October Night Games News

A full-screen map where you can see what happens to other players, changes to the background of the home location, improved transitions between background tracks and sound effects.
And the most important update: hints on mouse hover! The complicated game mechanics that confused the gamers before (fight, alchemy, deduction) are now easier to understand.

If you have already mastered the game and don’t need the hints anymore, just turn them off in the settings.

We apologize if your old save files do not open or open with errors. Please finish the game you are playing before updating; taking into account that game sessions are rather short, this shouldn’t pose a problem.

Meanwhile, we continue the development and introduce some changes to the public version of the game. The most important new features are:

• Unique abilities of the familiars. The dog alerts you about danger, the cat steals for you when you are shopping, and the owl gives recommendations on alchemy that make the preparation of essences more effective.
  
• The final screen was improved; closing texts became more readable.
  
• Adding pure alchemical essences to the ritual now gives you additional bonuses that improve your character’s stats.
  
• Some visual improvements, in particular, in the shop location.

And this is just a small part of the features we are about to introduce. In the next few days, we will add pop-up tips requested by many players, and the statistics of played games!

We continue to actively work on the game, and your demo reviews are very helpful in that. To make sure that our backers (and future players) understand what we are working on, we decided to outline the tasks we are currently working on. Do you have any more questions or ideas about how to make the game better? Do not hesitate to ask!
First, the mechanics you could have seen in the demo:

• Implementation of unique abilities for every familiar. The familiars’ abilities will be manifested mostly through the hints, but they will significantly influence the gameplay. For instance, the dog will warn you about possible dangers at locations, while the owl will give you advice on alchemic formulas (and don’t forget that we have three more familiars waiting in the wings).
  
• Context help on mouse hover. Introduction of context help will provide the answers to the many questions you had when you encountered complicated mechanics (such as fight, social deduction and alchemy). If you prefer the path of discovery, you will be able to turn it off. We hope that context help will appear in our second demo, which will be launched soon before the release on 7 October, at Steam Game Festival: Autumn Edition.
  
• An illustrated in-game manual. If you want something beyond context help and your intuition, there will be an extensive text for you to read. We are planning to have it by Steam Game Festival.
  
• New look for “Wicked Things”. We hope to jazz up that circus shop soon! Its updated version will be available in the demo within the next few days.
  
• New events and statuses are being written (some of them will be available in later demo versions, some only in the full game).
  
• An improved system of saving, added end game statistic screen, retrospective viewing of game results, and sharing the results in social networks. We will definitely include these in the Steam Game Festival demo but will try to do this earlier.
  
• We are remaking music and special effects, implementing seamless transitions with FMOD. Remember, we promised that the music would sound like in a real silent movie? We will not break that promise!
  
• The Role Artefacts will find their use in the gameplay.
  

And now to something that was hidden from you but we plan to implement up to the official release:

• Beta version will be available soon after the end of the Kickstarter campaign. We remind that we are going to update the game after the final release and the owners of the beta will be the first to try these future updates.
  
• The final ritual on Halloween. The culmination of the entire game should be really impressive.
  New items are going to be added, including the artefacts: especially powerful items that you can receive as a gift from the gods.
  
• Multiplayer. One of the most ambitious and complex tasks, but we will finish it by the release.
  Lots of new backgrounds for the town, hollow and cemetery are waiting for the release.
  
• We will add some new unique effects from performing the lesser rituals (in Dream-Quest they only give you the Insight Mirror).
  
• New deities, not featured in the demo will join the pantheon.
  
• Localisation. We continue to work on the text, but the team of localisers is ready, so if you prefer your mother tongue to English, we will try to give you the opportunity to play in it.
  Zhong Kui will reveal his demonic abilities. The legendary character is ready; all is left is bringing him to life!
  
• Soundtrack. People buying the game on Steam (and Kickstarter backers) will get access to a unique version of the soundtrack with bonus tracks, which you will not find on streaming services.
  
• Artbook. We are preparing the layout, and hope that we’ll be able to present it in October.

And a little hint of what we want to add to the game after Halloween as DLCs and updates of the main game:

• Seasonal updates. The first of them, Cold Moon, will have a new play mode and is scheduled on the winter solstice of 21 December.
  
• New characters and familiars. The order of their appearance and the priorities will be discussed with our players.
  
• New locations are planned, including the Port, where Deep Ones worship Father Dagon and Mother Hydra.
  
• New game mode with a large map which you will be able to explore in unfathomable quests for unimaginable lands keeping ineffable secrets.

We fixed some minor bugs and issues in the demo:
– Fix: False choices were displayed on the Deduction Board
– Fix: Sometimes you needed multiple clicks to close the Shared Event Screen
– Fix: mouse Hardware cursor was not precise on some computers
– Improvement: location positions and scales were revised

Bigger improvements are ahead!

Big thanks to everyone who played the demo version! Owing to your feedback, we fixed several bugs and cosmetic flaws.

We also added a couple of new features, the most obvious being a new dynamic system of location tinting. Inspired with the aesthetics of tinted silent films (Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari), we gave new colours to our locations.

We carry on to actively work on the game; some of the new game features will be soon added to the demo as well. They include a retrospective and statistics screen for all finished games, and, most importantly, an advanced context help system. The help will be useful if you prefer to concentrate on the gaming process instead of learning the rules, but you will be able to turn it off if you prefer to learn the game mechanics on your own, by trial and error.

Stay with us, don’t forget to share the game with your friends, wishlist it on Steam or back us on Kickstarter!