded of “that time” and goes out for a walk to clear her head in the meantime (…and when I mean “walk,” I only mean to the next room, lol).

Eventually she manages to come across an old diary book. When she happens to take a peek inside of it for curiosity sake, it tells of a woeful tale whose father went back into town for something and the girl there, the one who’s wrote in the diary that Mimi’s reading, should stay until he happens to get back. Days pass; the father doesn’t happen to return; the girl manages to get sick, and she ends up then dying because she was left alone and there wasn’t much left to eat in the cabin. Mimi then closes the diary and returns back to the group. But then she finds out that both of her friends have suddenly disappeared and vanished without a trace. When she then goes into the next room to look for them, she is then suddenly dragged down by some kind of monster coming from the toilet (yeah, you read that right), and is now sucked away below in the abyss with no way of escape.

Upon wandering around for a while, Mimi then hears a voice that is quite upset that she read the girl’s diary without warning and dares Mimi to jump in order to find the whereabouts of her missing friends. Well - Mimi does just that - and eventually manages to catch up to the two missing compadres in no time. After then trying to clear a pretty big gap in the floor in the next room, Mimi doesn’t happen to make the jump and ends up in a strange, distorted place where she runs into her old friend (sister???) that died a long time ago and now begs for her forgiveness. After one last final leap of faith, apparently, you discover that this was all just inside Mimi’s head the whole time, as one of her friends soon then discovers her lifeless body the very next day right by the diary where she last read it.

I guess the morale of the story here is not to read things you’re not supposed to read (or get some better friends, I dunno).

But, yeah, I enjoyed this one just as much as the other entries in the lineup. Nicely done.

Something Something Televisions
Created By: Kloe

Ah, good ol’ Kloe’s entry, lol… I was wondering where the hell it was and where I could select it on the main map, as I initially thought that it was some sort of bonus, easter egg thing that I had to find hidden within the walls or something in order to view it. But, in fact, it turns out that her story can be only unlocked and viewed once all of the six main stories have been completely finished – so it’s a bit of a new game plus thing.

And, yeaaahhh…I kind of see why now her story wasn’t included in the main game at all, as it’s completely bat-shit crazy with a side order of wackiness, and you can tell that her entry was a bit of a rushed job just by playing it.

The story itself has Kloe - our Kloe - wake up from her slumber to find out that she’s now locked inside a room where she now needs to escape. Turns out, though, that a killer television set is waiting for her at the door, so she now needs to suddenly high tail it out of there and avoid getting caught by the television. She eventually manages to escape and finds one of her captive friends, a dressed-up bunny girl named Sam (BTW - who the hell is Sam anyway, a forum user???) is being locked up and currently held prisoner by the T.V.’s. After managing to free her from her prison, the two of them manage to make an escape and find out that escape is quite impossible now, and are soon captured by the many T.V.’s in the next room. And then it goes into this other skit afterwards involving a pirate and a slime creature - I dunno. This whole story is as wacked out as Kloe’s pink hairdo.

---

Whew. What a plot summary (my poor fingers)

Overall, though, each story (except for Kloe’s, lol) is told very well and was quite interesting to follow through with each one. This is definitely the major highlight of this compilation package, and, in some ways, I’m kind of happy that it was just seven small stories instead of something much larger or with more chapters included. This is one of those cases where I think having a lot less was probably the right call here, especially coming from the reviewer side of things where you have to review and summarize each individual chapter by one, lol.

The Gameplay





While most of the entries here, when it comes down to narrative side of things, manage to check off…almost all of the boxes off the list, the gameplay side of the equation is when things begin to get a little murky around the swamp infested waters…

Cross Sides
Created By: Frogge

There’s really not much here to do other than just following the storyline and talking and going where you need to be. Although you can control Father Elijah and have him wandering around the area of the church and save your progress during certain intervals, there’s really not much else that you can do here other than just follow what’s going on. I will admit that the story here was entertaining enough that the lack of gameplay didn’t bug as much as the other entries on the list, but it still would have been nice to have a little bit more to do here.

White Swan
Created By: pianotm

Okay…this one was definitely one of the better experiences here on the list and it also frustrated me the most on how to clear it. I was actually pretty close at one point in asking pianotm himself about how to beat this thing, because I was stuck on it for a long time, but I eventually figured it out on my own after the fourth try or so with a little bit of patience and persistence.

Basically, you’re supposed to go around the entire house and examine some of the objects there that then triggers a particular musical cue and a reaction from our young heroine in order to advance the story forward. Simple as pie, right? Well…the problem is, is if you don’t open the music box during right sequences of events, you’ll end ultimately having the man with the white face constantly chase you throughout the house, in some sort of an escape scene; and no matter where you go – or what you do – he’ll eventually find you and basically end the game once he catches you. When he manages to get you, you basically then start all over again from the beginning of the story where the woman first arrives back at the house again. This took me a looonnng time to figure out what I was doing wrong in the first place. At first I thought that maybe this was all intentional, like maybe a glitch that pianotm forgot to look into. But it turns out that after fiddling around with the music box some more and trying some different things with it, I was eventually able to figure what to do and pass this part with no problems after that.

But - I must say, though - out of all the entries here, this one took me a while to clear, and was probably one of my favorites entries in both doing the story section and gameplay sections right. Fantastic job, pianotm. (And here you thought that you weren’t a good developer and posted that needless topic about it. Shame on you!)

Killing Light
Created By: OzzytheOne

Oh, this one was a doozy! Not particularly as hard to figure out like White Swan’s section was but just about right in terms of overall difficultly and enjoyment.

Basically, playing as the grandfather, you must avoid getting caught by the light lady who lurks around the different rooms looking for your wrinkly, old ass. You can tell that she’s just around the corner by taking a peak behind the doors of each room for a little glimmer of light sticking out of it. If you then enter that particular room with the light sticking out, she’s then gonna chase you until you’re basically completely out of sight from her. You can basically get rid of her easily by taking her into the different rooms and trying to fake her out, like, for example, by hiding behind a desk or a bookshelf for some cover. After you manage to get rid of her, she’ll then occupy a completely different room and wait for you there. There are some odd times where she’ll appear back in the same location that you wanted to initially go to first, but after enough times she’ll then end up appearing somewhere else entirely.

Your goal is to basically light two furnaces using a fire stone, given to you by your granddaughter when you first happen to find her, and some disguarded hay that you can find a-plenty in one of the rooms. But in order to locate and find some of the furnaces, you’ll need to first acquire a few items in order to get to them. There’s even one pushing puzzle where you have to move a stool in order to reach one of the particular items. There’s a lot of gameplay variety here in this entry - and I absolutely love it. It took me a little while to figure out how to initially get pass the killing light, but when I eventually figured it out, I enjoyed this section quite a bit.

Doomsday Clock
Created By: psy_wombats

While this may be one of the better story entries on the list, this is definitely one of the weaker ones in regards to its gameplay, as there is none to speak of for this entire section, other than opting to save your progress during certain intermissions. I would imagine why that was the case was because psy_wombats didn’t have enough time to implement something in there at the time due to how heavily story driven his section was, but it definitely was a bit disappointing to see compared to all the other entries here who at least tried. I would have definitely liked it if I could explore the rest of the apartment building during the blackout section, or maybe even having to make a mad dash on the rooftop with Violet during the last few minutes in order to stop CAPRAS from creating another paradox. Stuff like that would have been nice to include. But considering how solid Doomsday Clock’s narrative is, and all the time restraints that went along with it, I can cut psy_wombats a bit of slack here.

There’s A Bad Thing In The Mirror
Created By: Sooz

This one was pretty enjoyable too, and I was trying my best to see how long I could last trying to escape from the evil, mirrored versions of myself as long as possible before ultimately getting captured in the end. For a second there, I thought that there was an actual way to make it pass the final day without getting caught. But, alas, I couldn’t do it. It was just too hard.

Basically, every single night, playing as the child, you have to run to the bathroom in your house and use the toilet and then try making it back to your bed, or your parent’s bedroom, in this case, before the evil, mirrored versions of yourself try to get to you first. If you do happen to get caught at any time at all, all that happens is that you’re taken to this strange, distorted place in the middle of nowhere. But if you wander around enough a bit the next day will come regardless of what you do. I was definitely quite fascinated with this one. I first tried to see if getting caught changed anything at all, and then tried not getting caught as long as possible, and seeing if that made any difference towards the ending, but, unfortunately, no matter what happens, the kid’s a goner anyway… But still, it was kind of nice to see how long I could escape and how rooms I could make it in before ultimately getting caught. It’s a great section in which I have no real problems critiquing about here.

Creeptacular Shack
Created By: lavendersiren

Other than a bunch of short mazes that you have to find the end goal to, the only real section here that has any significance worth mentioning here, and that can potentially kill you before the first two minutes if you’re not careful is the beginning part. Here, you have to find shelter somewhere in this large forest maze. But before you can do just that, you first need to find and locate one of your missing friends (that happened to ditch, BTW, lol) who managed to get lost during the trek and needs your help in order to get out. Sounds simple enough, right?

Well…there’s just one little problem here: Unfortunately, the sun is slowly going down throughout the course of this section, and the longer that you don’t find a way out or rescue your missing friends, the sooner Mimi will die of starvation - so you need to get out of there, pronto. But as time slowly fades, the darker, and less lit your surroundings will become, will make it twice as difficult to see what’s going on, so you need to be quick.

Other than this part that poses any real danger, you really don’t have much to worry about here; just clear all the mazes and you’re as good as golden. And, in defence, you do get plenty of time to get out of the woods and find and locate your missing friend, so I really don’t have much of a problem here with this section or the reduced visibility. All in all, though, although there’s not much going on, at least there’s a little bit of exploration to do.

Something Something Televisions
Created By: Kloe

Okay… Kloe may possibly have the WORST out of all the seven entries here in terms of actual story - but her gameplay section isn’t too bad. I mean…it’s not much, but it’s somethin’.

The only real part that kinda felt a bit cheap to me was towards the start. You basically have to make a mad dash to avoid getting caught by one of the televisions there and then a bunch of stuff happens to pop up out of nowhere in order to block your path, pretty much resulting in an instant game over the first time you happen to play this game. Hopefully, you’ve managed to save your progress during the course of the whole collaboration at one point, otherwise you’ll have to finish all six stories again before attempting Kloe’s section again. (Jesus...) After a bit of memorization, you’ll clear this part no problem, and then the rest of the game is your standard maze fare, similar to Cross Sides and Creeptacular Shack.

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Overall, while some of these entries do deliver on the gameplay side of things, many of these other entries here really don’t have that much in terms of any actual player involvement and it feels like you’re basically just watching and clicking the confirmation key in order to get the text moving along while watching the story unfold. For the entries that do this section well, I applaud them for doing what they could with so little time and all. But for the rest of the entries that just rely on either nothing or just resorting to short maze options to explore, I think you guys could have stepped up your sleeves a little bit here and done just a little bit more to engage the player. While the stories themselves are, indeed, very well done, the lack of gameplay for most of the entries are a bit of an issue.

The Soundtrack


Stabbity stab, stab!
(…Oh hi, Lita - I guess you’re in this game, too. ^^)


Creepy, unsettling, and pretty much fitting the entire mood for each one, all seven entries, except for Kloe’s entry (but I’ll cut her some slack for reasons I’ll explain) all do a pretty good job at using the tunes and sound effects provided to make a great sounding atmosphere for each one. Some of the musical scores here, such as “T. Johnson’s – Summoned Mockery,” that plays during the final act of Creeptacular Shack, is just downright unsettling to listen to the more that the song goes on for. Same thing goes for the song that plays when the light lady is after you in the Killing Light; that creepy voiceover that plays when she’s trying to get you is the stuff of nightmares. Hell, I even liked the track that Sooz used for her entry, There’s A Bad Thing In The Mirror, during the parts when you’re trying to escape from getting caught by the evil, mirrored versions of yourself; that is one dark, sounding tune, I tell you what. And, of course, I cannot forget to mention pianotm’s entry where his whole entire section revolves around the use of music and telling his story by it. That’s definitely some very imaginative stuff. I even liked how the music eventually got more light-hearted, with the “Spring City” tune playing in the background, when you get to the post game section. Overall, these guys did a good job in using their respective musical pieces to the fullest – and I like it.

The only two complaints that I have in regards to this section is well…other than the obvious complaint here, of course, is that Kloe’s entire section is completely devoided of any music or sound files at all, giving it a very lifeless, rushed feeling to it that I hope with a future update coming soon that all of her missing files can be then included with the rest of the game. I just can’t see Kloe doing this on purpose with making her game like this with no music or sound, so I would imagine that this was the result of trying to release the game on time in order to make the deadline, but it would be nice next time to test this shit out before releasing it to make sure everything’s included, but whatevers.

Next, I do have to mention this, for a little bit of a chuckle here, but, lavendersiren - what the hell is up with that “amandaaaa” SFX that you have, lol – did you happen to make that yourself? If so, that’s got to be one of the most cringiest screams that I’VE ever heard before in something, but, hahaha, oh well - at least you tried and you at least made me laugh.

The Aesthetics


Mr. Monopoly – is that you???


From a presentational standpoint, I think in regards with all of the seven entries here (yes, even Kloe’s, too), the overall production values for each entry looks great. The graphics and sprite being used here all look pretty consistent to one another, and each entry does a fantastic job with the use of many different lighting effects throughout. Hell, even some of the mapping work here is pretty impressive, such as the apartment complex building in Doomsday Clock, some of the creepy, looking atmospheric mazes in Creeptacular Shack, and even most of the interior parts of all the different rooms in White Swan; and I can’t forget how wonderful looking Killing Light’s whole entire section is too, especially when the room suddenly lights up when the light lady’s chasing you. For a one month community game, these guys sure did a good job when it came to the overall presentation of their entries.

There are only a few graphical hiccups here or there that I experienced throughout the course of the game that only slightly annoyed me a bit, such as a few maps in the game, especially in regards to the distorted areas in Sooz’s entry and the outside portion of the church in Frogge’s entry where the game would then suddenly end up lagging quite a bit, which made traversing through the areas a bit of a slow crawl, but not as bad as some of the other VX Ace games that I’ve played and reviewed in the past that have had this similar problem too, but it was definitely a bit noticeable here. There were also a few cases in where it was a bit too difficult to see what was fully going on in some parts, like the rooftop scene in Doomsday Clock, or running around in the house during the nights in There’s A Bad Thing In The Mirror, because the fog effect is a bit too thick here, and when the tint gets really pitch dark in the first section of Creeptactular Shack’s forest maze that can be a difficult to walk around because of it.

There were also some pretty amusing animation glitches and some tileset errors that I also found as well, such as in the Doomsday Clock when the clock reaches midnight in one portion and it’s reads 12:00 P.M. instead of A.M., or talking to Claudia in Cross Sides when she’s sitting on the chair suddenly then moves a pixel downwards and the shadow below her suddenly then turns a bit thicker, or being able to walk over plants and pumpkins in White Swan’s section, or Kloe’s whole section where the windowskin then suddenly turns pink and stays entirely pink for the rest of the game. But my favorite graphical oddity has to be the old man in Cross Sides when he’s having a seizure fit, because it looks like he’s just vibrating back in forth just dancing to some imaginary beat, heh, heh.

The End Result





Look, for a seven person Halloween-themed community game that was made to only last only a month long and was the first of its kind here, I think the overall result was a pretty much successful one. While the narratives themselves are what I really feel steal the show here (well, for the most part, anyway), the presentation values are just as fantastic, despite a few hiccups here or there, and the sound and musical direction is also directly on point. This is a great collection of mini-stories that definitely have their strengths and merits, and are definitely worth checking out and giving it a read if you have the time.

Unfortunately, though - as a game itself - well…that’s where this package falls a bit short in some areas… While entries like White Swan, Killing Light, and even A Bad Thing In The Mirror provide the player with enough things to do to go along with the flow of the rest of the narrative, the rest of the entries here are just you either mashing the confirmation key to get through all the lines of text of dialogue or just going through a few mazes along the way with very few things to do in-between to break up the pace. And, yeah, I get it, they only had one month to do this, and time restraints were probably a bit of an issue when it came down to implementing a lot more to their liking, but when I see entries like White Swan and Killing Light still being able to implement some level of gameplay to their entries, I feel like the other remaining entries could have also raised the bar a bit in that aspect.

Still, for what it’s worth, Tales Of Rotten, Moonless Nights is an enjoyable experience that has a few issues here that is definitely worth still giving it a try, if not simply for the stories. It’s definitely a lot better than some of the other RMN community games that I’ve played in the past. And I’m hoping that someday…maybe next Halloween, we’ll get another batch of scary concoctions that puts this one to shame.



OVERALL GRADE:
3.5 / 5 - C+ ~ A Few Quips, But Otherwise A Great Game.

Posts

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pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
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Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! THANK YOU! For your review of White Swan! Thanks for reviewing everyone else's too, but I already knew those were good.

<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

Bad news, though. You played the glitched version. You didn't get the complete end cutscene for White Swan. All it left out was four seconds, but that four seconds was enough to completely mangle the meaning of the story. So if you really did enjoy it, I'd hope you'd want to play the corrected version.
Frogge
I wanna marry ALL the boys!! And Donna is a meanc
18536
I KNEW IT! I SAID IT WAS GONNA BE EITHER A 2.5 OR AN 3.5! SOMETHING TOLD ME IT WAS GONNA HAVE 0.5 AT THE END!

Thanks so much for the review addit! I have so much to say, I don't even know where to start. Oh wait I do

Funny thing is that originally we were going for the whole week to week thing, but everyone wanted to get started straight ahead. What we did instead was to give everyone a batch of switches and variables and stuff for them to use and then we joined all the projects together. So instead of a week, everyone had a month and a half.

For your comments on Cross Sides, I completely agree with everything you've said. I did rush the story a lot near the end. I also wanted to add a lot more gameplay, and I especially wanted to make the exorcism part feel more like a minigame of sorts. The coming out scenes were indeed kinda poorly delivered, I feel you, though they were added in last minute with time constraints.
The striking resemblance to The Exorcist was actually kind of intended. It was supposed to feel both like a parody and an adaptation of it. The idea came from the fact that there were lots of horror movies about exorcisms, but very few games.

In regards to your point about gameovers in Kloe's chapter, I actually specifically stated game overs were not allowed and that if the characters dies they should just be sent back to the beginning of the room instead. I guess I wasn't clear enough since Ozzy and Kloe both ended up using game overs. In the next update I'll probably remove these game overs. (I think lav's one also may have had a game over in the forest section? I only got it once personally and it crashed the game for me since apparently I was playing the wrong version. I'll look into if it does. Lav's chapter later on did what I mentioned about game overs, though, and made it so that if you fall down a hole in the jumping section you just go back to the start instead.)

You've made loads of great points and this was a great read. I'll be sure to try to fix the things you've mentioned in future updates! :)
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
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author=Addit
But that ending, though - Jesus…


:333333
author=pianotm
Bad news, though. You played the glitched version. You didn't get the complete end cutscene for White Swan. All it left out was four seconds, but that four seconds was enough to completely mangle the meaning of the story. So if you really did enjoy it, I'd hope you'd want to play the corrected version.

What??? You mean that I didn’t get the full ending for this!? Well, that sucks. :(

But, yeah, I’ll definitely download the latest version and try your section out again and (hopefully) get to experience the proper ending this time around. I wanna see what I’m missing out.

author=Frogge
In regards to your point about gameovers in Kloe's chapter, I actually specifically stated game overs were not allowed and that if the characters dies they should just be sent back to the beginning of the room instead. I guess I wasn't clear enough since Ozzy and Kloe both ended up using game overs. In the next update I'll probably remove these game overs. (I think lav's one also may have had a game over in the forest section? I only got it once personally and it crashed the game for me since apparently I was playing the wrong version. I'll look into if it does. Lav's chapter later on did what I mentioned about game overs, though, and made it so that if you fall down a hole in the jumping section you just go back to the start instead.)

Yeah, from the version that I played and reviewed you do get a game over in the first section of the forest in Creeptacular Shack if you fail to get out and find shelter in time. The game didn’t happen to crash for me (thank goodness) but it simply just gave me a game over screen and put me back at the title screen when I did.

And as for falling in the other holes in the jumping section – could you really??? I never tested falling in the other holes, as I just completed it the normal way that it was and just assumed that you couldn't screw up at this part, but if so, damn, I missed out.
also,it's possible to swim away from the toilet..... and drown from swimming for too long. So far I haven't seen anyone with quick enough reflexes to figure it out on their own.
Also, I don't remember getting the memo that game overs weren't allowed @ _@
Frogge
I wanna marry ALL the boys!! And Donna is a meanc
18536
author=lavendersiren
also,it's possible to swim away from the toilet..... and drown from swimming for too long. So far I haven't seen anyone with quick enough reflexes to figure it out on their own.
Also, I don't remember getting the memo that game overs weren't allowed @ _@


I sorta forgot myself that they weren't, so don't worry about it >.>
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