Night of the Cephalopods

DESCRIPTION

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VIDEO

PRESS

CREDITS

UPDATES

HEAR your every move with the Lovecraft 3000 dynamic narration system!
SEE pixels of truly cyclopean dimension with hi-quality retro pixel art graphics!
FEEL the terror in your hands with Xbox 360 gamepad support!
Fully voice acted by professional voice actor Scott Moyle of Decoder Ring Theatre!
Can you survive till dawn against legions of eldritch octopi? CAN YOU?!

Night of the Cephalopods is a survival horror game with old school pixel art graphics and an innovative fully voiced dynamic narrative system.

The game begins with you lost in the woods after mistakenly summoning legions of preternatural octopi through a mistranslation of the Octinomicon, an eight volume set of books with mysterious power. Now you must fight till dawn with only your shotgun and a handful of shells. Throughout the game your status, the actions you take and the locations you explore are narrated back to you in the style of classic horror master H.P. Lovecraft with full high quality voice acting.

Night of the Cephalopods was originally created during the third round of the Artsy Games Incubator, a six week event where Toronto artists help each other learn how to make their own games.

> Download the Current Demo V0.71<

Requires Windows XP or Vista and up to date
Direct X.

If you get a "XINPUT1_3.dll not found" error or have gamepad issues you need to get an update to Direct X HERE

Video

Spoiler alert!!!
Part of the fun of the game is hearing the narration for the first time and discovering what actions will trigger unique responses. Unavoidably this video gives some of that away. However If you've already played the game and want to know more about it, I've added some optional commentary on what went into creating it.

Press

Included in IndieGames Blog's 'Best Freeware Arcade Games 2008'

Featured in Bytejacker episode 12/08/2008

(Night of the Cephalopods review starts at 1:40)

"your actions are fully narrated by the protagonist’s voiceover. The poor fellow is, it seems, trapped in a Lovecraftian fiction, and he tells you all about it, from your failure to reload, to missing your shots. He’s going mad, and you have to hear about his plight. Well worth playing, if just for those bleak comedic utterances "
- Jim Rossignol - 'Night of the Cephalopods' - Rock Paper Shotgun

"NotC’s gameplay feels deliberately slow, and claustrophobic, which adds weight to the dreadful narrative."
- Derek Yu - 'Night of the Cephalopods' - TIGSource

"Its success is based on both the quality of the writing and the unexpected timing of the narrative tidbits... ...If the breathless voice of the Lovecraftian scribe fills you with glee, then this is most certainly for you."
- Ross Rosenberg - 'Cthulhu Cthursday' - Ectoplasmosis!

"...it does something that I can't think of any other games doing—well, other than sports games, anyway—running commentary.

Sounds stupid, but as you play this Lovecraft inspired tentacle horror, an (impressive!) narrator describes what is happening on screen with macabre glee. I cannot establish how amusing this is and how ripe with potential it feels."
- Mathew Kumar - 'Toronto's Artcade No Nostalgia Trip' - GameSetWatch

"This is a fantastic little number from Spooky Squid Games. On the surface, it's a pretty ordinary isometric action game, but what makes it special is the dynamic narration that describes your gradual loss of sanity as the game progresses."
- Mouldy And Shadowy and Full of Dim Rumours (The H.P. Lovecraft Newswire)

"The dynamic narration is complete genius, and makes the game a milestone of sorts. Play the game (or wimp out and watch the video) if you don't believe me.."
- Jim McGinley - T.0.Jam

"Nice title, but I'm sorry, it's Windows only, so no way will I ever sully my gaming muscles to play it...."
- P.Z. Myers, noted scientist and blogger - Pharyngula

Credits

Miguel Sternberg: Writing - Code - Art - Sound Design
Scott "Pirate" Moyle: Voice Acting

In addition the following 3rd party dlls were used for sound and xbox 360 support:
GMXInput.dll by Yellowsix
supersound.dll by tsg1zzn

Created using Game Maker 7.0 Pro

The sound effects and soundtrack use audio from freesounds.org and are used under a Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 License. These sounds were created by the following people:

Music by: Dan Oberbauer, Connum

Various sound effects use samples by:
AaronGNP, Shades, Wolfsinger, vibe_crc, HardPCM, digifishmusic, sverga, tigersound, adcbicycle

Updates

Dec 31st 2008 - Press update - Happy New Years Everyone! Since the last update we made IndieGames Blog's 'Best Freeware Arcade Games 2008' list and got featured on an episode of Bytejacker! Look forward to more Spooky Squid games in 2009!

Dec 3rd 2008 - Press update - Added some new quotes to the press section. Thanks to everyone who's been posting and emailing great feedback on the game!

Nov 25th 2008 - v0.71 released - I fixed a minor issue with the keyboard controls. The game now handles multiple keys being held down more gracefully.

Nov 21st 2008 - Video added - I've added a video preview for the game that also has commentary embedded for anyone who's interested in the thought behind the game's narration system. I've also added a Spooky Squid mailing list so you can find out when we release or update our games.

Nov 17th 2008 - v0.7 released - Several sound effects have been added for things like reloading, and picking up ammo. The winning ending now has music and ambient sound to accompany the narration. New icon and loading screen.

Nov 15th 2008 - v0.61 released - previous zip retained some old temporary art from v 0.5. Both ending graphics are now the new and improved versions. (thanks to Jason I. for catching that)

Nov 13th 2008 - v0.6 released - Updates include: the cemetery, a new room with several objects to explore. The amount of situational narration has also been added to significantly, taking into account many actions involving shooting and picking up ammo. The difficulty has been tweaked making the game twice as long and significantly more challenging then V0.5