One Night Trilogy

Last updated
One Night Trilogy
Developer(s) Dark Gaia Studios
SeriesOne Night Trilogy
Engine RPG MAKER VX
Platform(s) PC
ReleaseJanuary 2009: Initial release
Genre(s) Survival horror
Mode(s)

The One Night Trilogy is the collective title for a series of freeware indie psychological horror games developed by Dark Gaia Studios using the RPG Maker VX engine. The games were released over a three-year period across the indie gaming community and elsewhere, have been showcased in PC Gamer magazine twice since their release [1] [2] and consistently feature in countdowns of the best games created with the RPG Maker engine. The three games do not follow in chronological order.

Contents

In 2013, a fourth game in the series was announced following a crowd funding campaign [3] but its development has since been rebooted as the first game in an unrelated franchise. [4]

Overview

The One Night Trilogy, comprising three games, One Night, One Night 2: The Beyond and One Night: Full Circle, is a series of 2D tile-based overhead psychological horror games. The three games tell the story of an attempt to invade Earth by a race of supernatural shadow people and a collection of protagonists who must survive the attacks and fight against them. The origins of the creatures and their motives are detailed in the prequel, One Night 2: The Beyond, while the first and third games deal with subsequent invasion attempts and the conclusion to the conflict.

The games feature gameplay that is fairly typical of the survival horror genre. The player advances by moving through the games' locations collecting items and solving puzzles. While exploring, the player will often encounter traps or enemies, which they can either engage in combat with or avoid entirely. As supplies such as health packs and ammunition are generally scarce, the player is encouraged to use caution and avoid getting trapped by enemies. Each of the three games also features multiple endings; different outcomes will be unlocked depending on the player's actions during gameplay, though not all of the possible endings are considered canon.

One Night

One Night is the first game in the series, released in January 2009. [5] It takes place in July 2012 and follows an amnesiac CIA agent named Colt, who awakens in a crumbling research facility infested by otherworldly monsters. He eventually teams up with another surviving agent and together they discover that the facility administrator sabotaged an experiment in the facility, causing it to be swallowed up in an inter-dimensional portal and "merge" with another universe, which has resulted in most of the facility's staff turning into monsters.

Ultimately, Colt reverses the "merge" and returns the facility to normality, allowing him to escape, though it is unclear who manipulated the facility administrator to cause the "merge" and why. This loose end is explored in the third game, which is a direct sequel. Depending on how they played, the player can receive one of three endings, where Colt survives alongside one, both, or none of the facility's other survivors.

One Night 2: The Beyond

One Night 2: The Beyond, released six months following the first game, [6] takes place two decades earlier, in July 1987. Players take control of one of two selectable protagonists (a detective, John Faraday or a writer, Sara Wickson) as they become trapped in a supposedly haunted mansion named "The Beyond" and must try to survive the night. Eventually, the chosen protagonist discovers that the mansion was built on top of a series of old coal mines wherein a construction of extraterrestrial origin has been buried since the late Bronze Age.

The beings within the construction, known as "shadow people", who possess psychokinetic powers, have been driven from their own world due to war and have fled to Earth, which they plan to conquer. However, their journey to Earth has weakened them and they have remained in suspended animation underneath the mansion for thousands of years, awakening in the mid-20th Century to regain their powers by slowly bringing the mansion and the surrounding countryside under their control.

By the point of the game's beginning, they have almost regained full power, and, after uncovering their back story and unlocking the way to the mines, the game's protagonist defeats them, reducing their power to almost nothing once again and releasing the house from their control. The game features four different endings that the player can achieve based on their performance, with two available for each of the selectable characters.

One Night 2 is notably different from the previous game in tone and gameplay, with a noticeable emphasis on exploration rather than combat and a much darker atmosphere.

One Night: Full Circle

One Night: Full Circle is the third and final game in the One Night Trilogy, released more than two years after the original game in April 2011. [7] It takes place seven years after the original game, in 2019. The protagonist of One Night: Full Circle is Tom Hawkin, who travels to the town of Stillwater to search for a missing relative, only to find it abandoned and infested with monsters and shadow people. In Stillwater, he meets Colt, the protagonist of One Night who has also been drawn to the town, and the two team up to discover what has happened to the town and how it is connected to the events of the previous games.

In the course of exploring the town, Tom and Colt learn that following their defeat at the end of the second game, the shadow people left "The Beyond" behind to find other ways to regain their lost power. Seeking to create an influx of negative energy to reinvigorate them, they placed John Faraday (one of the protagonists of One Night 2) under their control and used him to blackmail a government researcher, leading to the events of One Night. As they were foiled by Colt, they were once again left powerless, and the catastrophe that has befallen Stillwater is yet another attempt to rupture the fabric of reality and gather more power. Full Circle covers the shadow people's final attempt to control humanity and, depending on decisions made by the player during the game, they either succeed or fail in one of two different endings.

Critical reception

Since their release in the RPG Maker community, the three games have generated considerable popularity. The third game was featured in the October 2011 issue of PC Gamer in the United States, where it was listed as an "adorable top down horror game". [8] An earlier version of the game also appeared in the magazine in February 2011, where it was commended for "turning survival horror into something that can be idly enjoyed in the afternoon", though with criticism given to its writing a narrative. [9]

Within the RPG Maker community, the series has been stated as "ranking up there with some of the better games from the RPG Maker scene" by Sore Losers Gaming, an RPG Maker developer's blog. [10] The first game was also featured on the official RPG Maker website for Halloween in 2011, with particular mention given to its soundtrack and puzzles, [11] and all three games have been reviewed positively within the RPG Maker community.

In October 2012, all three games in the trilogy were featured as a Freeware Game Pick on IndieGames.com, a sister site of Gamasutra. [12] The IndieGames.com writer noted that the second game was his favourite, praising its "Lovecraftian" atmosphere. On Halloween 2012, the trilogy was also listed among the Top Five Indie Horror Games by review site New Gamer Nation, who gave special mention to the sound design and visual style of the games. [13] A year later, the third game was featured in an article listing the Top Ten Free RPG Maker Horror Games by review website FreePCGamers.com. [14]

Related Research Articles

<i>Baldurs Gate</i> Franchise of fantasy role-playing video games

Baldur's Gate is a series of role-playing video games set in the Forgotten Realms Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting. The game has spawned two series, known as the Bhaalspawn Saga and the Dark Alliance, both taking place mostly within the Western Heartlands, but the Bhaalspawn Saga extends to Amn and Tethyr. The Dark Alliance series was released for consoles and was critically and commercially successful. The Bhaalspawn Saga was critically acclaimed for using pausable realtime gameplay, which is credited with revitalizing the computer role-playing game (CRPG) genre.

Survival horror Subgenre of action-adventure video games

Survival horror is a subgenre of action-adventure and horror video games that focuses on survival of the character as the game tries to frighten players with either horror graphics or scary ambience. Although combat can be part of the gameplay, the player is made to feel less in control than in typical action games through limited ammunition or weapons, health, speed and vision, or through various obstructions of the player's interaction with the game mechanics. The player is also challenged to find items that unlock the path to new areas and solve puzzles to proceed in the game. Games make use of strong horror themes, like dark mazelike environments and unexpected attacks from enemies.

<i>Castlevania</i> Action-adventure gothic horror video game series

Castlevania is a gothic horror action-adventure video game series and media franchise about vampire hunters, created and developed by Konami. It has been released on various platforms, from early systems to modern consoles, as well as handheld devices such as mobile phones. The franchise has expanded into other media, including comic books, an animated television series, and several spin-off video games.

<i>Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth</i> Survival horror video game

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is a survival horror video game developed by Headfirst Productions and published by Bethesda Softworks with 2K Games and Ubisoft for the Xbox in 2005 and for Microsoft Windows in 2006. It combines an action-adventure game with a relatively realistic first-person shooter and elements of a stealth game.

RPG Maker, known in Japan as RPG Tsukūru, is a series of programs for the development of role-playing video games (RPGs) with story-driven elements, created by the Japanese group ASCII, succeeded by Enterbrain. The Japanese name, Tsukūru, is a pun mixing the Japanese word tsukuru (作る), means "make" or "create", with tsūru (ツール), the Japanese transcription of the English word "tool".

The 1990s was the third decade in the industry's history. It was a decade of marked innovation in video gaming. It was a decade of transition from sprite-based graphics to full-fledged 3D graphics and it gave rise to several genres of video games including, but not limited to, the first person shooter, real-time strategy, survival horror, and MMO. Handheld gaming began to become more popular throughout the decade, thanks in part to the release of the Game Boy. Arcade games, although still relatively popular in the early 1990s, began to decline as home consoles became more common.

<i>Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy!</i>

Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! is a point-and-click adventure game by British developer Alasdair Beckett. It was created as an indie game using the Adventure Game Studio game engine and released for free on the Internet on March 6, 2007. The game has been translated into Spanish, French, German and Polish.

<i>Yume Nikki</i>

Yume Nikki is a surreal adventure game by pseudonymous Japanese developer Kikiyama. In the game, players explore the dreams of the protagonist, named Madotsuki, where they encounter a number of surrealistic horror creatures and locations. The game was created using RPG Maker 2003, but lacks most elements commonly associated with role-playing games, such as battle, leveling up, and quests. The game's primary objective is to collect items known as "effects" that grant Madotsuki new abilities and allow players to progress to new areas, with the game ending after 24 of them have been collected.

<i>Digital: A Love Story</i> 2010 indie visual novel

Digital: A Love Story is an indie visual novel by video game designer Christine Love, released for free in February 2010. The game's story is linear, with the player's actions unable to significantly change the course of the plot. Set "five minutes into the future of 1988", Digital tells the story of the protagonist's online relationship with a girl and their attempts to solve a mystery surrounding the deaths of several artificial intelligences. The game is presented entirely through the interface of a 1980s computer with online bulletin board system posts and messages from other characters; the protagonist's own messages are implied but never shown. The game was received positively, with critics especially praising the game's writing and plot, and it was noted in lists of the best indie games of 2010.

Eastern role-playing video games (RPGs) are RPGs developed in East Asia. Most Eastern RPGs are Japanese role-playing video games (JRPGs), developed in Japan. RPGs are also developed in South Korea and in China.

<i>Corpse Party</i>

Corpse Party is a survival horror, adventure, and dōjin soft video game series originally created by Makoto Kedōin and developed by Team GrisGris. The first game in the series was developed using the RPG Maker software version RPG Tsukūru Dante 98 and released in 1996 for the PC-9801. It was followed by two remakes: Corpse Party Blood Covered, which was released for Microsoft Windows on December 9, 2006; and Corpse Party Blood Covered: ...Repeated Fear, which was released for the PlayStation Portable on August 12, 2010, and iOS on February 9, 2012. The game was released in North America and Europe by Marvelous USA under the title Corpse Party. Marvelous USA planned to release a localized version Corpse Party Blood Covered for PC in North America in 2015, but the title was delayed until 2016. A 3DS version of the game, titled Corpse Party Blood Covered: ...Repeated Fear was released in Japan on July 30, 2015, and contains a new extra chapter not present in the PSP and iOS version.

<i>SCP – Containment Breach</i> 2012 supernatural horror video game

SCP – Containment Breach is a free and open source indie supernatural horror video game developed by Joonas Rikkonen ("Regalis"). It is based on the paranormal fictional stories of the SCP Foundation website. The game is played from a first person perspective and the protagonist is a human test subject labeled "D-9341" in an SCP Foundation facility, which is devoted to containing and researching dangerous creatures called SCPs. The goal of the game is to escape from an underground SCP containment center in the situation of a complete security breach, which leads to the escape of the contained creatures while avoiding security teams sent in to end the breach. The game has a procedurally generated play area and features multiple popular SCPs from the SCP Foundation Wiki.

<i>Five Nights at Freddys</i> (video game) 2014 point-and-click survival horror video game

Five Nights at Freddy's is an indie survival horror video game developed and published by Scott Cawthon. The game takes place in a fictional family pizza restaurant called "Freddy Fazbear's Pizza", where the player takes the role of a security guard who must defend themselves from the restaurant's animatronic characters that become mobile and homicidal at night.

<i>Assassins Creed Chronicles</i> Video game sub-series in the Assassins Creed franchise

Assassin's Creed Chronicles is a sub-series of video games in the Assassin's Creed franchise. The series consists of three games developed by Climax Studios and published by Ubisoft. The games feature new protagonists and a design that is new to the franchise, a 2.5D world inspired by traditional brush paintings. The first entry, Assassin's Creed: China, was released on April 21, 2015, on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The second entry, Assassin's Creed: India, was released on January 12, 2016 on the same platforms. The last game, Assassin's Creed: Russia, was released on February 9, 2016.

<i>Off</i> (video game) 2008 role-playing video game

Off is a French-language role-playing video game released in 2008 by the Belgian team Unproductive Fun Time, consisting of Martin Georis and Alias Conrad Coldwood. It has garnered a sizable following for its story, characters and atmosphere, particularly after its officially sanctioned fan translation into English. It is about an enigmatic humanoid entity known as the Batter, who is described as being on a "sacred mission" to "purify" the world of Off. The Batter travels through four bizarre Zones in the world, revealing more about the world as the game goes on.

<i>Remothered: Tormented Fathers</i> 2018 horror video game

Remothered: Tormented Fathers is a 2018 Italian survival horror video game created and directed by Chris Darril, developed by Stormind Games and published by Darril Arts. The game was originally released digitally on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows. A Nintendo Switch version was released digitally in 2019, in collaboration with developer Dico Co., Ltd. The game was also released physically in October 2019 by publisher Soedesco.

Grimm's Hollow is a 2019 freeware, indie adventure role-playing video game for Microsoft Windows. It was released on Steam and Itch.io on Halloween by the developer ghosthunter, running on RPG Maker 2003. The game received positive reviews and currently holds a Top 10 spot in the 150 best Steam games of all time tagged with RPG Maker.

<i>Lockheart Indigo</i> 2020 murder mystery video game

Lockheart Indigo is an independent adventure game, solo-developed by Harmless Games. It is a neo-noir psychological thriller that's visually styled after 8-bit video games such as those on the Game Boy Color, using limited colors with a pixel art aesthetic.

Echo Night is a trilogy of Japanese adventure games developed by FromSoftware. The original Echo Night was first released in 1998 for the PlayStation. Two sequels were developed; Echo Night 2: The Lord of Nightmares for the PlayStation in Japan in 1999, and Echo Night: Beyond for the PlayStation 2 which released worldwide between 2004 and 2006. All the titles feature a protagonist called Richard pursuing a magical artifact and interacting with ghosts. Titles are played from a first-person perspective, and place a focus on puzzles and exploration.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.