(PS) One Night 4 [Demo 1.1!], Psychological horror game and the latest in Dark Gaia's series. Options

[Dark Gaia]

Overview

One Night 4 is the latest addition to Dark Gaia's infamous horror game series, under development in the RPG Maker VX Ace engine. It has the distinction of being the very first horror/adventure game created with the engine. One Night 4 is not a continuation of the previous One Night games; its story is completely unrelated (except for a few small references) and it is aimed at new players and veterans alike.
One Night 4 features new, exploration oriented gameplay, two intertwining worlds and a brand new focus on psychological horror in the vein of classics like the Silent Hill series.

Story Outline

"Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?" - John Lennon

In One Night 4, you play as Gordon West, an ex secondary school teacher turned failing writer. When a strange, nondescript package arrives on Gordon's doorstep containing an empty golden locket and a slip of paper reading "Come to me", he begins experiencing recurring nightmares about a series of terrible places that seem just a little too real. As you survive each of Gordon's dreams and uncover the significance of each surreal location and its connection to Gordon's subconscious, you'll learn a terrible, forgotten secret and, though this, discover the nature of this mysterious fate.

Features

- A brand new One Night horror adventure featuring an all new story and characters, with three endings.
- Six eerie locations, filled with scares, puzzles and clues to the mystery of Gordon's past.
- New, exploration based gameplay. 90% of the objects in One Night 4 can be examined, and you must carefully explore each place to fully unravel the mystery.
- Lurking, psychological horror in the style of Silent Hill 2. One Night 4 isn't about gore or monsters; your own mind is now your worst enemy.
- Two worlds: the dream world and the real world (Gordon's apartment) that connect subtly and eventually start to blur together.

Screenshots









Frequently Asked Questions

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Or Newly Anticipated Questions, but whatever. Here you can find some interesting information about One Night 4 that may be just what you are looking for.

You're finally doing One Night 4! But I thought you said that Full Circle was the final game. What gives?

I didn't intend to make another One Night game after Full Circle, which was meant to replace another potential sequel and close the trilogy off. However, I kept getting requests for it, and I decided to see how I would fare making a horror game in VX Ace. I haven't seen anyone attempt it so far. Up to this point, it's actually been easier to make than the previous One Night games, thanks to Ace's more advanced functions.

Does this follow on from the previous One Night games? Will I have to play them to understand the story?

One Night 4 is not a continuation of the previous games. Those games formed a coherent trilogy, and Full Circle effectively resolved that story. I'd rather not try to expand a completed story. Instead, this game features an all new, unrelated story (sans small continuity references that alude to the previous games) that can be understood without any knowledge of the previous games.
Consider it like the newly released Silent Hill Downpour; it's very much a Silent Hill game, but it's aimed mainly at new players and its story is not connected to the previous Silent Hill games.

How is the gameplay of One Night 4 different to previous games?

One Night 4 is much more exploration oriented than previous games, and combat has been completely removed. Enemy encounters will only occur during occasional scripted moments, and these will be chase scenes reminiscent of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. There is only one enemy in the game, and his existence is largely tied to the game's storyline.

In addition, the sparkles that marked items and things of interest in the previous games are gone. 90% of all objects in One Night 4 can be examined, so you will have to carefully explore each location to find files and items. In terms of pacing and atmosphere, One Night 4 aims to recapture something similar to One Night 2: The Beyond.

You said this game takes place in Gordon's dreams. How does this work?

One Night 4 is focused on psychological horror, in a vein similar to Silent Hill 2. A large part of it deals with Gordon's subconscious, which is manifested in his dreams. For the most part, you play as Gordon as he explores the locations in his nightmares and tries to uncover their significance and origin, though you also return to Gordon's apartment between dreams, where you can save the game and conduct research on items you find in the dreams. The structure is pretty much similar to Silent Hill 4 or Fatal Frame 3, and the real world and the dream world connect in subtle ways.

8 Minute Gameplay Video Demo

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXoWOUe0Ia0&feature=plcp

Download

Experience a taster of the horror in the playable demo available here: http://rpgmaker.net/games/4108/downloads/

[amerk]

Wow! This is certainly good news for the VX horror fans. Is this just a stand alone, or is this the beginning of a new trilogy? In any case, I've moved this over to PS for you.

[Dark Gaia]

Glad to see you found it interesting! I don't have plans to make a new trilogy, and so this story is probably completely stand alone. This will likely be the final game I make (after Legionwood 2). Just wanted to get more than one game out of Ace before I stopped completely, and a lot of people keep asking for a new horror game.

[amerk]

Retiring so soon? The forums will weep on that day. At least you're going out with a much anticipated bang, considering One Night has probably been your best series to date.

[Magical_RuNE_Kni...]

I can't wait! Good luck : ) I love seeing serious themes and I love horror.
I played all the one night games except 2 i think... I'm trying to learn from them lol because I want to work on something dark as well. I really enjoyed how the one night series turned out and the puzzles were perfecto.
... I think it might better that you chose to put less emphasis on the monsters by the way.
Idk, I think it can desensitize people.. 'v' That's just my opinion though, idk if other people will notice.

[Dark Gaia]

@amerk: Yep, well, from this point I'm moving more and more towards my writing (with recent publications and now my novel wrapping up) so that will probably fill my time, but I wanted to at least do a One Night 4 and Legionwood 2 before I hang up my RPG Making hat.

@Magical RuNE Knight: Yep, that's my intention exactly.

[Dark Gaia]

Thursday, June 14th, 2012

Greetings, everybody. Today's post comes with bad tidings:

One Night 4 is no more.

Yes, it's true, I'm sorry to say. As of today, I am officially announcing that the fourth One Night game, which was estimated to be around 30% completion is now cancelled. This regretful decision comes as a result of not heeding the age old rule to never take on more than you handle. Unfortunately, I just don't have as much time as I used to. With university and my writing pursuits taking up more and more of my time, as well as socialisation and my day job, I'm left with very little time for game development.

I thought I'd be able to fit another little project in on the side, since there was definitely demand for One Night 4, but I have to admit, I would be doing the entire series, and its fans, a disservice for creating a sequel that I never intended to create. The One Night series is complete as of Full Circle, and, if there is to be no One Night 4, I am still happy that the original trilogy was successful as it has been, and that the story I set out to tell with it has been told.

Given that I have so little time for game development (which I am moving further away from as I focus more on my writing), I sat down today to evaluate whether I could conceivably finish the two projects I had set out to do, and I decided that, not only do I not have the time to do so, but I lack the motivation to work on so many things at once. As such, I decided to cancel One Night 4, so that I am able to more comfortably manage my time and not burn myself out. I will now be focusing on Legionwood 2 entirely (which will be my final gaming project), alongside my other ongoing projects and commitments.

I sincerely apologise for dashing the hopes of my loyal fanbase. What has been completed of One Night 4 (of which there is actually very little; barely 20 minutes of gameplay) will be released in its unfinished state to the community very soon, and work will now go full speed ahead on Legionwood 2. I hope that my fans will continue to support both my writing pursuits and Legionwood 2 and I hope to return with happier news (and a release date for Chapter 2 of Legionwood 2;  ​I'm currently in negotiations with a composer who will be providing a complete, original OST that I'd like to implement in the next release)​ very soon.

[amerk]

Such sadness, but never say never. Mayhap one day you'll return to game making, or maybe not, and if you do decide to release a full One Night 4 at that time, we'll all be waiting. Hopefully you'll still come around once and awhile and pick up a game or two to play... and pass your game making knowledge on to the rest of us folk.

[Magical_RuNE_Kni...]

That's too bad. But hey, life is like that and you've already accomplished a lot for yourself.
Sometimes you need to sacrifice, and it's good that you have set life commitments/ can prioritize.
Good luck on your other game. : )

[Dark Gaia]

While this game is (for now) probably not going to see the light of day, I'll certainly be sticking around the community. Legionwood 2 is still going strong (and is yet to be completed) for one, and I like to have some presence in the RM* community.

[Dark Gaia]

One Night 4 is back and is crowdsourcing funds for completion!
 

Hey everyone, guess what? I'm resuming development on One Night 4! Well, kinda. See, there were a number of reasons I cancelled the project (just one of them being a lack of time) and most of them were related to me being unable to finance a couple of resources I need to push the game through to completion. These are things that I really couldn't find anywhere else, such as a complete custom soundtrack, scripts for the stealth and monster AI systems I wanted to implement and a bunch of graphical resources such as monster and character sprites and edits, and the new modern/futuristic tilesets for RPG Maker (and subsequent changes I need done to them, such as bloodying them up and making them a little more dilapidated).

However, I noticed that quite a few RPG Maker games of late (and many more indie games in general) have been turning to fans to finance their production, and it seems to be doing well, so I've decided to do the same thing and have set up an Indiegogo campaign for One Night 4.

The fund raising goal is $2000 (plus $100 to cover Indiegogo + Paypal fees) -- I've managed to cobble together most of the game's assets myself and have made a start so I don't need a full game's worth of resources and this amount would be more than enough to secure the last few materials I need to polish the game and finish it off. At the moment, the game is roughly 50% complete, but I can't push forward until I'm able to implement the missing systems and many of the later areas of the game rely on this stuff. As such, I'm pretty much making a plea to all of you to help me make the completion of this game a reality.

As usual with these campaigns, there are several perks you get in return for your contribution, such as getting to be in the game and getting access to concept art and design notes. They're not much (as again, I have limited funds and this isn't a commercial game either, so free downloads and boxed copies are worthless perks), but I want to make One Night 4 the best game in the series and a worthy addition to the RPG Maker horror canon, so I'm trying my best to make pledging your support worthwhile. If you're an existing One Night fan, or just want to champion the revival of classic survival horror mechanics a la Resident Evil and Silent Hill, please consider making a donation. Every little bit helps, and you'll be doing your part in helping me complete a project that wouldn't otherwise advance.
 
To whet your appetites, I even made an updated trailer for the campaign:
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKI7kuIoNCI

[roxanne410]

I'm so glad to see it's back
I'll try to help out when I can, for this game gives me the chills just looking at the screen shots~ It looks really cool as a whole, and the modern twist to the tile sets work really well. From what I've seen, the dialogue is simple and effective, and the game play seems really awesome. I'll be watching the project~
keep up the excellent work, and I wish you the best with your campaign!

[Dark Gaia]

Hi roxanne,

Thanks for the feedback and a show of interest. I reckon the game can still go ahead even if the campaign doesn't raise the full goal, so don't give up hope. Raising full funding will give me enough to secure everything I need to complete the game as intended, but if I fall a bit short, I can still probably cobble it together with some graphics from the community and downscale certain things that I can't do via scripting or such.

However, please try to spread it if you can, because the more I have, the more I can actually do, and the game will be a lot more polished in the end I should also point out that people who want to contribute but also want something in return might consider buying a copy of my book -- I won't get as much as a direct donation, but I'm pooling my royalties into a game development fund, so you're still helping me by doing that as well.

[obsorber]

I hope you're still working on this buddy.

[Dark Gaia]

Sure am, obsorber. In fact...

Well, it's been a long time coming, but the first publicly available build of One Night 4 is now available to download. This build represents all of the work done on the game's mechanics and engine so far. It's both a Proof of Concept to demonstrate the mechanics that the game will use (and the completed version will likely expand upon and refine what's seen in this build) and a preview of the game's story and atmosphere.

This build contains the entirety of the game's first location (the School World) and, depending on how long it takes you to complete puzzles (and, of course, how many times you die), should provide anywhere between 40 minutes to an hour of gameplay. For best results, please play in the dark, alone and with a set of headphones. This is meant to be a horror game, after all.

By the way, I'd like to thank all of the people who contributed to One Night 4's Indiegogo campaign, which enabled this release to be possible. This build is intended to show them what their donations have been spent on and allow them to play a small part of the project that they're supporting. For gameplay instructions and a (bare bones) credit list, check out the readme included with the game and -- most importantly -- enjoy and remember to pass on feedback!

[Redd]

Now that you've requested money to be put into it, you MUST finish it
I'm excited I've played your other One Night games and honestly, it kind of got old after a while hahaha xD I remember the first one having a lot of glitchy jumpscares.
I can't wait to play this game though! I'm gonna' download it soon Good work!

[Dark Gaia]

Well Redd, the demo only exists because of the Indiegogo contributors. The campaign ended last week, and I felt bad to not give the contributors something to play to show them what they're supporting and to let them see how much work I've done so far. I'm definitely intending to finish this game -- it is a One Night game, after all. However, my first priority is Legionwood 2, so the complete version of this game will likely have to wait until that is done, later this year or in early 2014. This doesn't rule out possible updates and extensions to this demo, though, to showcase new features that have been implemented and new progress.

Also, we have an issue that needs taking care of...

Notice:

Hi everyone. There was a small problem with the demo I released yesterday. I didn't realise that the tileset I'm using in the game uses one of the RTP's tilesets and I didn't include this in the download. Basically, the game still runs, but all indoor tiles are missing, which means no walls, floors or tables.

I've re-uploaded the download with the missing tileset. Please download if you are experiencing problems. My apologies -- I was going nuts trying to figure out why people were reporting impassibility errors that I didn't encounter during testing.

[Redd]

Woohoo I found a bug :3 I think it's because a lot of people playing your game probably had the RTP. I only have XP, so... go figure.
And I would've donated something but I just found out about this today... sorry 'bout that lol.

EDIT: There's also some priority glitches with the chairs. You appear on top of the chair and it cuts it off. Doesn't look pretty.
Full screen in windows xp causes the game to crash. I don't know if you were aware of that or not, or if it is even fixable.

Also, about 2 hours later, I'm still stuck after the padlocked room. I've tried using everything on everything, both in the dream world and the real world. I thought I had to flush the toilet in the real world to get the thing in the toilet in the dream world, but it doesn't seem to work. The note says "I flushed something down the toilet, but it got sent into another world."
Please help, send me a message or something, I'm desperately trying to figure this out with no avail :|

However, it looks a lot nicer with the A2 tileset

The horror novel in the library also needs to not be set to a move animation event.. make it direction fix or whatever. Clicking on it makes it disappear or turn into a head looking thing.

This post has been edited by Redd: Apr 4 2013, 05:02 PM

[Lato]

It's cool you are doing another game in this series, but can you do a update for the others first? I remember there being some passage issues that I pmed you about.

[Dark Gaia]

Hi Lato,

All previous games in the series have been updated and patched. In fact, if you haven't played them in a while, you may actually find a lot of new content waiting for you