Night Castle

Night Castle fighter of the Day Castle

The story begins with a knight accompanied by a nun. Together, the two of you enter a massive castle consumed by corruption. Many have ventured inside before, but none have returned. Your mission is to cleanse the castle of evil and discover the fate of those who vanished. However, you only have thirty days to complete your task. As the knight, your combat style is simple. You wield a sword for standard attacks, can perform a moderate jump, and have access to a special attack powered by spirit points that regenerate slowly over time. Early in the game, you unlock a dash ability that lets you slip through enemies unharmed and avoid damage. This move is also crucial for platforming challenges but has a long recharge time, forcing you to use it strategically. New special attacks can be found, but using them is tied to a strange design choice. Instead of using it right away, you first have to charge the attack and then press one of the four buttons to finally trigger it. This makes them barely useful, because you don’t often have the time to use them. Progression relies on collecting items like stamina and health upgrades, along with artifacts called zodiac stones. These stones expand your abilities, granting upgrades such as a double jump or letting your dash glide through the air, but they are required to progress. This makes the game more linear than traditional metroidvanias, as you can’t skip areas or sequence-break your way forward. The size of the castle is a mystery. A detailed map expands as you explore, marking key locations such as device rooms with switches, healing chambers, and abandoned chapels. These chapels can be turned into camps after you survive waves of enemies while protecting the nun. These defense sequences can be punishing, as enemies sometimes spawn in unreachable places, forcing you to rely on special attacks to keep the nun safe. Once secured, she remains at the camp, allowing you to teleport between all previously unlocked camps. Your map also marks color-coded to indicate doors that require specific switches. Although you occasionally have multiple routes to choose from, the castle’s design keeps progression mostly linear. Many paths end at locked barriers or blocked sections, meaning that exploration outside the intended route only wastes time. And time is the game’s defining feature. A bar at the top of the screen tracks the day’s progression from morning to night. Once evening arrives, regular enemies are replaced with stronger, deadlier variants, and certain doors only open during specific times of day. You can’t save your game at will because sleeping at a camp is the only way to rest and record progress. But resting costs you a full day, bringing you closer to the thirty-day limit. Trying to stay awake indefinitely leads to your death: when midnight strikes, an invincible boss appears, hunting you relentlessly across rooms. Accompanied by homing ghosts, it’s impossible to defeat, and dying results in a full game over. Enemies drop souls when killed, which automatically fly toward you. Souls also appear in treasure chests hidden in the castle’s dead ends. However, you can only carry a limited amount. Once full, you must return to camp and sleep to convert them into a level up. Sleeping consumes all collected souls but increases your attack and defense stats. The trade-off is that you lose a day, but you’ll grow stronger, making future fights easier and faster. Enemies respawn only when moving between distinct biomes, areas marked by longer transitions, so there’s always an opportunity to refill your soul meter. As you level up, enemies become easier to dispatch, and eventually you can dash past most of them without risk. Boss battles vary in difficulty depending on how well you’ve prepared. If you’ve explored thoroughly and leveled up consistently, bosses can be manageable. If you’ve rushed ahead, they can feel unfair. Each boss rewards you with a new sword, each with unique strengths and weaknesses. The starting sword is quick but short-ranged, while the first boss’s weapon offers greater reach and power at the cost of slower swings. The game’s most compelling mechanic lies in its constant tension between risk and safety. You must decide whether to keep exploring, risking death and losing progress, or return to camp to level up and waste a precious day. Rushing can lead to fatal mistakes, while caution might rob you of the time you need to finish the game. Unfortunately, the game’s execution doesn’t fully match its ambition. The biggest problem lies in its technical instability. One major bug occurs during transitions between castle areas. When entering a new section, the game fails to load properly, trapping you in a black void. You can still see your character portrait, open menus, and even swing your sword, but the environment never appears. It’s a devastating issue, especially if it happens after clearing a boss or exploring a large area, because it forces you to restart and lose hours of progress. Even worse, this bug isn’t random; it tends to occur consistently in the same places, making those sections of the game completely unplayable.

[h1]버그가 많고 진행이 되지 않는 도르마무 게임(패치전)[/h1] [h1]패치 후에도 여전히 버그는 많지만 진행은 가능하다![/h1] v0.5 버전 엔딩까지 https://youtu.be/MUJ2SduhRSU 패치전 https://youtu.be/hgwBMjZu2yg 세이브 버그에 대한 패치로 드디어 엔딩까지 볼 수 있었다! 다행히 무기 드랍 버그(4번째 보스의 창이 왜 이상한곳으로 떨어지는가...), 예배당 버그(이상하게 선택되고 화면이 넘어가지 않는 버그...), 최종보스 부녀의 개그씬(등장하자마자 퇴장...) 등 진짜 어이없는 상황도 계속 나오긴 했지만 어쨋든 엔딩은 나오지 않는가!? 그리고 최종보스가 에필로그에 나오는걸로봐선 아마도 후속작(!)도 나올 것 같은데, 버그만 좀 줄여서 잘 나오길!! 진짜 진행이 불가능한 버그들은 어느정도 고쳐졌으니 재평가를 하자면 나쁘지 않은 도트 그래픽, 입맞대로 골라 쓸 수 있는 무기(창은 못써봣...), 괜찮은 가격으로 후속작을 기대해볼까의 수준으로 올라올 수 있었다, 개발자분들 화이팅! 아래는 패치 전 영상으로 작성된 리뷰 -------------------------------------------- 장점 1. 괜찮은 도트 그래픽 2. 단계적으로 변화하는 던전 단점 1. 작동하지 않는 저장(버그인지, 의도인지) 2. 제멋대로 변화하는 성소(성소 클리어하고 텔포를 타고 다른 곳으로 갔다오면 다시 점령당한 성소...?!) 3. 불편한 조작감(이것도 의도에 가깝...) 4. 리젠하지 않는 보스들(버그...?) 5. 작동하지 않는 도전과제!? 대체 왜!? 최대한 진행해보려고 거짐 5시간정도를 꼬라박았으나, 2보스 이후에 진행을 못하고 갖가지 버그에 걸려 종료하면 저장까지 날아가버리는 엄청난 게임성에 무릎을 꿇고 말았다... 버그 수정하면 다시 해 볼 생각은 있음!

Looking past the primitive pixel art and some minor jank reveals Night Castle to be a wildly inventive Metroidvania. It’s greatest strength is sure to be its most polarizing: a 30-day time limit to your exploration. I hope that, like Pikmin 1 before it, Night Castle highlights the advantages of strict time limits over the time loop approach. Actions never feel consequential in the latter and the periodic interruptions necessitated by them clash with the uninterrupted appeal of games that don’t hang a clock over the player’s head. Just pick one or the other because I don’t see either side being fully satisfied with a compromise. Now, I will concede Night Castle’s time limit is very generous. I reached the credits on day 18 and collected almost every item. I would’ve liked less leniency here, but I don’t think that’s a reason to dismiss the system as a failure. Everyone has a different tolerance for in-game timers and there are plenty of other stressors to deal with. For example, you can’t save whenever you feel like, only at a handful of designated chapels. The innkeeper offers two options: stay or rest. Resting at the inn lets you restore health and save your progress at the current hour, but it doesn’t level up the protagonist. To level up, you must stay at the inn while maxing out your souls from slain enemies. This will advance the game by one day and deprive you of souls to spend on weapon upgrades tomorrow morning. Since you can upgrade these as long as you’re at a chapel, your might think the ideal strategy is to farm souls for specific upgrades, rest at the inn to save, and then max out your counter before you stay at the inn. Except the developer thought of that. Beyond the allotted day limit, stronger enemies will replace the weaker daytime enemies once night arrives. Night foes drop more souls, but only until midnight, and there’s a good reason why the nuns advise against exploring that late. I won’t spoil the specifics, but it’s worth knowing that enemies will not drop souls once the clock strikes midnight, so effective grinding means spending your time and souls wisely. And growing stronger matters a lot because enemies also grow stronger every five days. The limited souls and day timer creates a very involved leveling system with meaningful tradeoffs. I mentioned that you save at chapels. What I didn’t mention is that earning them requires more than walking into the corresponding room. Because the castle is infested with monsters, you must purify each chapel of their evil aura. The accompanying nun Rebecca has this power, but she is completely vulnerable while casting. You must defend her from an onslaught of enemies until the ritual is completed. If either of you die, you’ll have to reload your last save. I loved these sections, both for their challenge and the variety they add to the package. Fast travel between chapels is also available, but you have to talk to Rebecca to initiate it. Like the rest of the game, this encourages planning out each day. Combat is old-school tough. Fully committal attacks built around a handful of weapons and spells. If you like Castlevania, you’ll feel right at home here. I wouldn’t say it’s balanced though. The greatsword needs a major attack buff to justify its lethargic speed and the bow is so powerful it almost invalidates the other weapons. The daggers are a more consistent source of ranged damage, but it’s a shame not every weapon is useful once you unlock them all. An option to swap weapons on the fly would also have improved the flow. No one likes repeatedly diving into the pause menu during real-time combat. The jank I alluded to at the beginning never comes close to game-breaking. It’s mostly oversights you would expect from a first-time solo developer. Here are some specific examples: - Any changes to the default keyboard bindings aren’t saved when you exit the game. - The black bars signifying a cutscene are distracting and could’ve disappeared faster. - There’s a switch early on you need to hit with a dagger, but it’s labeled with an arrow. I thought I needed a bow, but you actually obtain that beyond the switch. Marking the switch with a dagger instead would’ve prevented confusion. - There’s a silly recurring typo with Rebecca. Her textbox label and healthbar during the chapel purification challenges are listed as “Rebbeca.” - Text once refused to disappear after I collected an item, requiring a full restart to see the action properly. - The jingle SFX when collecting an item isn’t synced to when the text appears. - The music doesn’t loop properly. It slowly fades out and becomes silent for a few seconds before replaying. In conclusion, Night Castle is the definition of sleeper hit. It’s a strong debut for a solo developer and exactly the type of freshness I look for when supporting indie games. Please pick it up if this sounds up your alley!

ver.1.3.2で8時間かけて全実績解除でコンプ ドラキュラⅡと月下を掛け合わせたようなSFCとPSの間みたいな触り心地のメトロイドヴァニアです 限られた期限の中でどれだけ城を探索できるかという内容で、マップを全て埋めるのは見落としもあって結構ギリギリでしたがこのジャンルに慣れた人ならばいけるくらいのややむずかしいくらいの難易度 ソウルライクと違いやられたらセーブ地点からやり直しなので、その辺は覚悟して遊びましょう 現在細かいバグがあるのですが（ゲームプレイに音量調整が反映されなかったり、毎回起動時にゲームパッドのコンフィグがリセットされたり、スタミナ3つ実績解除が4つ目で起こったり、々の文字がうまく表示されてなかったり）進行には問題なく遊べます あと仲間たちのシスター3人を含むキャラ絵がとてもえっちでかわいいですね（←ここ大事） とはいえ全体のお話は硬派でよくできています 騎士なのにガードなんてありませんが様々な武器や魔法を使えて好きに鍛えられるのでその辺もGood あまり知られていないのがもったいないほどの手堅い良作メトロイドヴァニアです またセーブは休息でできるのですが、一箇所しかなく強制上書きなので30日で泊まった時に強制セーブされるのは残念でした　コンティニューしても31日でバッドエンド確定なので最後の日だけやり直して遊ぶということもできません そういう仕様もありリプレイ性には欠けるのですが、バージョンアップしていけばもっといいゲームになると思うので期待しています

요식업계가 불황이다. 불황에는 늘 새로운 도전이 필요하다. 그래서 사람들의 시선을 사로잡는 신기한 음식들이 세간에 많이 나온다. 하지만 신기하고 재미난 음식은 내 시선은 사로잡을지언정 마음까지 움직이진 못한다. 늘 내 영혼을 끌어당기는 것은 바로 국밥 우리의 소울 푸드인 국밥이다. 잘 우려낸 국물이 흰 쌀밥에 스며든다. 부드럽게 익은 고기가 빨갛게 버무린 깍두기랑 어우러진다. 익숙하지만 그럼에도 새로운 맛들이 입안에서 오케스트라를 만든다. 나이트 캐슬은 바로 그 국밥같은 게임이다. 겉보기엔 담백하고 바로 시선을 끄는 흥미요소는 적어 보일 수 있다. 수저를 떠서 한 입 먹는 순간 우린 바로 알 수 있다. 이 게임이 가진 정체성이 바로 소울 푸드라는 것을. 이제 국밥이 평균 10000원 대인 세상에 우린 살고 있다. 프리미엄 국밥(특) 한그릇 가격으로 진득하게 우려먹을 시간이다. 나는 더 많은 국밥을 원한다.

Totally recommended! I have just started playing and I can feel this is going to be a great adventure. Reminds me of Astalon and Pampas & Selene, which is great! Although, it has its own personality, and I appreciate it. Gotta say, I don't know if the game overall is kind of slow because it is that way, or I'm having trouble running it. Being that I didn't run on issues, combat is tight and animations go fluidly, I believe it's meant to be. I am truly amazed of what a single developer can achieve, having its own style, ideas and topics for it! Thanks for a great game, and all the cake it includes (wink wink) LOL I hope to keep seeing more from the developer in the future, godspeed!

Very nice metroidvania, with loads of personality and unique design ideas.

fun concept. good game.

싸서 사봤는데 생각보다 재미있습니다. 자잘한 버그는 좀 있는 것 같지만 할만하네요. 초반에 특성 얻어야 진행이 가능한 부분에서 좀 헤매긴 했는데 빈칸 찾아 다니다 보니 해결되긴 하네요. 난이도가 있어서 최종 보스 갈 수 있을진 모르겠네요. 좀 더 해볼 예정입니다.