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Nachtheulen is a short story-focused dungeon crawler (wut) produced for the RPG Maker VX ACE Lite Cook-Off. The competition allowed us to work on any game we felt like, so I chose to reboot a barely-worked on 2k3 experiment project then titled Night Howl. The cast, plot and premise have remained the same.


Should you play this game?

This game employs the use of a mix of narrative-driven scenes combined with dungeon exploration, similar in a sense to Persona 4. It crafts a somber, serious atmosphere to tell the tale of two wayward vampires, along with a high difficulty curve that rewards you for playing intelligently rather than button mashing. If you enjoy this sort of approach to a game, Nachtheulen is right down your alley.

Additional Info

Story
For as long as people can remember, monsters have roamed the earth they occupy. Although some are passive and can be avoided, they present major challenges and are nigh impossible for ordinary humans to kill.

As a result, humans turn to another monster- a monster born from their own. Certain groups of vampires offer human settlements protection from monsters, promising not to harm any humans so long as they are permitted residence close by.

These situations rarely last very long.

Leander and Fionn are two such vampires. They live a nomadic life style, travelling between towns every few years. They haven't had much luck finding a permanent residence- one or both of them usually succumb to their darker desires and as a result they are chased away. So far their present situation has been ideal, but something new is approaching- something that will reveal secrets from the past and shed light on the future.

Nachtheulen is the direct prequel to Blood Rose, and Leander and Fionn are directly tied to Blood Rose's main cast. Since this game will be released first, it is written to be played first. Time line wise, this game is the first story to take place within the Atrum Somnium Terra universe.

Gameplay
The game is quite short, and most gameplay takes place within dungeons. An indicator will display showing you whether you are in a SAFE/NORMAL/CAUTION/DANGER zone, each have varying enemy types. In danger zones, enemies are likely to kill you.
Fionn and Leander rely on one another in battle, so you must cover each of their weaknesses with the other member or you will fall quite quickly. Learn how each works both in conjunction and separately to conquer Nachtheulen's dungeons.

Outside of dungeons, you are able to explore, finding equipment, selling items and communicating with the townspeople the two come into contact with. Pay attention to what equipment you have and what you are able to sell in order to arm your characters effectively.

Graphics
Nachtheulen employs the use of the RPG Maker DS Resource Pack, along with a number of custom graphics and portraits. As such the game holds a pixel-art based aesthetic while combining such with portraits.
Essentially the current credit list is:

Archeia_Nessiah
EvilEagles

(consistent graphic style woo!)

Music
Nachtheulen has quite a somber, serious mood, and this is dominantly reflected within its music choice. Although the soundtrack is taken from a variety of NewGrounds artists, the overall mood and tone remains essentially the same. The game takes place during the dead of night, given that Leander and Fionn are unable to traverse during the daylight hours, so the music is chosen to reflect the cold stillness of a world only illuminated by the glow of the moon.

Latest Blog

Greetings from the Necrosphere!

So, I've been working on a fairly large overhaul of the game. It's intended to add all the pieces from the original design document that didn't make it into the Lite edition and elaborate on some more of Fionn and Leander's stories.

The game's hard mode is now called Ephemeral, and is simply a stat change to the main characters...because even normal mode has perma-death now. I'll be reducing the effectiveness of Holy/making Memorilux learnt sooner, and Leander's HP has been increased to the Phantasmal setting permanently unless you're playing Ephemeral. I watched Liberty's Let's Judge and found the two rarely actually died unless it was Holy spells, which is why I decided this approach wasn't too absurdly cruel. Reviver has been changed to Harmony, which is auto-revive, and you'll be able to get auto-revives in certain stores and attached to certain equipment.

I'm not just putting it in without adjustments, jeez.

I've also been working on maps and cutscenes; the first sequence has been adjusted slightly, with certain scenes removed or altered, and new boss battles implemented; in the original design document you were meant to be fighting a lot more wolfies than what actually made it in! :V

That said, the soundtrack's been expanded and adjusted to fit these new editions.

This is the theme for werewolf battles.



And this is one of the new areas. The timer will probably be changed to a day/night timer instead, but the basic idea is that you've got a limited amount of time in open area dungeons- Tents can be used to reset the timer, since Leander enchants tents to be sun-proof.

With that mechanic I do have to adjust some of the dialogue slightly, but the visit to Ayrshire is still necessary because of supplies, and Tents don't endure having such heavy-duty magick used on them more than once (hurr).

Hopefully the update will be done soon, but the Lite edition is still available for download and is a complete game in itself; there are things in it that will not make it into the update, including Azriel's dialogue after you beat him.

To finish, have Leander taking a bath and Fionn being a perv.

  • Completed
  • Puddor
  • RPG Maker VX Ace
  • RPG
  • 02/05/2013 12:03 PM
  • 08/02/2023 07:18 PM
  • 02/18/2013
  • 83834
  • 55
  • 1272

Posts

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This looks great actually, it's nice to see some custom facesets (or portraits in this case). I will be watching this ;)
I love when people add their own unique touches to rpgmaker games. Very nicely done, too.
Well I played the game and I loved it :D. The story and the characters are good and interesting and the zone system in the dungeons is very original. Even though I don't like front view battle sistems it was enjoyable for me.
Also, I found this error:

Someone forgot to add a switch right here xD. Or at least you were too lazy :P
Puddor
if squallbutts was a misao category i'd win every damn year
5702
I can't see the image, so I'm not sure where you're talking about. I did add a number of NPCs and events during the final stretch before upload, so I'm not entirely surprised.
I subscribed right now it looks really good :)
Melkino
solos collectors on purpose
2021
Finished the game; it was pretty fun!

Some bugs:
- Fionn's sprite reappears if I reenter the house at the start of the game.
- When talking to the left of the NPC who pays money for putting up a magic ward, the party leader moves to the left, bumps into the sparkle and stops, freezing the game. Talking to her from below worked fine, though.
- I can walk around during the majority of the cutscenes for some reason?
Puddor
if squallbutts was a misao category i'd win every damn year
5702
Ahh, the cutscene walking bug...I am not sure how to fix this. It's because majority of the cutscenes are run via regions rather than traditional autorun events. Since the last time I had this issue I used a common event and a script condition to prevent it (in RMXP), I wasn't sure how to pull it off here since this game uses all the common events.

That sparkle sprite bug will need to be fixed though :'D and I think I know what happened with Fionn orz.

edit: ok that sparkle sprite bug is actually quite odd since even talk to the NPC from the side should give the move route enough room :x Ahh well.

edit2: I see what happened :x
so many bugs...
after waking up from the nightmare i directly go outside without fionn
then after talking with the guy who gave 600 crowns Leander started talking to fionn
even he is not there. after that i went back to the inn and the autorun event runs again "ze nightmare" everytime i go back to the inn.....
Sounds like one bug gained from not talking to Fionn.
Puddor
if squallbutts was a misao category i'd win every damn year
5702
Fixing, it was an oversight on my part. I did have a check set for it though, so it's not like I casually skipped over it >->

I'll upload 1.3 momentarily.

also: dude two bugs is not so many bugs

author=SorceressKyrsty
Fixing, it was an oversight on my part. I did have a check set for it though, so it's not like I casually skipped over it >->

I'll upload 1.3 momentarily.

also: dude two bugs is not so many bugs


i was gonna include what melkino said so about 5
youre working alone anyway so i guess its understandable
looking forward to the fix
nice game i like the mapping and artworks too.
Puddor
if squallbutts was a misao category i'd win every damn year
5702
The fix is up~
author=SorceressKyrsty
The fix is up~

ooooh sweeet
thanks
bro i downloaded the new fix and i found a weird thing again
i was going out the forest of monsters and went to the town but i didnt talk to the mayor and go back to the forest and i was teleported somewhere in the middle of the map instead in the end area.
bro i downloaded the new fix and i found a weird thing again
i was going out the forest of monsters and went to the town but i didnt talk to the mayor and go back to the forest and i was teleported somewhere in the middle of the map instead in the end area.

and also the level indication of the monsters doesnt appear anymore
i dont know if its supposed to be like that
Well, I just played this and it was an alright game. The story was nice, if not a little vague, but I guess that's Ok since this ties with other of your projects. Likewise, the music selection, custom art and other details (like Leander's 'accent') gave it a very distinctive 'personality'. ...But there were a few things that made playing it a little less enjoyable than it could have been.

What I found most annoying were those messages that kept popping everywhere at random. If I remember right you did something like this in 'Lucidity', but in there the messages didn't interfere with the gameplay. I guess the restrictions of Lite didn't let you pull the same trick, but then I wonder why you didn't choose a more conventional approach to sutscenes instead.

Another issue is that the game is no difficult at all. All I had to do to win was getting Leander killed (all he was good for anyway xD) cast 'retaliation' with Fionn and watch him mow its way through bosses. Was this intended to be so broken? ...Anyway, maybe this was for the best since the game's main focus is the story. But still, I would have welcomed a challenge.

And last but not least, there were a few pasability errors here and there, events with what I think were the wrong graphics, and Instances where the walking speed changed drastically. Yeah, nothing serious, but, you know...

All in all if you could smooth the rough edges of this game it would make a nice addition to your 'portfolio'. =P
shayoko
We do not condone harassing other members by PM.
515
Random Thoughts

well done intro

yay vampires twipire activate!

interesting regen trigger!

nice mapping so far

supposed to only be able not to save in dungeons so why cant i save going back to my house?

kind of sucks you need to grind a bit,would of preferred no battles in this

the sign at the start of the town doesn't say anything o.o

why cant you equip the shield with either character?

max lvl is 20? i always like to see a break from 99 which most games you will never see anyway w/o spending a insane amount of time to get there anyway

2 secrets in cave???

why would you want to raise the enemies resistance to holy???

that ending....who the hell is Elise!?


Thoughts
well not a bad game persay
i am not sure what the previous post meant by vague,ending aside
the main points were clear to me anyway
the mapping was great and despite being male i liked the characters which was a huge shock!
the lack of interactivity with pretty much anything even including signs was a little annoying tho
at least have the name of the town your in!

the battles really could of been...cut from the game or at least set up so you only battled for story situations
the grammar including the accent was mostly well done
you may want to grind a bit early game to have a easier time later
game takes aroundish 1.25-2 hours to complete

Overall
just for the sake of playing as vampires (which sadly doesn't come with the hunting part of there species
id say this was not bad and check it out
but don't have high expectations and or care about what happens after the ending

Other
Shame blood rose is on hiatus no love : (
i say un-cancel lost girls and work on that! talk about a awesome game!
astronomically better then this :D
This looks soooo interesting, I hope you managed to fisnish it like you want to, I'll play riaght know what you have... so I hope to enjoy it :P
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