Rhythm-based combat systems are usually well-received, but what happens when you apply such rules to traditional RPG design? Nocturne, Pracy Studios’ ambitious debut game, aims to answer that.
“Humanity is gone. Only the Digital Afterlife remains, silent for a thousand years. Until now.“
While the developer is keeping most plot and character details under wraps for now, Nocturne is pitched as a classic RPG with a “rich narrative” that wants to make players question reality and “what it means to be alive”. With a story that’s expanded beyond 100,000 words and 101 playable music tracks, its scope is shocking, so we reached out to Pracy Studios founder Benjamin Pracy to get clarity on what to expect and how the long-in-the-making project has come together.
This rhythm-based combat system clearly lands closer to music game classics like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. How hard was it to get the “game feeling” exactly right for the battles you’d envisioned?
There really wasn’t much of a template for building rhythm combat, at least not in the way Nocturne does it. I went through over ten different versions of combat in early development before I was happy about the direction, but that satisfying “game feeling” didn’t come untill much later once I got it into the hands of players. After thousands of people had played the early demo at local events, conventions, and online, and after all the feedback I received, that was what allowed me to get it feeling just right.
What can we expect from the musical variety?
Every chapter has a different musical theme! We start out with symphonic rock, but some chapters lean more electronic, other chapters more orchestral… one goes all out on phonk, and there’s one section which has an insane live acoustic piano solo!
Plus, since every enemy has three different melodies you can battle, it keeps the music super fresh even when fighting the same enemy.
Do the high scores in the Arcade mode (players can replay all tracks in it) support online leaderboards?
Nocturne is fully offline and single player. No plans for an online leaderboard.
Are you planning to bring the game to consoles too if there’s a big enough audience on PC?
Absolutely! If Nocturne does well on PC, then bringing it to console will be one of my first major goals alongside localization into other languages.
What can you tell us about the story and characters beyond the brief teases about its post-apocalyptic and digital world?
Well, the whole first chapter is available to play anytime on Steam, so there’s already tons of lore and story you can enjoy, but a little teaser about what’s to come is the game begins to question what being human really means when you’re living in a digital afterlife. You’ll meet some characters who’ll really make you question what the limits of our consciousness can be.
Nocturne will be launching on PC via Steam on September 24. Before that, players can play the whole first chapter through a generous demo.
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