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X-Noir is the story of Eddie Humphrey, once an up-and-coming City Councilor but now an alcoholic has-been making a living as a private investigator. The game is a unique combination of logic-based investigations, action RPG gameplay, black humor and science-fiction. Hardly a typical film noir hero, Eddie is beset by severe anxiety, depression and low self-esteem as he balances his work with visits to the therapist and the concerns of his circle of friends. When a mysterious drug called "Chemical X" begins to play a recurring role in his investigations, Eddie realizes he is being drawn back into the twisty world of city politics whether he likes it or not. Along the way, he may also unravel the biggest mystery of all - himself.

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Those Wings You like Are Coming Back in Style

It's been five years since Volrath and I actively worked on a project together. It's pretty hard to believe we've been inactive for so long. There were many reasons we went dark but that's for a different blog post.

I just moved back to my homestate where Volrath lives and we discussed working on another project together. I started playing through some of our old projects for inspiration. I hadn't touched or seen X-Noir since 2015 and forgot most of it. During my playthrough, Volrath joined in and we've been having a fun time doing a let's play together and voicing the characters just like we used to do whenever we playtested our games together.

We've been discussing doing a sequel of sorts to X-Noir for the last few years but other than a rough draft of the early game we haven't made any progress. It's been a long time since we've done any serious game make and it's honestly quite intimidating thinking of starting a new project. Playing through X-Noir again, I realized there was a lot of potential for a remake.

X-Noir is described as a "unique combination of logic-based investigations, action RPG gameplay, black humor and science-fiction." It's our most experimental project to date, and ended up being kind of a mess. The action combat is clunky and simplistic, as expected from an action RPG in Ace. The logic-based investigation sequences have a bit too much guessing, and there's a lot of needless back and forth around the city. The story is also a bit all over the place, especially in the beginning. But in the mess there is beauty.

Volrath and I take a very organic approach to game development. We draft a rough outline of the mechanics and story early-on for our games but we leave a lot of room for ideas to emerge later. In the case of X-Noir, we didn't really figure out the identity of the game until around Case 4. By then we had more confidence in the characters, story, and investigational sequences. Because we committed to having an action combat system, we still had segments where Eddie fought off enemies but these were given less focus. We realized the Anxiety mechanic was going nowhere and it just became a superficial aspect of the game.

I've had a lot of time to think about how I'd approach X-Noir if I did it all over again. I would ditch the combat completely, which tonally never fit with the game. In its place, there would be more focus on the Investigation and Interrogation sequences. The Ace Attorney series have been a big source of inspiration, as well as the Zero Escape trilogy, Hotel Dusk, and Danganronpa titles. Eddie was an attorney, and his best friend is a cop, so modeling the game after the Ace Attorney Investigation series would make a lot of sense thematically. I'd also like to rethink the Anxiety/Depression system to have a bigger impact on the overall plot.

Right now Volrath and I are just talking about it. We still have to complete our playthrough and decide if a remake of X-Noir is something we want to do. We fleshed out the world more in Labyrinthine Dreams, as well as the sequel that we're still planning, and it would make sense to remake the game that started it all. I know there isn't as many fans of these games as our titles in the Solest universe but I'm hoping there are still some subs here that would be interested in seeing us taking another swing at this strange sci-fi detective game.
  • Completed
  • Stoic
    Volrath
  • RPG Maker VX Ace
  • Action RPG
  • 06/28/2012 01:13 PM
  • 06/25/2019 11:39 PM
  • 07/09/2014
  • 181456
  • 68
  • 623

Posts

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NeverSilent
Got any Dexreth amulets?
6280
@despiani:
The trick is that you have to read every word backwards, and then replace each letter with the previous one in the alphabet. So "mbi eppi" turns into "ibm ippe", and then into "hal hood".

Good luck!
i really love the game,
but unfortunately the game was not as easy as I thought. please help me decoding hal hood's ciphers on the whiteboard.
NeverSilent
Got any Dexreth amulets?
6280
Awesome! I just reminded another Solest fan they still need to play this game, so that's very convenient timing. Thank you very much.
NeverSilent
Got any Dexreth amulets?
6280
Hey, I just wanted to let you know that apparently, the download for version 1.2 doesn't work properly: The dropbox link connected with it leads to a non-existing file. Since I saw you do have a download for it set up on the new Solest website, you might want to update the link to it here on RMN as well.
Thanks a lot!
The ending goes on a little bit longer after that bug, you miss out on some dialogue. Hopefully we can get that fixed at some point. Glad you liked the game! As it stands now, the ending kind of weirdly ambiguous...who do you think came to visit?
There is a little *bug* trying to irritate the player to see the endgame of it.I am too curious about the ending so,my question is.... What happens after Eddie gets isolated among the mountains and someone calls him inside the house but then Eddie gets his head bumped onto a wall.
Thank you for creating this wonderful game though. Looking forward to play such inspiring games like these cause i learned a lot from this.
NeverSilent
Got any Dexreth amulets?
6280
Congratulations on the spotlight! Though I wouldn't exactly call it "hidden" any more with almost 1400 downloads - but the "gem" part definitely applies.
Yeah, that was awfully nice. Thanks!
Wow pretty cool to see this featured under "Hidden Gem". I was wondering why I got that "Game I choose you!" achievement.
author=ArtBane
It's a deduction puzzle. Basically you have to identify the unlabeled chemicals by running a series of tests. There's notebooks next to each test that tells you which chemicals will react to the tests and which won't. You might need to write it down to keep track of it...

If you can't figure it out the solution should be on here somewhere. It's probably the most complicated puzzle in the game and one of my favorites. :)


Ohhhhhhhhhh I think I get it now that was simple thinking back! Thanks, by the way I really enjoyed this game and would love to play it again for fun in the future!
It's a deduction puzzle. Basically you have to identify the unlabeled chemicals by running a series of tests. There's notebooks next to each test that tells you which chemicals will react to the tests and which won't. You might need to write it down to keep track of it...

If you can't figure it out the solution should be on here somewhere. It's probably the most complicated puzzle in the game and one of my favorites. :)
I am stuck on the chemical solution problem I don't understand this at all q.q
Thanks Shinozaki. The case logs don't update after case 3 so get used to that being your objective. Hope you enjoy the rest of the game.
I've found a bug... a one with the menu screen.

In case 4 the objective says "Search the slums for missing persons" When I finished the case hours ago.

Eh, Nevermind that just saying this game is epic and keep up the good work with your future projects c:
NeverSilent
Got any Dexreth amulets?
6280
Sure, no problem. Here you go. Just copy this file into the game folder and you should be fine.
Enjoy playing the rest of the game!
Ah, my autosave was at the same point as the working save. I would appreciate if you could give me a save to the point at
Case 4 in the second cipher room?
Thank you ;;
NeverSilent
Got any Dexreth amulets?
6280
Have you tried loading your autosave? But if you want, I can give you a save file for pretty much any point in the game. About where do you want to resume the game?
Is there a way to just skip cases? My save didn't work.. (( and is there a way to actually not fight but still get through the case without dying? ))
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