What do you do when you find yourself living in a world where terrifying monsters the size of buildings want to have you for dinner? Well if you play NOCT, you can find out.  Set in an apocalyptic wasteland, NOCT, is a great indie game from the mind of Chris Eskins and one that I was pumped to try  at the Devolver Digital booth at PAX East.

The premise of the game is that you, along with other survivors, have to make your way through town without being trapped in a warehouse sized monster’s maw. Traveling though town you can find other survivors (playing co-op is an option and is really fun) or work through things and survive on your own. NOCT provides you with different “missions” to accomplish that progress you through the game. One part I found really interesting was that if the player chooses to include a fellow survivor, they might not have the same mission but can just help each other with the other’s missions. This gives you a sense of freedom in the game while still providing direction in what you are suppose to complete.

My playtime for the game didn’t really involve finishing the missions per-say, but was more of an exploration throughout the world. The game is designed to give you a top-down view through a thermal image as though you were watching these poor people try to survive from the safety of your bunker. The world is expansive and really does feel like a town you might stumble across in basically any place of the world. I think my favorite aspect of the game was the atmosphere that Eskins and his crew designed. There is a focus on creating not only a creepy, make you jump scenario, but also pairing it with equally creepy music. Even sitting at the computer with all the noise of PAX around me, once I slipped the headphones over my ears, I was lost in this world and felt as though I was in this situation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDdhbzXdHz0

The game recently finished up a successful Kickstarter campaign and was also recently approved on Steam’s “Greenlight Project” meaning that soon it should be released on Steam. The set date for release is July 2015 and from what I played, it seems there is already a solid game completed and ready for the player. Definitely keep an eye out, turn off the lights, and try to survive in the land of NOCT.