official Oc Reviews: One Night 4

[Ocedic 249]

Game Title: One Night 4

Game Author: Dark Gaia

Version: Demo 1.1

Review by: Ocedic

 

Note: This project has been updated since this review; this review may or may not reflect the current state of the game.

 

Introduction

 

One Night 4 is a horror adventure games with an emphasis on exploration and Silent Hill influences. I should note that I don't play a lot of horror games and don't particularly enjoy them, but I thought I'd give this a shot to try something new.

 

 

Graphics

 

ON4 has a strong sense of visual cohesion. Nothing stands out as looking out of place or inconsistent with the rest of the visuals. Modern environments are replicated well and appear to be spatially similar to real-world design. My main criticism is that the first level is too dark, to the point where some objects become difficult to see and details are obfuscated. Lighting in general feels a bit underutilized, which is not a big deal in a normal game, but is a key element in creating atmosphere in a horror title. For example, in one scene there is a flashing alarm which is depicted simply by a periodic red screen flash. First, the author doesn't use a loop to keep the effect going during messages, which is jarring. Second, the flashing itself comes across as annoying rather than distressing, which I imagine is its desired effect.

 

Verdict:

 

Mapping

 

I should note that the version I downloaded had an error in which one of the tileset files wasn't included. Thus, a lot of the graphics in the second level were missing, which made things hard to judge at that point. The mapping has been created with a nice aesthetic sense. The maps simply look nice based on how they are laid out. There are some pathing errors here and there, notably you can sometimes walk on blood on the walls. That aside, level design is solid.

 

Verdict:

 

Audio

 

This is one of the most important aspects of horror (some would argue the most important,) and ON4 nails it both in terms of music and sound effects. The music is haunting, creepy and creates a sense of dread as you navigate the levels. The only issue is that the exploration sequences are long, and the songs will loop and become repetitive, which weakens their effect when heard multiple times. Perhaps the author should have multiple tracks play throughout a level in order to keep a fair amount of variety. After all, when the player's expectations are fulfilled, that's when things cease to be suspenseful. The sound effects are disturbing and unsettling, though their use can be at times predictable. I remember thinking to myself, "The monster will probably shriek around now," and it did. Overall, well done in terms of audio.

 

Verdict:

 

Gameplay - Exploration

 

ON4 eschews combat in favor of of puzzle solving and run-from-the-monster escape sequences that are all-too-common amongst RM horror games. The puzzle solving/exploration sequences feel at odds with the urgency that the author tries to create with the brief glimpses of the monster that is lurking about. The entire game just feels very scripted. You walk around, the game hints that there is danger around, and then you solve some adventure game-style puzzles and advance, possibly encountering the monster that was established in the first act of the level. This is more or less the formula that a lot of Playstation-era horror games used, such as the early Resident Evil and Silent Hill games. The issue is ON4 doesn't try to shake up that tired formula in any way, and if you're expecting anything truly revolutionary or extraordinary to occur, you may not want to hold your breath. And though I generally don't give much praise for modern horror games, one thing they do correctly is make the action feel more unpredictable and organic. Once your players 'figure out your game,' you'll have a hard time keeping them on their toes. So it's best to throw constant curve balls at them. Look at the Half Life mod Nightmare House 2 for some excellent examples of this.

 

The puzzles themselves are a bit uninspired. I like that they tie in with the lore and setting, but they also seemed a bit unpolished with some unintuitive issues. They certainly did not involve much critical thinking. When you're given two numbers that you combine, it's not clear which order you put them in. In fact, one would expect to put them in order of left-to-right, but for some reason that's not the case. Later on, you use a date as one of the puzzle answers. Hypothetically, the date was May 12th, so I entered "0512" to no avail. I then remembered that the author is Australian, so I flipped it to "1205" and it worked, which doesn't make a lot of sense when the hero is implied to be American (he mentions Maine at some point.) Small details like these may seem trivial, but the game is about nuance and when I play a horror game, I expect every detail to be engineered carefully. When there are small design blemishes, the player is unconsciously told that the developer is actually not in control, which alleviates a lot of tension and suspense.

 

Overall, gameplay is disappointing as I was expecting something more cerebral from a game without combat. What's there is passable and not bad by any means, but it's rudimentary and unengaging.

 

Verdict:

 

Story

 

This is where most of the Silent Hill-esque influence is present. The story involves a man who is transported to a dream world where he must confront events that occurred in his past. It's refreshing to see an RM horror title focused on the psychological and abstract rather than the recent trend of boogiemen and cheap thrills fueled by the Youtube scare-cam culture. In this game, the true antagonist is not the monster that lurks in the shadow, but the monster that dwells within. It's a fundamental element of classic horror stories in which the monsters were more metaphorical than literal. Having said that, One Night comes across as a bit derivative of these sources without offering much of its own unique voice. You almost roll your eyes when you come across a newspaper clipping that titillates the reader with a tease of the events that set the game's story into motion. If you've ever played Corpse Party, you will feel an overwhelming sense of been-there, done-that, with the young anime characters replaced with James Sunderland if he were a struggling writer. Nonetheless, I admire the literary ambitions of the story and it does keep me interested to unravel its plot.

 

The writing itself is fairly good, although the object interaction dialogue feels stale and mechanical, as if the author found it a chore to have to write out so many boilerplate lines for pointless objects. Nonetheless, the narrator's voice is natural, although he seems to accept his supernatural predicament a bit too easily and without much protest. By the second level, he simply goes, "Oh, looks like I'm in a nightmare dream world." It's as if the protagonist played Silent Hill 2 and knows what to expect. All things considered, I'd say the story and writing is above average, though it never approaches greatness or quite grips you in the same way as the mysteries of superior horror games. The author really needs to capture that je ne sais quoi.

 

Verdict:

 

Polish

 

Being an early version, One Night 4 is surprisingly polished in the presentation department. There are some rough edges, and the missing graphic file really hampers the current version.

 

Verdict:

 

Overall

 

The game shows a tremendous amount of promise, and in my opinion it's one of the better RPG Maker horror games. However, like many RM horror games, it's clearly modeled after an existing game; its main advantage is that the game it draws inspiration from happens to be very good. It's well put together, but at times lacks soul and heart. I hope the author will be more adventurous with future iterations, and bring more surprises to the table. Nonetheless, I think it's a solid horror recommendation and deserves a try if you are into the genre.

 

Score: 6.6/10

[Dark Gaia 13]

Hi Ocedic. Thanks for playing and for the review -- all of your points are very valid. The demo is very rough at the moment, and basically only exists to demonstrate how the gameplay mechanics will work. Maps, graphics and atmosphere aren't yet finalised (especially since I'm still waiting on the game's OST, which plays a big part in the specific "feel" of each area). The dialogue is very bare bones and hasn't been worked through, and the puzzles that are in there basically only exist so that there ARE puzzles (the actual game will likely have "proper" puzzles), though please keep in mind that this is the first area, where puzzles will be typically easy. I'm also making a conscious decision to make the puzzles easier than previous One Night games in order to capture a new audience unfamiliar with the games I'm attempting to emulate. More polishing is to come!

Funnily enough, it seems that the tileset error (which has happened because the game uses the RTP version of Indoor A2 when I erroneously thought it used a custom one -- I hadn't yet made the switch and thought I had, so I deleted the needed tileset) may be responsible for the darkness in the first area as well. The tileset includes some of the floors and tables -- which will just appear as black squares if they're missing. I'm currently reuploading to include this and I'll address the other points in due time

Re the story: I've basically got it all planned out, but haven't yet had the time to polish its implementation. It's very Silent Hill inspired (particularly Silent Hill 4), which may account for Gordon's apparent readiness to accept what's happening to him -- the protagonists of SH2 and SH4 seem to exhibit a similar nonchalant attitude to the horrors around them. That said, without spoiling a twist later in the game, the files and cutscenes you've seen so far are purposefully written to make you merely think you know what's happening. It will turn out later that what you think is the story (girl kills herself, brings Gordon into a dream world for "revenge") is not the story at all -- and that's where the tie-in to the previous One Night games will come into play. For want of a better term, it's kind of meant to be "intentional predictability".

One Night 4 is kind of an experiment for me at the moment (I usually don't even release demos of the One Night games, because you can't really appreciate foreshadowing and plot twists, as well as progression and escalating difficulty in half an hour of gameplay) as the gameplay is VERY different from the previous One Night games, and I'm still figuring out the best way to implement it and how to balance it. That said, please keep in mind that, like the previous games, it IS meant purely to be an emulation of the PSX error survival horror games (RE, Silent Hill, Clock Tower) that I love so much. The formula is one that I've grown to love more than modern horror games, and One Night 4 isn't intended to evoke modern horror. The scares and situations of these games ARE very scripted (and the previous One Night games were the same), so it's just a matter of it being an old clunky system that will only appeal to die hard fans of that era of horror. However, there is a random chance that the monster may randomly appear each time you move between rooms. There are two scripted encounters, but you may or may not encounter him randomly in other areas.

Brief Edit: I will admit that I've been influenced by the scare cam culture a little bit when designing One Night 4. This is a conscious decision, though: in fact, One Night 4 wouldn't even exist if it weren't for Let's Players asking me to make it this way. Never played Corpse Party, though.

Edited April 3, 2013 by Dark Gaia