I know I mentioned it already in the patch update, but wanted to start our first post-launch announcement by saying thank you from the Night Loops team! Iām incredibly grateful for all your support and for helping launch be a successful one. Itās also been a pleasure reading all the reviews/feedback. Iāll continue to note any issues that are brought up in them and in the discussions too.
First off, thanks for supporting us through launch week! I really canāt express how grateful I am.
Today weāve made a small patch to update to v1.0.1.
Fixed escape shortcut bug in Saved Game Files screen
Added more detail to Ballroomās upper stage rug (realized this looked a little odd!)
Added Segyero to the credits
Also started on getting the Psychic Duck mask to show on Discord activity, but I wasnāt able to finish this up in time for this update. (EDIT: this works now!)
In other news, we are excited to announce our participation in Steam Scream: The Revenge, starting from today, October 26th, and ending on November 2nd. Make sure to check us out, as well as all of the other amazing games featured!
As always, let us know about any bugs you may find in the discussions or in the discord.
Until next time!
- J
P.S. Spooky season is finally here!
Night Loops Now Available!
Night Loops, our psychological-horror adventure, visual novel game, is now officially available to play! Prepare to embark on a unique journey, from our desk to yours.
ā°Journey Through the Psyche:
Welcome to the Seaside Hotel, where you can at times still catch that familiar scent of the tide. Here, the final hour of your night shift awaits. Within its forgotten corridors, tend to enigmatic guests, explore the depths of their last wishes, and prepare to cast away the sense of Self. In this dark and surreal adventure, you'll uncover the ā perhaps unobtainable ā path to truth by donning masks of their original owners.
ā°One Hour Before Dawn Lives an Endless Mansion:
Immerse yourself in the mysteries of an underground mansion trapped within the last hour before Nautical Dawn. Itās the fated time when light first passes the horizon, separating sea from sky. Itās also something youāve been tracking to pass the nightsā¦ Untangle intricate puzzles tied to the mansion residents while they live out their desires in this final hour before dawn. Manage enchanted masks and juggle the powers of their original owners. Journey through the endless dreamscapes in search of the elusive truth(s) about the hotel and its mysterious owner.
ā°A Story Felt:
An unassuming ink blot ready to take shape, is about how weād like to describe the story. Itās the tale of climbing out of the sometimes unescapable day-to-day nowhere. Itās rumored, that through The Path, an inner world can be rebuilt, and your very ownership returned. Night Loopsā story was carefully written to gently guide certain parts of the storyline while others remain to your interpretation. In the end, our hope is that itās a story we all have lived.
Support Our Indie Journey: We understand the extraordinary strength of our community, and your support means the world to us as a three-person indie team. Here's how you can make a difference:
ā°Spreading the Word: Share the game's intriguing presence with your family, friends, and even your favorite streamers, and let them join in on the journey of unraveling the mysteries. ā°
ā°Spreading the Word: Share the game's intriguing presence with your family, friends, and even your favorite streamers, and let them join in on the journey of unraveling the mysteries. ā°
ā°Steam Review Magic: Leave your unique experiences with the game on Steam (late night theories encouraged!). ā°
ā°Social Media: Spread the news about our game on social media! ā°
No pressure, though. We're just thrilled to have you here with us.
āāāāā
We know sometimes journeys never really end. But this one finally has a firm resting place. Thank you for sticking with us and supporting us throughout development.
And finally, what we feel is the most special part of this journeyā¦ to be able to finally share this with you.
Sincerely, J, s3-z, and Estella
Join our Discord so we can hear about your late night theories or just talk about psychological-horror games in general. If you have any feedback or experience any bugs this is also the best place to let us know.
As the clock ticks ominously towards the end of the night shift, I have a spine-chilling announcement for you: Night Loops is scheduled to open its mansion doors on October 16th.
I couldn't have thought of a better day than today, Friday the 13th, to announce this exciting news. Itās been a nearly three and a half year journey developing this game with plenty of twists and turns and not to mention dead ends... but itās sincerely, in the end, been a joy.
For this occasion, we worked with our publisher to create a special Release Date Announcement trailer too~
See You on Discord: Join our Discord community, where fellow Night Loops enjoyers talk about the gameās mysteries, share the frights (and glimmers of hope), and just chat about narrative/psychological horror games in general. Weāll also be sharing some fun tidbits like concept art and soundtrack clips in there.
Wishlist Today: To ensure you're among the first to be called into the night shift at the Seaside Hotel, make sure to wishlist Night Loops to be notified on Monday, October 16th exactly when the game launches.
I canāt wait for you all to experience this journey through Night Loops.
While we wait together for the launch, feel free to follow us on our platforms below~
I'll keep this one short and sweet ā Iām delighted to say that weāre about a week away from ending the final polishing and debugging stage. Version 1.0.0 is very very close now (I can almost taste it). This past month, I did one last pass over all the dialogue. It was pretty interesting, since at this point the story wouldnāt really allow itself to be changed much. Many of the edits that were made, I ended up having to revert. I guess this is when you know youāre nearing final form, when the game itself finally says enough is enough.
Last month I also mentioned we were updating our icon so here is that finished below!
Aside from development, weāre ironing out a few exciting things behind-the-scenes, so I hope Iāll be able to share those with you next monthā¦ ātil then!
- J
P.S. Also looking forward to spooky season and crunchy autumn leaves with each footstep
ā August Update and Tiny Teams! ā
Hey there!
Today we have a rather unique update ~ Iām pleased to let you know that weāve officially completed the process of redoing all our key art! If youāre a fellow lurker like myself, you may have already noticed a few of the changes on our outside skin.
Hereās what our new full key art looks like:
And for comparison, hereās our old one:
The idea came a few months ago. It started with a bit of soulsearching on how we could better speak to the story/VN qualities of the game, as well as to its pixel art style. We really wanted to feature Rin, the MC, and naturally the mirror image of Myne fell quietly into place. Let me know what you think too!
And, until August 10, weāre thrilled to be taking part in Yogscastās Tiny Teams 2023 festival, which also includes a bunch of other wonderful games from either solo-devs or micro-studios. If you havenāt already, check them out!
On the dev side, Iām doing one last pass over all the dialogue + story. Thatās still all in progress, so Iāll keep you posted on how that goes next month. Much much more to come, see you then ā°
- J
P.S. weāre also planning an update to our icon too! Will show you that in September as well (would you already happen to have an idea of what it might be? A small hint is that itāll be one of our masksā¦) Stay tuned!
ā§ July Dev Update ā§
Welcome again!
A lot happened this past month, so Iāll try recapping the best I can without making this too long :P
First off! We attended our first ever in-person event, the Delta H Con 15th anniversary anime & gaming convention in Houston, TX! Just want to say, thanks to all the folks there and I truly enjoyed getting to hear your live feedback/critiques. Our game was actually initially developed with only playtesting with just a few friends & acquaintances out of a small Chicago apartment, so getting some outside critique (along with the playtesting help from our publisher!) Iām sure will certainly improve the final experience in the end. So alas, hereās a few pics of our table and STICKERS!!
Next up, I was hard at work at the olā desk fixing more bugs and making some QOL improvements. I figured itās best to just compile these in a list:
Snow Woman mask now will not activate off tilemaps and on certain areas where it can appear buggy
Standardized reset behavior for Labyrinth puzzle in Celestial Gardens
Fixed shadows in special intros for the three āNew Worldā canvases
Fixed screenshake on XXX World & Underworld maps
Fixed Default Ending message randomizer
Fixed camera snapping on entrance for a few maps
More fixes to sorting order of sprites
Fixed remaining music & sfx clicks
Deleted unused sprites & art (now the game is under 2GB yay!)
Other small fixes
Actually a lot of these are hardly noticeable when playing the game, but I still think valuable fixes nonetheless.
One thing that is pretty nifty to show though is some new tile art! (I included what the original tile pixel art looks like too)
And finally, that is all from last month.
See you around the corner in August!
- J
June Dev Update ā¾
Hello again!
Can hardly believe itās been a month already. Last month was AAPI month and now happy Pride month from the U.S.! For the wrapping up of AAPI month in May (and being Asian-American myself), we wanted to dedicate an artwork that illustrated this concept of the āpsychic nowhere,ā one of the many key themes that inspired the game way back when. The story we hope to one day tell though, is not being forever stuck in this labyrinthā¦
And for dev-related updates! Weāve been head down at the desk putting some final touches on more cutscenes and additional art + animations. Hereās one of my favorite oneās from this past month and probably also one of my favorites thus far. Besides that my focus has been on fixing visual bugs like sorting issues but thatās no fun to show :P
In May, we also hit our 3rd anniversary of working on this game. So just want to say thanks for sticking through with us all this time.
Onwards! See you next month and best wishes for summer!
- J
May Dev Update
Hi there!
This past month, I decided to work on a few details like further fleshing out some existing cutscenes. Hereās an effect from one that turned out pretty nicely ā¾ A lot of the inspiration for this came from a particular scene in the manga Homunculus by Hideo Yamamoto. Basically in the scene, you get a closeup view of sand only to realize the pulverized rock is made of symbols, so this was a take on that. I was introduced to the manga back in the winter of 2020 and would highly recommend itā¦although, itās very very twisted in a number of ways and actually quite disturbing.
Anyways, besides that, if you played an earlier version of the demo, you may have noticed movement feels slightly different now. I actually tried making it feel a bit heavier to lend more to the atmosphere. For example now youāll automatically stop when walking into wall or objects.
So basically just a compilation of small things this month! But I really do think they help add to the overall feeling.
More to come next month!
- J
ć Major ćDemo Update and Official Discord!
Welcome back~
We did a LOT this past month *exhale of relief*
ć Updated Demo ć
We actually made a giant, fresh update to our demo to take part in Two and a Half Studiosā Storytellerās Festival that was last week. Glad to finally get to show you some more polished gameplay and excited to hear what you think about it!
Hereās one of the graphics we put together for that event if you were curious ^-^
ć Controller Support ć
Another thing weāve been getting underway is controller support. So the full game will indeed work with controllers of all shapes and sizes. (The updated demo now currently supports PlayStation, Xbox, and other gamepad style controllers)
ć New Official Discord ć
Last but not least, weāve officially opened up our very own official Discord!! Iām hoping itāll be a fun way to get to talk to everyone throughout the dev process and onwards~ Hereās the invite link: https://discord.com/invite/jvaRf2Yz6S
Well thatās all for this month. Iāll be back for more in May! Also cannot believe itās already Spring...
- J
P.S. if you played the older demo, the save data wonāt be able to transfer over to this updated demo, since weāve added quite a few new things (after a lot of thinking, we decided this is okay though since the demo is a relatively short experience and most fun when experienced from the beginning)
