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Story

The city of Noxton takes its name from one of the eight founding families, the Noxton family. Renowned publicly for their contributions to the city, privately, they are linked to the mysterious 'Drift.' Tragedy strikes the family on Melrose Noxton’s thirteenth birthday, marked by a horrific house fire following the appearance of the titular doctrine in the guesthouse. Three years later, the mystery remains unsolved, and life seemingly moves on, but not for Melrose – she remembers everything.

This story unfolds on Melrose’s sixteenth birthday, where you will uncover the inescapable horrors of the doctrine, unravel the secrets of the Noxton family, and confront the spirits of the 'Drift' that relentlessly seek to butcher anyone in their path. Happy Birthday, Melrose.

Main Characters

Melrose

An old soul and reserved girl. Her birthday serves as a haunting reminder of the house fire and acts as the catalyst for the story.

Suzetta

A mischievous girl with a cheerful exterior. She is a close friend of Melrose and Dace’s daughter.

Silas

An unfiltered and hot-headed boy. His family harbors distrust towards the ‘founding families' in the city of Noxton.

Milton

A well-mannered and intelligent boy, slated to be the next head of the Noxton family. He is the son of Josie and Klaas, and also Melrose’s cousin.

Vernon

An introverted and inquisitive boy. He is Melrose’s childhood friend and is from another founding family, the Skallow family.

Josie

A calm and warmhearted woman. She is Melrose's aunt and Milton's mom. Her and Florence were in a state of no contact for years prior to the fire.

Dace

A composed and educated man, he is Suzetta's dad and a long-time close friend of Florence before the fire. He works for the Noxton Police Department.

Perry

A brisk and 'rough around the edges' kind of man, he is the current head of the Noxton family and the uncle of Melrose and Milton.

Klaas

A diligent and zestful man, he is Milton's dad and works for the Noxton Police Department.

Bios and artwork are subject to change before the final release of the game, and this post may be updated.

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  • Notoh
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  • 12/13/2015 04:23 AM
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Posts

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I've been playing and i was wondering what i should do after finding the rusty keys and being chased by that girl zombie in the other room
Notoh
*Deeply Thinking*
1928
Wrote it under the hide tag ^^
You need to go to the very left door and then the demo ends.
Congratulations for the new update Nedras!
Just finished it, just like the first time I had a hard time with the puzzles, it was like 30 minutes for me, but I was also distracted by the details.
That new character is my favourite.

Some thoughts:

The best of it was the ambientation, I love your maps, great suspense.

Struggling so much with the first puzzle destroyed my self esteem, because I did it before.

Dialogues and story made me want to know more in the end, that's a very good thing on a demo.

I think the timed event could have a bit more suspense, I honestly just let the time get to zero to see what happens, and I was expecting it to be exactly what happened.

It feels good, I just think messing a bit with the player's expectations could make it better.

I am trying to be strict, I can't find any real problems with it, I think keeping the suspense high will help.
I found the puzzles hard simply because I suck at them in every game.


I recommend this and I think the final product will be epic.
Notoh
*Deeply Thinking*
1928
Thank you so much for your feedback, Balthasar!

Also, I'm glad you like the new character! xD
Downloaded the demo, once I have the chance to play (I'm hoping sometime today, but for now it's 6:30 am, my bedtime) I will share my thoughts! From what I can see, I like the character designs and maps in the given images, and I see that there will be voice acting, I can't wait to see if that will also be in the demo. I'm looking forward to my chance to play this!
Updated my Let's Play media on TDOP, contains both the original demo and the final demo gameplay. ^_^
Notoh
*Deeply Thinking*
1928
Late responses ; v ;

author=MikuLeRoux
Downloaded the demo, once I have the chance to play (I'm hoping sometime today, but for now it's 6:30 am, my bedtime) I will share my thoughts! From what I can see, I like the character designs and maps in the given images, and I see that there will be voice acting, I can't wait to see if that will also be in the demo. I'm looking forward to my chance to play this!


Sweet! I look forward to your feedback. ^^

author=FlareBlitzed
Updated my Let's Play media on TDOP, contains both the original demo and the final demo gameplay. ^_^


You guys should watch FlareBlitzed's let's play! It's really good.
Dragnfly
Beta testers!? No, this game needs a goddamn exorcist!
1809
I finally got around to playing this. I'd call it "a game that defies expectations, although if that's a good thing or not will have to wait for the full game." I'm very sold on the mystery, mapping and art. Medium on the gameplay.

The art stands out to me, actually. For all the Pocket Mirrors, Melting Moons and Kago to Toriis out there it's nice to see somebody use art that clearly has effort behind it instead of just tracing or using open resources, all without being pro-level. It's nice to see. It's about the same quality I can do, except mine is all squiggly and inconsistent.

Some odd things or errors that I noticed:
When Melrose returns to her room after dinner she can tell
an open book is her stepmother's diary from all the way by the door? Isn't that, like 4 meters away if the bed is any measure. The kid has eyes like a hawk.


http://i.imgur.com/mkAOtuF.png some weird English. Likely meant to be "I will throw this book out the window." Also, just saying but I love Melrose's angry face. It looks like she's gonna axe murder somebody.
http://i.imgur.com/ujqoXE2.png It's either Unliving One, or "an/the/that" unliving one. Also, "they are a demon" makes it sound like many things have become one thing. Maybe that's how you meant it. It just sounded like a mistake to me.

??? "There are two more people here."
Melrose "I'll save you guys."
but at this point, unless I missed something, Melrose doesn't even know who the two other people here are. And it's not a logical deduction to assume it's because she's already met somebody new. It can be fixed by just having her say something like "Suzetta and Silas!?" and then the girl responding with "I don't know" or something similar.


I can't say if the puzzles are good or bad. I was just in a different headspace I guess. I passed the first two by just brute force and luck.

Getting out of the first room, when I started seeing directions mentioned I thought it was going to lead me to some hidden point but there was no starting point to go off of. Then I noticed that We See is made of the of letters from the directions so I checked the W, E, S, E, and E objects but got nothing. So I just plodded around the room actioning everywhere and found the correct spot (the glue too). I don't know how I was to find it otherwise since the obvious hint didn't turn out. Too bad because that would've been a great puzzle.

For the second locked room escape puzzle, I knew the calendar was the hint. The progression starts in March and I'm already given the number 19. I need a 4-digit code. So I added 3+2+9+6=20. So I figured the code was 1920. That didn't work. So I tried 6156 (19x3x2x9x6, which amazingly gave a 4 digit number) and that didn't work. So I cycled it around a bunch. None of that worked so I tried random numbers while re-thinking how it could work and on the 4th or 5th try it just opened. I don't even remember what number opened it but I'm guessing it was those months and the 19 in some order.

Also, in this room, what was up with the chest by the door? I didn't get what freaked her out so much.

Sadly, now we're on to the big problem. What almost made me unsub?

I died a few times looking for the key in the timed room. When I did find it, I got killed in the next room. I imagine this is how it will be for pretty much everyone. "That's ok" I thought. "I know where the key is and I'm prepared for the chase now."... and the key location changed. Random can be good in breathing new life into successive playthroughs. It can also drain motivation from a player. I'm not opposed to dying in games, especially in horror games. But what separates a good death from a bullshit death is the reward of overcoming it on future attempts through gained knowledge and skill. Random takes that away and much worse, it needlessly varies the impression players will have. I died far more times after that. I was about ready to give up. I even stopped playing and watched a video to see if I was missing something (risking spoilers in doing so).

My suggestion: add 5 seconds to the timer there. A mere 5 seconds will cut out a lot of the times where players find the key in time but can't get through the "found key" dialogue and make it to the door in time. Those were the most frustrating.

I died far less in the actual chase. There was that very first death, which I'm sure will get everybody. In fact, if somebody says it didn't get them then I'll call them a liar since there's no sensible warning. Then for the 2nd death, I analyzed the screen a bit before running and caught on to the trail on the floor. Other deaths were just me reloading to see if the other paths held anything.


So I died infinitely more times looking for the dumb key.

So I'd say it's still pretty good, just held back by some really odd design decisions. Maybe the puzzles aren't a problem for most other people and I just didn't see the clues the way other people do. But I really wanna see where this goes. I'm interested in the story and what else you have for us.
Notoh
*Deeply Thinking*
1928
Wow! Thank you so much for writing this out! I really appreciate it! Some responses...

author=Dragnfly
an open book is her stepmother's diary from all the way by the door? Isn't that, like 4 meters away if the bed is any measure. The kid has eyes like a hawk.

I tried to make the book glow so it would stand out which was why Melrose noticed it. But, I definitely understand where you're coming from.

author=Dragnfly
Getting out of the first room, when I started seeing directions mentioned I thought it was going to lead me to some hidden point but there was no starting point to go off of. Then I noticed that We See is made of the of letters from the directions so I checked the W, E, S, E, and E objects but got nothing. So I just plodded around the room actioning everywhere and found the correct spot (the glue too). I don't know how I was to find it otherwise since the obvious hint didn't turn out. Too bad because that would've been a great puzzle.

In order to finish the puzzle you stand right in front of the "We See" writing and go west, east, south, east, and east again. The W S N E tags in the room are hints in which direction the room is.

author=Dragnfly
or the second locked room escape puzzle, I knew the calendar was the hint. The progression starts in March and I'm already given the number 19. I need a 4-digit code. So I added 3+2+9+6=20. So I figured the code was 1920. That didn't work. So I tried 6156 (19x3x2x9x6, which amazingly gave a 4 digit number) and that didn't work. So I cycled it around a bunch. None of that worked so I tried random numbers while re-thinking how it could work and on the 4th or 5th try it just opened. I don't even remember what number opened it but I'm guessing it was those months and the 19 in some order.

For the calender puzzle the circle is in March, then goes to February, then September, and lastly June. So that would make the number 3296. The 19 part was suppose to represent the year, sorry for the confusion.

author=Dragnfly
Also, in this room, what was up with the chest by the door? I didn't get what freaked her out so much.

There's a pounding noise that comes from the chest, which scares her. Hopefully the BGM isn't too loud and is masking it. ; ;

author=Dragnfly
Key Puzzle + Chase Scene

Yeah, I agree a hundred percent on what you're saying with the chase scene part. It was really bad, and I edited it to make her slower in the next build. It was pretty aeful paired with the key room before it because of the randomization and then the random surprise. I'll add the 5 seconds to the timer as well!

Also! For the one spelling error with the unliving one line, I actually corrected that (saw it in a playthrough), as for the weird English, that does sound a lot better! I'll change it.

Thank you for taking the time to write this. I really appreciate it when people write stuff like this because it helps tremendously. Hopefully the full experience will be better! :D

Small edit:

author=Dragnfly
Also, just saying but I love Melrose's angry face. It looks like she's gonna axe murder somebody.

I dunno if you watch Higurashi or not, but they have some crazy deformed faces which really show crazy insanity so I take a lil pit of inspiration from that art style when some of my characters go a bit loony. Examples...

Dragnfly
Beta testers!? No, this game needs a goddamn exorcist!
1809
Version - It IS possible that I played an older version of the game, too. My readme says version 1.0.

Puzzles - Yeah, I totally over-thought them. I'm one of those old foagies so I overthink puzzle solutions sometimes. Blame it on the old adventure game genre. LOL oops. At least I didn't get stuck on them, even if it was brute force and I guess dumb luck (1/9999 chance to get the code and it only took a couple of tries? I likely spent all my luck on that, which explains why I had none left for the timed room LOL)

Higurashi - Aye, I saw s1 when it aired and most of s2 (as well as Umineko, if that counts). To be honest I like Melrose's better. It's more like just absolute rage rather than insanity.

Pounding noise - Ah, I could've missed it for any number of reasons so let's not blame audio levels right away. I listen to a lot of symphonic metal so my equalizer favours treble over bass anyway. Also, my hearing is shit at certain times of the day.

Chase - The chase itself isn't bad. There's nothing wrong with a 100% newbie kill when it's two rooms away from a save point with no long cutscenes in between. For example, I'm sure everyone who played The Witch's House was killed by "bear" and I'm sure that when my game is done 100% of people will be killed by "race". The problem is that it's directly following the random room so the extra 5 seconds should fix that. It actually comes from a macro so it should be accurate enough.

Speaking of cut scenes, thank you Thank You THANK YOU for making skip and run different buttons. That's the greatest thing ever.

Anyway, looking forward to the rest. This thing has heart.
OzzyTheOne
Future Ruler of Gam Mak
4676
Oh darn, this is quite the snazzy looking game! I should give it a closer look.
Notoh
*Deeply Thinking*
1928
author=OzzyTheOne
Oh darn, this is quite the snazzy looking game! I should give it a closer look.


Thank you! I'm hoping to have more content to show off before the end of the year :)
I've added this to my playlist :) Seeing the progress has been awesome!
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