Items and Consumables

Items in Nocturne are designed to give you meaningful choices (and tough decisions) in the middle of an intense Rhythm battle. 

So with the upcoming new demo releasing in June on Steam, Nocturne is getting a complete overhaul of its items and equipment and I think it's going to change how you approach each battle.

Builds and Playstyles

At its heart, Nocturne's combat is about reading the rhythm and striking at the right moment. But your equipped items determine what "the right moment" even means for you.

Some items reward patience, holding your energy until you can unleash a devastating attack. Others reward aggression, striking the instant you have an attack available and never letting up.

There are three core combat paths in Nocturne, and they're mutually exclusive. You can't land a critical hit, an energy attack, and a riposte all at once. You have to choose.

Criticals
Patience rewarded: Time your attacks perfectly and the damage stacks up.

Energy
Strategic planning: Harness energy damage to manipulate the timing of your enemy's attacks.

Riposte (not in the demo, introduced in Chapter 3)
High risk, huge payoff: Counter at the exact right moment for devastating effect.

Items don't just boost whichever path you choose, they deepen it with mechanics you'd never see otherwise. The critical build, for example, comes alive with an item that gives you +2 damage for every successful Crit you land. Miss a note though, and all those stacks vanish. Every note hit now matters a lot more.

What Items Actually Do

Beyond the three core paths, the item system branches out in directions that let you build around specific situations. Without giving away too much, as I don’t want to ruin the surprise of finding items in game, here are a few examples of the kind of thing you can expect: 

Ninja Robes
Enemies can't hear you anymore. Sneak up on creatures anywhere. This can pair well with an ambush build. With the right loadout, you can begin every battle with additional energy or damage.

Alloy Vest
Hit zero health in a fight? Get a one time safety net that allows you to continue fighting.

Rebar
While enemies are in stagger, attack them again to extend the stagger duration. With some careful build planning, you can create some monstrous staggers with big rewards.

Pellucid Amulet
While you're at full health, you do extra damage. This pairs perfectly with items that slow down enemy attacks, or even block them entirely. Maintaining max health through the battle becomes its own high stakes game.

And let's not forget my favourite...

Pool Noodle
All damage you do is reduced to 1. It makes a funny noise.

Consumables

This is a big one. Consumables have been in Nocturne for a while, but they never felt like they had real impact. I've changed that.

Consumables are now active rather than passive. You choose when they trigger, but you’ll only get one per battle. You'll see your consumable equipped in the UI during the battle, and when the moment is right, you can activate it by pressing shift (or your preferred keybind).

 Even if you have 20 different types of consumables, you can only have one equipped at any given time, meaning you’ll need to be strategic about which one you bring into battle.

That single change opens up a new dimension of decision making. You can expect consumables like:

Instant Energy
Use it to force a riposte, chain an unexpected combo, or simply stagger to survive.

Double Crit
Your next critical hit deals double damage. Time it right and you can stagger in a single hit.

EMP
Reduce an enemy to zero health and they die instantly (bypassing the usual stagger). But use with caution, as this item means you won’t get the bonus XP and Currency from stagger.
(also great for speedrunners as you can end fights quicker)

Nullify
Strip every active buff from your enemy. Some battles can turn from a disaster back to winnable the moment you use this.

Progression in Nocturne

As you progress through Nocturne, you'll grow in two ways. Levelling up through combat gives you permanent gains to your damage and critical hits. And every boss you defeat gives you +1 maximum health.

You also progress through gear and equipment. There are no level requirements on gear. So if you find something in the world, you can equip it. Simple.

(And don't forget, because Nocturne is a skilled-based Rhythm game, you'll also grow in your skill as a player! That's why I let players change their difficulty at any time.)

Enemies Now Drop Loot

Coming in the new demo of Nocturne in June, enemies will now drop items when you defeat them.

Each enemy can drop up to three things, a piece of equipment, a consumable, or a material (these will come into play in the full game). Equipment drops are rare, and each piece can only drop once. For example, the Firefly drops its own unique armor. Once it drops, even if you defeat another Firefly, it won’t drop again. Think of them as rare equipment collectables from each enemy.

That system exists alongside the rewards you'll find tucked in different corners of the world. Some items are on the main path. Others are sneakily hidden. The best ones can be discovered by the players who go looking.

Make the Build Yours

Everything in these systems exists to give you more ways to decide how you want to fight. I always wanted to give players more meaningful choices beyond “hit as many notes as you can” in combat.

I can’t wait for all of you to get your hands on the new demo coming in June, and then to experience everything in the game on the full release coming September 24th.

How Combat Works

How Combat Works (and why it took so many iterations)

Before I jump into the details, and backstory, with how I settled on the combat mechanics for Nocturne, I want to give you the heads up there are some game mechanics mentioned here that only appear later in the game, but there are no story spoilers.

That being said, if you don’t want to know about ANYTHING that will be featured later in the game, do not read this post.

If you’re okay with learning about some combat mechanics that appear in later chapters, then this blog is safe to read.

Starting from Scratch

From the beginning, Nocturne was always meant to blend RPG and Rhythm, but I didn't want to compromise the core rhythm elements by distilling them down to musically timed attacks or quick time events. I needed something that felt both like a traditional RPG and a complete rhythm game.

So I started with pure rhythm first. I made playing cool songs the absolute forefront of the gameplay, DDR / Guitar Hero style. Then I focused on the RPG elements to make it feel like both sides of the gameplay were deeply connected.

In my previous demo, Nocturne: Prelude, I took this to the extreme. There was no attacking at all. No way to deal damage. Everything was automatic, passive items, passive effects. You just played the song and that was it.

And players told me something felt like it was missing. It felt disconnected. They wanted to feel like they were actually fighting. To me, what they were asking for was more player agency. More meaningful choices in combat besides just hitting notes.

Turning Rhythm into Combat

So the challenge became, how do you add attacking without it feeling like a completely separate system just slapped on top?

The answer I landed on is that attacking in Nocturne needs to feel timed, yet fully player controlled. You always have a choice when to attack, and that choice should always feel meaningful.

So here's the basics: if you miss a note, the enemy charges energy. That energy bar directly ties your performance in the rhythm game to the combat. If you play badly, the enemy attacks more, but the key piece of the attack is the windup phase.

When the enemy's energy bar fills completely, they enter a 0.75 second windup. The bar turns yellow, the columns light up, and sound effect fires. That's your window of opportunity. Attack during the windup and you land a critical hit for bonus damage. So while you can attack anytime, only this window will land a critical hit.

It makes timing your attacks more intentional and gives players more agency over their actions. You're not just mashing an attack button thoughtlessly throughout each encounter, at least not if you want to do well. That energy bar is almost like a fifth column you're watching, timing when to strike vs when to hold back.

Stagger: How Fights End (and why they don't just stop)

Here's a design problem that's pretty unique to rhythm RPGs: in a normal RPG, you kill the enemy when their HP hits zero. Pretty simple. But in a rhythm game, you want to play the whole song. Fights have a fixed duration, especially boss fights with story beats and cutscenes woven in. It would feel counter intuitive to end a song early if you're doing well in combat, especially if you're going for highscores.

So what happens when you reduce an enemy to zero health in combat?

The answer is Stagger. A phase where the enemy can't charge energy or attack you. By default stagger lasts 10 seconds, giving you a breather to recover health and stabilize.

But here's where it gets interesting, if you attack the enemy while they're already staggered, you add additional time to the stagger. This creates a whole build path around maximizing stagger, equipping items that extend stagger duration, or speeding up your attacks so you can stagger them for longer.

Stagger also ties directly to your rewards. The total time you keep an enemy staggered gives you a multiplier on your Currency and XP at the end of the fight. Stagger longer, earn more. It gives you two strong reasons to push the stagger as far as possible, it keeps you safer during hard sections, and it makes the fight more rewarding.

This mechanic also helps the game scale as you progress. If you come back to fight an enemy from an earlier chapter, your stats will be so much higher that you can chain staggers for longer than before, giving that feeling of enjoying how much stronger you've become.

(Quick note: the updated Stagger system is a new feature that will be live from June 1st in the new playable demo of Nocturne)

Decide your own Fighting Style

As you progress through the game and collect items, you'll start to find that combat opens up into multiple distinct playstyles.

Karma lands a Riposte

• Critical Hits: The default path. Attack during the windup phase for bonus damage. Clean, aggressive, high reward if you're playing well.

• Energy Damage: A more defensive option. Equip items that cause your attacks to deal energy damage rather than (or in addition to) health. Keeping their energy drained means they attack you less often. This only works during the energy charging phase, so it's in direct conflict with going for Crits.

• Riposte: Introduced in chapter 3, this is the hardest but most rewarding mechanic. After the windup completes and the enemy begins their attack animation, there's a 250ms window before the damage frame lands. Land your attack in that window and you completely block the incoming hit.

But don't forget, you can only Riposte if you have enough energy to attack. So if you're missing a lot of notes, the Riposte is often not an option. There's also no visual indicator or warning prompt. You have to learn the timing of each enemy's attack animation.

Each of these paths can be set up with your item builds, or you can create your own custom blend of various unique items that match your exact style. You could even switch your loadout between fights depending on the enemy.

Plus we've not even got to talking about consumables and items you’ll find in the game, but I’ll save that for another blog.

Note Types

Two new note types are coming in the full version of Nocturne that aren't in the current demo.

• Mines: You should avoid hitting these notes. If you hit a mine, the enemy gets a large burst of energy, roughly three times more than a regular missed note. Items can help reduce or protect against mine effects.

• Critical Notes: These are notes that trigger a unique effect specific to the enemy if you miss them. It might be a visual distortion that obscures your columns for a bit, a debuff on your character, a buff to the enemy, or something else entirely. Each enemy's critical note has its own flavour.

Balancing Difficulty Outside the Chart

One thing that's unique to Nocturne is that the chart itself isn't the only difficulty lever. In most rhythm games, hard chart = hard battle. In Nocturne, some enemies passively charge energy faster, or gain less energy when you miss a note, or have other combat mechanics and effects that affect the challenge of the battle..

This means I can fine tune difficulty on a per enemy basis, such as making punishing charts a little more forgiving, or boosting tougher enemies' aggression if a chart lands on the easier side.

And that's the combat system in Nocturne in a nutshell. It's taken a long time to get right, but I think where I've landed serves the original goal, fighting an enemy that not only feels like a satisfying rhythm game, but one that provides player agency in combat like a traditional RPG.

In my next blog, I’ll be taking a deeper look at items and consumables you can find in the game. As always, there will be no story spoilers, just some previews of what you can expect to find in the game and examples of how they work.

The Arcade and Difficulty Options

If you've been following Nocturne's development for any length of time, you'll know that the music is a core part of the game. Every enemy encounter is a rhythm battle and by the time you're done with the story, you'll have worked your way through 101 original tracks (if you find and defeat every enemy that is).

But I get asked all the time how it’ll work if someone wants to go back to play a specific enemy again. Will you need to play through the story again? Will you need to load an older save?

Introducing: The Arcade.

Play any track you’ve unlocked!

How it Works

First up, the Arcade isn't a menu option. It's a physical location you can visit in Nocturne's main city, (which you'll reach early in Chapter 2). You'll literally play tracks on an old school arcade machine. 

Any enemy you've already defeated in the Overworld will have its track available for you to replay as many times as you like. Your highscore is saved for every track, so there's always a reason to go back and try to beat your own record.

You’ll find the Arcade in the main city.

No content is gated by difficulty. The whole game is accessible to you no matter what difficulty you're playing on. Items, stats, and currency are consistent across all difficulties. I never want a player to feel like they chose the wrong setting, and you can always change the difficulty at any time in the menu, whether you’re playing through the story or in the Arcade. I built Nocturne to accommodate every skill level.

Every Enemy Has Three Melodies

This is a feature I don't think most players know is in the game, so I want to explain it here.

Every enemy in the game has three different versions of their track. Three Melodies, each with its own chart and slightly harder than the last (emphasis on slightly). When you first encounter an enemy, you always get Melody 1. That's the baseline. Here's how the others unlock:

Earn a C rank or better and you'll unlock Melody 2. From that point, Overworld encounters with that enemy will randomly pull from either Melody 1 or 2, so even creatures you've seen before can surprise you.

Earn an A rank or better against an enemy, and Melody 3 unlocks. It's the hardest of the three, though difficulty step ups are noticeable rather than punishing. Each Melody is a different arrangement of the same creature's theme.

You don't need to grind Overworld encounters to unlock new Melodies either. The Arcade handles all of that. If you want to get your A rank on the Firefly, you can do it in the Arcade if you prefer, and it'll unlock everywhere else in the game too; nice and simple.

One thing worth noting, is that melody unlocks are tied to your current difficulty. Unlock Melody 2 on Elite, and it'll be available on every easier difficulty automatically, but you'll still need to earn it separately on Zen if you’re wanting to progress through the difficulties. I wanted players who are working their way up in difficulty to still feel that sense of progression.

Why Difficulty Is So Hard To Get Right

Nocturne has six difficulty settings to choose from. I always talk about wanting the game to work for someone who's never touched a rhythm game before, and someone who's played one for a thousand hours, and I mean that, but actually building that was one of the hardest things about making this game.

Here's the problem: Nocturne's combat is entirely skill-based. An experienced rhythm player can, in theory, hit every note in the game first try. That's just the nature of the genre. In Dark Souls though, raw skill from another game won't carry you through without taking any damage. In Nocturne, it might.

Early in development I had a simple rule: miss a note, take a point of damage. Seemed reasonable, but a Beginner chart might have 50 notes in a track, while a Zen chart of the same track might have 500. There wasn't any single health value that worked across both ends of the difficulty spectrum. If I gave the player 100 health to make Zen manageable, then Beginner becomes literally impossible to lose. The numbers just don't hold together when the note counts are that far apart.

Scorpion on Zen (our highest difficulty)

The solution was the Energy system. Instead of missing notes dealing direct damage, missed notes charge the enemy's attack bar instead. Once it's full, they windup and launch an attack. But here's the important part most players don’t realise, while the enemy is doing their attack animation, they're not charging any energy. Missed notes during that window carry no penalty at all!

What this means in practice is that there's a natural ceiling on how punishing any single section of track can be. If you hit a dense section on Zen and start missing lots of notes, as the enemy is attacking you're getting some breathing room to make mistakes before recovering. And this is what made it possible to appropriately scale the combat across all difficulties. It was no longer about the total number of notes you missed, it was about recovering well after a series of mistakes.

Autoplay Feature

Nocturne will also feature an Autoplay option in the Accessibility settings. You can enable Autoplay per column. So if you only want to play with two columns, whether that's because of a physical limitation or just personal preference, the other two will play all the notes automatically. Or you can turn Autoplay on for every column and just experience the story and music without any mechanical demands. 

The only trade-off is that Autoplayed notes have a reduced score count, which means some melody unlocks are out of reach if you're fully Autoplay. I think this is a fair trade-off because it still allows for the reward of unlocking melodies, and a fair competition for highscores, without preventing anyone from progressing through the game.

Corruption Minigame Difficulty

If you’ve played the Nocturne Demo, you might remember corrupted objects in the Overworld that trigger rhythm minigames. These rhythm puzzles are where the columns move, rotate, disappear, and challenge you beyond the regular boundaries of combat. You’ll need to hit enough notes to remove the corruption and progress through the game.

These scale differently from normal combat. Every player plays the exact same chart regardless of difficulty, but what changes is your miss tolerance. On the easiest setting, you can miss six notes (there's usually around twenty notes) and still pass. On the hardest difficulty, you get one miss. There's a lot less margin for error.

What's Next

Next time I'll be doing a deep dive on Nocturne's combat mechanics, which is why I avoided touching on that in this post. I’ll talk about things like different note types you’ll find during the game, a little preview of some new enemy attacks, and how the health and energy bars work. So if you want to know more details about Nocturne's rhythm combat, that'll be the post for you.

Changing Nocturne's Name

I’ve been stubborn about keeping the name Nocturne for a decade, even when many people have advised otherwise. But now the launch is getting close, I’ve had to make the difficult decision to change the name. Here’s why:

In 1999 a survival horror game called Nocturne released. This should have been the moment I decided to scrap the name and pick something else, but I figured the game was released long enough ago that it wouldn’t get confused for my game.

Then there was the League of Legends hero called Nocturne. For the longest time if you googled “Nocturne”, the LoL Wiki was the top result.

I was quite surprised when people started to ask if my game was related to Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. It seemed obvious these were unrelated games, but I wasn’t too worried until the Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne Remaster released on Steam in 2021. Now searching for Nocturne on Steam got a bit more confusing.

And then in 2023, Castlevania released an animated series called Castlevania: Nocturne. This one stung even more, because one of the chapters in Nocturne used to be called “Symphony of the Night”. Suffice to say that chapter got renamed…

Now despite all of the above, I was still stubborn enough to push forward on the name Nocturne. I’d come this far, and people recognised the game, so changing it now would just create more confusion, right?

But then comes the legal aspect. As launch approaches, I’ve started to dig deeper into the legality of using the name Nocturne. I need to be confident that I’m not breaking any copyright laws or trademarks. It’s for this reason, ultimately, that I’ve had to accept that changing the name of the game is the only option.

Coming up with a new name is the hardest decision I’ve had to make. I need a name that reflects the story, the rhythm gameplay, and sounds exciting enough for people to want to play.

So with that, I’d like to formally announce the new official name of Nocturne…

Have a great 1st of April everyone!

Official Release Date

Nocturne will release on June 30th 2026.
Platforms: PC & Steamdeck.
Language: English.

Here’s all the latest news on Nocturne, for those who occasionally find themselves checking the website for updates. As always, the most up-to-date info is always in the Discord Server, if you’d like to be there.

What happened so far this year?

I created a brand new Trailer for the game, showing off tons of never before seen content.

I’ve also released an updated demo which is live on Steam.
This version contains full controller and Steam Deck support.

Nocturne has come a long way since the 2024 demo release.
The biggest difference you’ll notice is the complete overhaul of the UI and Menus.

I took the game to PAX East and Gamescom, allowing the team to playtest the game with hundreds of players. Tons of valuable feedback from those events has already made it into the game.

Earlier in the year I flew out to Slovakia, where all the Boss music was performed and recorded live with the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra.

It’s hard to put into words the experience of hearing the game’s music performed live for the first time.
I can’t wait for everyone to hear this in game.

What’s Upcoming?

The next major event is Steam Next Fest, where I’ll be releasing a demo with new content from Chapter 2.
This will be the first time any content beyond Chapter 1 will be available publicly.

If you’d like to playtest this content ahead of Next Fest, there will likely be opportunities for testing announced in the Discord Server.

And that’s it! I’ve been working on Nocturne for over 9 years, and now I’m in the final stretch.
Thank you to everyone for being patient for so long. This is by far the largest creative project of my life, and I’m so close to getting it in your hands now.

- Benjamin Pracy.

Official Trailer & Demo

We’ve just launched the first Official Nocturne Trailer.

And the Demo for Chapter 1 is now available to play on Steam!

Nocturne Timeline Update

I’ve made the decision to delay Nocturne to 2024.
I’d like to give detailed insight into the reasons for the delay, but if you’re looking for the quick summary:

• The complexity of the game has become higher than anticipated.

• We rebuilt more fundamental pieces of the game than originally planned.

• There’s a lot of art to draw.

• I’m bad at estimating how long games take to build.

While the development is taking longer than expected, I’m really happy with the progress that’s been made so far, and we’re currently working towards a build that can be playtested by the community for feedback.

If you missed the development update posted last year, check it out

The complexity of the game has become higher than anticipated.

Some features seem simple at first, but can add complexity later in development. As one example, the choice to have enemies physically roam the overworld instead of random encounters, seemed like a simple change...

This meant each enemy in the game now required four unique directional sprites with a walking animation. In Prelude, enemies only needed one downward facing sprite for combat. This increased the total enemy art needed by a significant amount.

Next, we built a pathfinding system to handle how enemies navigate the map, and a system of rules about how they chase and engage with the player.

This created a lot of edge cases:

• What happens if the player climbs a ladder while being chased by an enemy?

• Should enemies climb ladders too, or wait at the bottom?

• What about flying enemies, can they engage players on ladders?

• What happens if the player starts a cutscene while being chased?

• What if two enemies collide with the player on the same frame?

• If the player is standing on a layer above the enemy (such as a bridge) while being chased, how does the enemy pathfind up to the higher layer, instead of just running around frantically below?

• If the enemy disengages from a chase, should it remain where it is on the map, or return to its previous position?

• Can enemies re-engage the player while still returning to its previous position?

• What happens if the player moves an object or closes a door that traps an enemy?

• … etc

Each of these edge cases requires design, implementation, testing and iteration to solve. Hopefully this example shows how seemingly simple features can actually be a lot of work.

We rebuilt more fundamental pieces of the game than originally planned.

Prelude was the first chapter of the game. It was naive of me to assume the timeline for building Nocturne would be <time to build prelude X number of chapters>.

Game development timelines aren’t on a linear scale, and there were many systems in Prelude that simply didn’t scale to the size we need for Nocturne.

For example, Prelude had a system to determine if a cutscene would play. I could set a series of conditions the game would check, such as “Is Kimothy with you?”, or “Have you seen this other cutscene yet?”. The system was a little clunky to use, but for the scale of Prelude, it worked out just fine.

For Nocturne, a game that’s almost ten times the scale of Prelude, the number of conditions cutscenes need has grown exponentially. Turning what used to be a slightly clunky system, into something completely impractical. Bug testing why a cutscene doesn’t play correctly has become akin to diving into a haystack, not being sure if there’s even a needle to find.

So we built a new system that works for Nocturne’s scale, one that visualizes the path the cutscenes will take in real time as you’re testing the game, so we immediately see if something isn’t correct, and on exactly which step things went wrong.

There’s a lot of art to draw.

With the new art style, the time it takes to draw everything in the game has increased. It’s important to me that every enemy has a unique visual design. It’ll result in a longer timeline for the game, but it’s a trade off that’s worth it to me.

The new map design also does away with the tile based layout of Prelude, which makes each environment more bespoke and detailed.

To keep up with the art required, I’ve hired two more artists to work on the game and as a result we’ve really picked up pace on the art side. As thanks for reading this far, here’s a little preview:

I’m bad at estimating how long games take to build.

The reality is, I’ve only built one game before, which was Prelude. I made the mistake of using Prelude’s timeline to estimate Nocturne’s timeline, and for the reasons above, that didn’t work out. I wanted to include this section because the truth is, I just made a mistake with the estimate. While I’ve learned lots about managing a project of this scale over the last few years, timelines are hard, and it’ll take more experience before I can make better estimates.

Thanks to everyone who’s excited for the game, and look out for the playtesting build soon™.

Development Continues

It’s been a while since I’ve written an update about Nocturne’s development. After the kickstarter was cancelled, I took a break to figure out exactly what the future of the game would be. I’ve waited on giving an official update until I was confident about my plans.

I’m excited to announce that development of Nocturne continues. The game remains independently funded for now, though I am in talks with publishers to discuss deals for additional funding, which will allow me to expand the scope of the game. Either way, I plan to complete Nocturne within the original schedule of summer 2023.

What’s next

The next few months will involve putting together the right team to complete Nocturne and finalising exact details of the features and scope. Then I’ll work towards an alpha version of the game. There won’t be too much news to discuss in the meanwhile, but I’ll try to tease out a few features here and there. If you don’t hear any updates for a while, I’ve just got my head down busy working on the game :)

I wanted to thank everyone who’s continued to support the game, and for your patience. I often get emails or messages from players who have had really positive experiences playing Prelude and wanted to share their love of the game. These messages keep me motivated to continue creating Nocturne and making it the best I can.

- Pracy

Prelude 1.1 update & Kickstarter: August 18th.

Kickstarter

Prelude was just the first chapter of Nocturne. To fund the full game, I’ll be launching a Kickstarter on August 18th.

If you’d like to get notified on launch day, you can join the newsletter here.

For the last 3 years I’ve been working on creating Nocturne in my spare time, and paying artists out of my own pocket. Then I decided to release Prelude for free! My hope is that you’ve enjoyed the game enough that you’ll consider contributing to make the full version a reality.

Prelude 1.1

After Prelude’s launch, I’ve been watching Let’s Plays, Livestreams, reading reviews and player feedback. It’s clear to me there’s two areas of Prelude that contain the most feedback.

Veteran Players
Before launch I worked hard to include as many QoL features requested by veterans of the genre. There’s still more work to do here so I’m dedicating a large part of this update to increase the customization players have during combat. This will include Upstream notes, among many others settings.

Beginner Comfort
I’ve always wanted Nocture to be accessible to players who have never played Rhythm games before. From watching people play, I’ve learned that selecting the right difficulty can involve lots of trial and error, switching back and forth between modes until they find what matches their comfort. I’m working on ways to improve the initial difficulty selection, and make combat feel less punishing in easier difficulties, without removing the fun.

During difficulty selection, you’ll see a preview of what to expect.

In addition to these areas, I’ll also be adding Steam Achievements to provide players with an extra challenge. I’ve never been a fan of milestone based achievements you get for just progressing the story. So I’ll be adding some that’ll encourage you to do things a little differently, alongside some simple ones you’ll probably get during casual play.

Here’s a sneak peak of some upcoming achievements:

There will be a total of 17 achievements.

If you’d like to get a chance to beta test the 1.1 release, be sure to join the community discord for details in the coming weeks.

- Benjamin Pracy

Nocturne Release Date

The official launch date of Nocturne: Prelude is March 3rd.

Steam Store Page

The game is available to play for free. If you enjoy playing, then we’ll be launching a Kickstarter to fund the full title later this year. So be sure to join the mailing list to stay updated.

Your impact
After a year long Beta, I’d like to highlight all of the changes made directly as a result of player feedback.

• C-mod notespeed modifier.

• Timing based judgement text.

• Optional note miss sounds.

• Higher notespeeds.

• Keybindings shown on screen during early gameplay.

• Mirror charts.

• Better default controls.

• Improved latency calibration & syncing.

• Run button.

• Progress bar during Silence mechanic (and difficulty scaling).

• Colourblind accessibility.

• Arcade mode.

• Recorded highscores.

• Many tweaks to dialogue and map layouts to improve overall flow.

• Many, many bug fixes.

Thanks for helping make Nocturne: Prelude the best it can be!

Nocturne Release Update

When we opened Nocturne up for Beta earlier this year, we expected a few people would be interested, perhaps ten or twenty at most. Instead the response was huge and we delivered over 400 Beta keys in just a few months. Since then we’ve been working to add many of your suggestions and fix all the bugs you’ve found.

The original plan was to release Nocturne: Prelude on Steam before the end of 2019. I’m happy to report that we’re close, very close. But with only a few days left before the new year, we’ll be pushing the release to Q1 2020.

Meanwhile we’ve updated the steam build to v0.61.9, which is our Prerelease build. While this build is feature complete, it doesn’t include the new maps, enemies and boss fight, as we’re saving those for the public release.

We’re in the final stretch of testing and if you find any bugs, no matter how small, please report them on our discord or email support@pracystudios.com.

We’ll leave you with a preview of the new content coming in the public release.

Nocturne: Prelude

Nocturne will be released as two games.

Nocturne: Prelude

This will be the first chapter of the story and contain about 1-2 hours of gameplay, including the first boss fight. Nocturne: Prelude will be released in 2019 and will be free.

Nocturne

The full version of the game. This will be a paid release. It has no estimated release date or price. It will complete the entire story of Nocturne. More details about the full version will be available after Prelude has been released.

I’m currently preparing to launch the steam store page for Nocturne: Prelude.

Beta invites have closed

The last batch of Beta keys have been sent.

You can still signup to get a notification when Nocturne is released.

I’d like to thank everyone who has shown interest in Nocturne. I’ve delivered a total of 400 Beta keys, far more than I’d expected.

I’m closing invites to prepare for the steam release of Nocturne: Prelude.

Open Beta

Beta invites are now closed. You can still signup to get a notification when Nocturne is released.

Nocturne Demo Beta: 1st Phase Begins Now

The Nocturne demo release is estimated for April 2019. Meanwhile you can participate in the Demo Beta and get access to an unfinished build of the Nocturne demo.

The Nocturne Demo Beta will happen in three phases.

1st Phase - Now
A small number of people will be randomly selected from a survey. Certain requirements must be met to be eligible. The survey begins now. Successful participants will be sent an email on Jan 5th.

2nd Phase - Jan 19th
Everyone who has entered their email into the mailing list on the website will be invited.

3rd Phase - Feb 2019
An open Beta, anyone can join at any time.

Demo Beta - 1st Phase Survey

If you’d like to participate in the 1st Phase, you must complete the survey.

Only a small number of people will be selected. If you successfully gain access to the 1st Phase, then you will be asked to record and privately upload a video of your first gameplay session of Nocturne.

Requirements for 1st Phase participation include the following.

• Must be able to record the entire gameplay session.

• Must have a microphone and be able to record live commentary of the gameplay session.

• Must be able to edit the gameplay and commentary together.

• Must be able to upload the completed video privately. (eg: unlisted youtube video)

Demo Beta - 2nd Phase Signup

If you’d like to participate in the 2nd Phase of the Demo Beta, then you must join the mailing list. Anyone who has already joined the mailing list is already signed up.

You can find a direct link to signup here.

Everyone who signs up will receive access via email on Jan 19th. You will be allowed to record and stream the game publicly during the 2nd Phase.

Common mistakes in writing stories for games

Quick Intro: I’ve been telling stories my whole career. Both as a filmmaker and a writer. These days I’m working on my largest and most ambitious writing project; the entire story and script for an RPG. As a result I’ve been reflecting on the most common mistakes I see across the games industry regarding storytelling. I’d like to share a few with you today in the hope it’ll be useful to somebody working on their own games.

Your story doesn’t have a controlling idea
There’s a reason for everything that occurs in a story. A reason why characters act a certain way and a reason why events happen the way they do; this is your controlling idea. It’s the lifeblood you draw every action from and is more than just a message or the “moral of the story”. It’s the reason the story exists and motivates every decision both you and your characters make.

Ever been watching Yu-Gi-Oh and wondered why the characters make speeches about friendship almost every episode? That’s because the controlling idea of Yu-Gi-Oh is: Friendship makes you stronger. Since it’s a kids show it can be a little preachy about this, but your controlling idea can be as subtle as you want.

Let’s look at The Lord of The Rings’ controlling idea: Chasing power will corrupt you.

Think about how many decisions characters make in LoTR that follow this idea. Boromir fighting Frodo for the ring. Galadrial moving into isolation to avoid her temptations. Frodo’s relationship with Sam falling apart over the ring’s power. Saurons obsession with finding the ring and why he created it. Smeagol’s entire character is literally just a lust for power. Saruman turning against his people to gain power. Denethor refusing the rightful King’s return so he can retain his own seat. You get the idea.

Once you’ve decided on your controlling idea, write it on a piece of paper and stick it somewhere you see every day. Any major decision you make in the story, ask yourself if it aligns with the controlling idea. Or even better, if you’re stuck on how to progress the story, use the controlling idea as guidance.

Your antagonist’s motivation is not believable.
We’ve all seen the generic supervillain. They’re going to destroy the world because they are evil. Or perhaps there’s some vague backstory about them wanting revenge. The problem is, the player has to believe the motivations of the antagonist, or their entire purpose is lost. Just remember this: The bad guy doesn’t think they’re the bad guy.

“That’s the thing that no one tells you about evil. They make it seem like there are two clearly marked paths with flashing signs pointing out each way: sin, redemption. […] But the truth is, evil comes when the righteous path is so hidden, it just looks like there’s only one way out.”

- Ozark: Season 2, Episode 7

Once you look at things from this perspective it’ll completely change the way you create your antagonist. The thief is just trying to provide for their family. The hacker is fighting against government censorship. The rebel leader is trying to protect their own people from suffering. The righteous path is hidden from them, so they believe their actions are the only way forward.

The protagonist and antagonist are direct opposites. The conflict between them is caused by their opposing values, but both of those values should be valid and believable motivations for their actions.

Your twist was unpredictable
That’s not a typo: your twist was unpredictable. That’s the fundamental piece of a twist that gets forgotten. Too many writers get wrapped up in trying to create that “Ah ha” moment where the player’s mind is blown because they didn’t figure out a character was a spy all along. The problem is, when your twist is unpredictable it means you never foreshadowed it. You never laid the foundations, so when your player reaches the reveal, their reaction is far more likely to be “Wait what?”.

The true beauty behind a twist is when the player goes back in their mind to previous events and says to themselves, “Oh I get it now. I understand why that character said that thing before. It all makes sense now”.

When you get hit with an unpredictable twist.

There’s often an obsession with creating twists that break the rules of storytelling. Wanting to do something different or unique for its own sake, rather than following decades of established writing structure. Stories with a premise like: “The protagonist is secretly the antagonist”, "The protagonist dies in the first scene”, or “There is no antagonist” will fall apart in the hands of inexperienced writers. Before you can break the rules of storytelling, you have to understand the rules. Good writing follows a structure for a reason, and you need to deeply understand exactly why these rules exist before you can begin to decide how and when it’s appropriate to break them.

You never raised the stakes
First scene, your villain announces “I’m going to destroy the world because I’m so evil” and thus begins the epic adventure to save humanity. Well, at least it might start off epic but it’s only downhill from here. By starting the story at maximum stakes you’ve got nowhere to go. The intensity of the conflict which drives the story should ramp up over time.

The conflict that resolves the end of the story should be on a scale so much larger, that the incident which started the story seems utterly insignificant in comparison. Final Fantasy IX began with a story about kidnapping a princess, and ended with fighting a creature that literally wants to destroy the origin of life and return all living things to a zero world of perceptual nothingness. Kind of puts things in perspective.

If you found these notes on writing helpful, then you can follow me on Twitter to be notified when I publish new articles, or to learn more about the RPG I’m writing that uses all the techniques I’ve talked about here today.

How Presentation Impacts Game Mechanics

A group of developers have invited you to test their new game prototypes . As the first game begins, you find yourself in a room with a button on the floor and a locked door. You stand on the button and the door opens. You walk through and the game is completed. It may be very short, but it’s a solid prototype to build upon.

You move on to the next developer’s prototype. The game loads, and you’re standing in what appears to be a shed. There’s a worktable in the center, shelves across all the walls stacked with an assortments of tools. In the corner are boxes of gardening supplies. Once again, there is a locked door. You start searching for a button, or a switch, with no success. Perhaps you need a key, that’s hidden inside a box. You try pushing crates, crawling under tables, hitting the door with a hammer; nothing seems to work.

In frustration you ask the developer what to do. They say, “Isn’t it obvious, you have to stand on the plant pot and the door will open.”

Portal (2007)
There’s never anything red inside a test chamber that isn’t a button.

I’m sure we’ve all experienced this situation before. A game mechanic that appears to defy all common sense and logic. Yet in both of the prototype games, you actually experienced the same mechanic.

Standing on objects opens doors.

The reason the second game was a terrible experience was not because of the mechanic itself, but instead due to poor presentation of the mechanic. Specifically the mechanic lacked an intuitive visual design. This distinction is key in understanding how mechanics can be improved.

• The mechanic is the underlying system of rules that determine the outcome of specific actions.

• The presentation is the visual and audio output that allows the player to understand what the mechanic does.

Now we’ve established the difference between the mechanic and it’s presentation, I’m going to tell a story about how a small change in the presentation of a mechanic in Nocturne improved the game.

Nocturne (TBA)
The old talent menu from an earlier build of the game.

The mechanic is simple; passive abilities which benefit you in combat. You can see some examples of these abilities in the above image. I decided to present the mechanic as talents, which you can learn by spending energy from leveling up. Each talent had two upgrade paths to improve it.

The actual mechanic functioned well, but during playtesting a few issues came up as a result of the presentation:

• The energy system required to learn talents had no context or explanation.

• Players didn’t realize you could unlearn talents.

• You couldn’t learn both Upgrade A and Upgrade B but it was unclear why.

• Players were paralyzed by choice. They had 9 talents and 18 upgrades.

Now there’s many things we can do to resolve some of those presentation issues, but instead I chose to do something more drastic. I took the base mechanic of passive abilities, and I completely changed the presentation.

Nocturne (TBA)
New equipment menu from the latest build of the game.

That’s right. Talents got scrapped and equipment took it’s place. Now you might be thinking it’s an entirely different mechanic, but the equipment does exactly the same thing as the talents previously did; they provide passive abilities which benefit you in combat.

The new equipment presentation fixed all the playtester’s issues:

• There’s no need for an energy system anymore, now the player unlocks new passive abilities through obtaining new equipment.

• It’s obvious you can unequip items, that needs no explanation.

• Upgrades are now handled by finding better versions of the item.

• Choice is easier when you find 1 item at a time and slowly build up a collection.

What’s really great about this presentation change, are the new possibilities it unlocked:

• Players now have more reason to explore the map to find equipment.

• Currency now has more purpose by allowing players to also buy equipment with it.

• More control over player progression as they can no longer just grind levels to unlock all the talents.

While I could have done a few of the above things with the old talent system, none of them would have been as intuitive. I could have created an item which provided additionally energy when used and hidden those around the map, but all I’m doing is adding more features that need a wall of text to explain them. When you pickup a metal helmet, everyone already knows what to do with it.

Final Fantasy X (2001)
Can new players look at the presentation and understand how the mechanic works?

So next time you go to add more text explanation and visual complexity to the presentation of your mechanics, take a step back and ask yourself if the entire presentation can be simplified with a new design.

I’ll leave you with some key points on creating good presentation:

• Consistent: If the green button heals you and the red button kills you, don’t have a green button that kills you.

• Intuitive: You shouldn’t need to read a wall of text to understand the mechanic.

• Feedback: When the enemy heals, you should both see and hear the mechanic in action.

• Bullet Points: This might actually be a tip for writing blog posts about game design.

Bugs Caused by Bugs

Nocturne is in alpha. That means it has lots of bugs. Though it also has giant bugs you fight, but those are different kinds of bugs. We call those ones Crawlers.

Recently we had a bug where the combat interface wasn’t unloading if you quit directly to the menu during a battle. This created an interesting effect when you load back into the game.

As the game becomes more mechanically complex, the increase in moving parts create more possible combinations of actions, and more exotic bugs. Luckily this one was easy to fix.

I’ll be sure to share the most interesting ones we find, and hopefully you’ll join us in the Closed Beta later this year to find some of your own. Just sign up to our mailing list and you’ll be the first to hear more.

- Pracy.

Creatures of the Afterlife

The digital afterlife has become corrupt after millennia of isolation. Once a beacon of light for humanity; it's become an incubator for our darkest fears.

What spawns from this darkness are known as Crawlers, twisted creatures that hunt human souls. Nobody yet knows their purpose or motive, but their presence has been growing rapidly.

- Pracy

The Next Chapter

I'm Pracy, and this is the official development blog for Nocturne.

It's been two years since the proof-of-concept prototype was created. I'm now excited to announce the game began full time development in May 2018. Here's what to expect if you decide to follow this blog.

• Details about the ongoing development of the game.

• Screenshots and videos as we add new features.

• Discussions about game design & storytelling.

• Why I really like lowercase and you should too.

• Bugs, glitches, crashes. It’s fun when things go wrong.

• News about beta testing, demos and release dates.

• Insight into the design process and reasons behind them.

• Lots of bullet points.

If you'd like to contact me, you'll find an email form on the about page.
Or you can follow development via social media.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/pracystudios
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Nocturne/
Discord: http://discord.pracy.ca/

This blog is a continuation from the Robot Hat blog. All information from the Robot Hat blog is now considered outdated and is only linked to maintain a complete archive of Nocturne's development.

Glad to have you here!

 - Pracy