Hey everyone, it’s been a while. Lots has changed since the Playtest last year. While we’ve mostly been working on all the new content for the full release, we’ve taken some time to polish up a new Demo of Chapter 1.

There’s been a lot of changes since you last played! Don’t worry though, we’ve kept in Karma’s superb moonwalking abilities (iykyk).

Main Updates

Combat UI

What’s that, another combat UI update? Well the main focus this time was improving readability. We even invited some playtesters in-person to use an eyetracker, so we could learn where they look during combat!

Here’s a quick summary of the combat UI changes:

Health and AP bars - Mechanically these work the same as the Playtest, but we’re now displaying more info, such as health regen. The Energy and AP bars have also been combined into one.
Note reskin - The notes are no longer prototype art, and the green notes were swapped to a fetching purple. Beyond just looking nice, this also allows for the judgements to be more readable. Speaking of…
Judgement text - New fonts, colours and animations have been applied to the judgements. We’ve also got new visuals for health damage and indicators when you hit with a special~ kind of attack.
Judgement area and column highlights - The hitzone and column highlights are now fully responsive. The columns also turn yellow as a warning the enemy is winding up for an attack.
C-C-C-C-Combo! - There’s a new combo display showing in the top left, and it’s now enabled by default.

Windup

Hitting an enemy during its windup is now a ‘Critical!’ hit, dealing bonus damage.

This change includes a new Stat for Karma called ‘Crit’, which you can increase with items or from leveling up. Some items also provide bonus effects for Crits. Get training those reaction times for maximum damage.

Map Visuals

Maya has never looked so pretty. All the maps now have full lighting and shadows.

Stagger

Those of you who are blessed with the ultimate rhythm gaming skills may have noticed that reducing Yako’s health to zero stopped him from attacking. We thought this was a pretty lame patchwork solution, so we’ve put in a brand new ‘STAGGER’ mechanic for when a Boss reaches zero health.

Stagger prevents Bosses from attacking or charging energy for 10 seconds. You can chain attacks during this phase to keep the Boss in Stagger for even longer.

But once Stagger is over, the Boss will return to normal (with slightly less health than before). If you’re skilled enough, you could even Stagger the Boss multiple times during a battle.

Consumables

We’ve added consumable healing items. Now you can get the true RPG experienece of saving every single healing item for the last Boss (and then forgetting to use them).

They activate automatically, so you don’t have to be distracted during battle.
If you have one equipped they’ll save you from defeat, healing you when your health falls to zero. Make sure to have some ready to equip for those pesky Moths!

Corruption Minigame

While the UI for Corruption isn’t final yet, the columns now move around like they used to in Prelude. We also added a progress bar to make it clear if you hit enough notes to pass the minigame (which scales based on your difficulty settings).

Music Charts

All the charts in all difficulties have been revised, some with musical changes too. We’ve also added an easier difficulty so even first time rhythm gamers should make it through alright.

Interaction UI

The interaction icons now look more modern, and prompt you to press the Interact key (default Z) when you approach.

Next Objective

Pressing the Help key (default Tab) will play a unique cutscene telling you what the next objective is. Useful if you need a reminder of what you’re up to!

Congrats on getting through all those updates! Now for those who are truly dedicated, we have a bajillion more smaller changes below. (Will anyone even read those?)

Additional Updates

Combat

Both Kimothy and Satoru tutorials have had complete overhauls.
Revamped Karma combat animations, including a new animation for healing effects with accompanying SFX.
Pause menu in combat has some more options. You can now also change audio levels and send us feedback right from the comfort of your Crawler battle.
Yako’s battle is on fire, quite literally. The split column sections now look very different from the playtest, with an accompanying explosive animation.
Death screen visuals and tips have been reworked.
Karma’s AP bar is now hidden until the Satoru tutorial.
Judgment timings have been tweaked so we’re slightly more lenient with early hits.
Changed Mantis and Firefly stats to charge energy slower and gain less energy from missed notes.
In every case where players are doing zero damage with an attack, the attack will read ‘blocked’. Previously there was some scenarios where no feedback was given.
Stats and levelup screens can be skipped with confirm or cancel keys (Z and X by default)
Losing against Yako and reloading will no longer force the player to refight Yako, instead loading them before the cutscene starts.
Combo no longer resets between Yako charts.
All items have been reworked. We’ve stripped out irrelevant stat info and given them more obvious effects.

Menu & UI

Difficulty names have been updated.
Updated icons EVERYWHERE. Menus, level up screen, combat, aggro exclamations… you name it, we’ve updated it.
Font update! Comic Sans may be Kimothy’s favourite font, but he’s not in charge here, so we picked some nicer looking ones.
Added a highscore screen in the pause menu so you can see all your best scores across Chapter 1.
New screens to ensure you really are ready to quit with unsaved changes.
Option to enable to deny access for the new analytic collection. (We’re only collecting gameplay info to help improve the game!)
Got rid of the awkward playtest screen which explains the controls and replaced it with handy prompts for controls during gameplay.
‘Main Hand’ has been renamed ‘Weapon’.
Credits screen updates and additions.
Graphics options now display windowed display resolutions.
New cute animations while you’re waiting for the next map to load.
Vsync option has been removed with vsync now on by default.

Maps

We’ve added tons of lamps in the caves so even Kimothy can make it through the dark.
Introduced arrows so that it’s clear where the maps transition.
Improved the corruption shader so corruption now looks even cooler.
Updated save points and treasure chest locations across the chapter.
Added an extra super duper hidden item 👀 (seriously it’s super hidden and probably nobody will find it and it doesn’t even do anything so it’s pointless unless you just love searching for hidden things for hours).

Audio

Little updates to the music throughout the game, both combat and overworld.
Brand new chase track for the cave area.
New SFX for note misses that can be toggled on/off in the menu.
New SFX for critical hits and heals.
New SFX for quitting to the main menu.
New SFX for when corruption is healed.
New SFX for ladder rungs (yes, this is very exciting).

Cutscenes

Brand new polished title reveal scene.
We’ve introduced a way to skip through dialogue super quick by holding down the cancel button (X by default). Yay for speedrunners ;)
The Fox has an extra runaway scene in the Bridge map.
Updated sounds and timing for the cutscene when you first enter the cave.
The Void Machine cutscene has been updated with flashy lights and flashy sounds.

Misc other changes and fixes

Temporary save files are created at set times, as well as on any map transitions. The game also saves when you change your difficulty at a save point.
Fixed an issue where settings from Nocturne: Prelude would still carry over to the current Nocturne Demo!
Fixed an issue where interactions and cutscenes toggled run to off.
Ladder animations have been improved and some layering issues have been addressed.
Pressing N in battle no longer pulses the background art.
Instead of freezing in place, enemies now return to their patrol if they’re chasing when you enter a cutscene.
Slightly reworked the behaviour of enemies when two aggro on you at once.
Fixed up diagonal movement issues on the way up to Satoru’s house.
Kimothy no longer disappears on the elevator if you spam through the final cutscene quick enough.
Flying enemies have better line of sight, no longer being blocked by some objects they should be able to see over.