Noiramore Academy is a 3D mystery adventure game or at least it will be if the Kickstarter funds. It's also by some margin the best of the Next Fest demos I've played so far. I still have a couple left to try but I would be amazed if either tops this one.
I was so impressed, in fact, that as soon as I finished it I went straight to the Kickstarter page and backed it, making it the first project I've pledged on the funding platform for several years. At $15 it's hardly a major commitment and anyway, at the moment, the chances of the game funding don't look all that great. It's currently at just over $16k on a $40k ask.
There are still twenty days left and as we all know the peak funding opportunities for Kickstarters come at the beginning and the end, with take-up following a U-shaped curve. Except that's not really true. It applies to some projects but by no means is it guaranteed. Many plateau after the first spike and just lie there, others never even get that first bump of enthusiasm.
Noiramore Academy has vaulted that first hurdle, I'm pleased to say. It made about a third of its target in the opening days, considered by some analysts to be pretty much a minimum requirement for eventual success. Still, it's asking a lot to double that over the remaining three weeks.
I really hope it can because I want to play this game. I loved just about everything about it. The creative force behind the project is Anastasia Snyder, founder of Ink Rose Inc. She's a "Digital Illustrator, Voice Actress, and Online Video Producer" and all these skills are very much in evidence throughout the demo.
Graphically, it's wonderful. It looks like a comic-book come to life. The entire demo, which took me over an hour and a half to play through, takes place in a single location and yet it felt like a whole world.
There's an absolute wealth of fascinating background detail everywhere you look, not just in the many interactable objects, each of which tells its own story, but in every facet of the illustration and design. You could - and I did - spend a significant amount of time just wandering around the classroom, poking your nose into everything without feeling the need to get on with the plot at all.
There is a plot, though, and it's a good one in that I have no idea yet what it is. It's a mystery. That's how mysteries are meant to work.
The demo leans quite hard into the in media res approach to storytelling, trusting you'll be smart enough to pick things up as you go. As far as I could gather, you play a thirteen year-old girl who also happens to be a unicorn (A Unicornum, technically...) called Judith Hovern.
Judith does not have the best disciplinary record and the game opens with her receiving a dressing-down from the Principal, along with a ban from Movie Club, something that seems to be important to her. As the demo proceeds, it transpires that Judith is also on the outs with a popular couple, Becky and Nicholas. (The school is co-ed and those two are described as girlfriend and boyfriend, although Judith herself makes it quite plain she's too young to be interested in boys. Ew!)
She's no loner, though. She does have some good friends, including the wonderful Gina, drama society stalwart and method actor, currently living as a fluffbat in preparation for her next starring role, and goth true crime and serial-killer buff Mariposa, who may be every bit as creepy as she seems.
Every character, and there are quite a few, is beautifully drawn, both literally an metaphorically and the voice acting is of equal quality. There wasn't a single character that didn't sound the way the excellent dialog suggested they should. I particularly enjoyed the performance of the actor playing Gina and not only because they sounded almost exactly like my friend does, when she puts on a "funny" voice, although I admit that's a level of metatextual pleasure not available to everyone.
Too often, when I play games, I find the strength lies in either the graphics or the world-building or the lore or the voice acting or the dialog but not in all of them at once. In Noiramore Academy every aspect compliments every other perfectly. And what better way to introduce players to the characters' world could there be than have them learn about it for themselves in history class, while you sit in? Genius!
It's a fascinating world, too. Fantastical and magical but with few of the obvious tropes. No elves or dragons or wizards - just bats who might be listening and resonance waves you control with your horn. Or with a wand, if you've been unfortunate enough to have your horn snapped off, but wands offer a really inferior experience, as we all know. There's a subtext in that, right? Or am I making up my own jokes, now?
Gameplay is good. Very good, in fact, if like me you find mystery games somewhat hit or miss. I always think I'm going to enjoy them more than I do because it turns out that a) I'm not as good at spotting clues as I think I am and b) working stuff out isn't always as much fun as I think it's going to be.
In Noiramore Academy, solving mysteries is quite hands-on. There's observation and deduction but mostly there are mini-games.
Mini-games are often my favorite part of an investigation, at least they are when I can do them. I could mostly do these although as usual I tended to get hung up on the "I know what I'm suppposed to be doing but I can't figure out exactly how I'm supposed to do it" part.
Fortunately for me there are several playthroughs of the demo on YouTube and I have no compunctions about using them. I generally prefer to refer to a walk-through or a guide rather than bang my head against a puzzle until I stop having fun, out of some dim sense of pride. Literally no-one cares whether you work everything out for yourself or copy someone else's homework in a single-player game so why pretend it matters?
All I needed was a tiny hint, anyway. Okay, a couple of tiny hints. Three at the most. And all of the puzzles were completely fair and logical when I knew what I was meant to be doing. And original, too. I think this might be the first time I've ever repaired an antique dress using a pattern and a needle and thread.
I don't think I'm going to go into any more detail. It's obvious how much I enjoyed this one. The demo is there to play (I hope it stays that way after Next Fest ends - it really needs to for the Kickstarter.) and I strongly advise anyone who likes this sort of thing, a demographic which I'm sure includes a few regular readers here, to go try it.
If the demo isn't avaialable or you don't play this sort of game much, maybe watch the trailer or even one of the playthroughs on YouTube. I've thoughtfully embedded one above so you don't even have to leave. It makes for an entertaining watch, if watching someone else playing a game can be defined as entertainment. I picked one where the person playing keeps their trap shut but there are several more on YT with commentaries, too, if that's your bag.
There's a lot in the demo, which is flagged as "pre-alpha" but which played flawlessly for me. I was flicking through one of the playthroughs just now to remind myself of a couple of things and I noticed stuff in there that I definitely didn't find when I was playing. I may have to play it all the way through again. Oh, what a hardship that would be!
I could go on (And on. And on...) but I'm going to end here and keep this short because I know short posts get read more than long ones and I would really like to maximize my chances of encouraging more interest in the game. Mostly because it's really good and you'd be doing yourself a favor by trying it but also in the admitedly hubristic and ridiculous hope of nudging that Kickstarter a little further towards its goal.
Anastasia has had two previous projects fail on the platform so far. I really hope the third time turns out to be the charm. This game deserves to get made.
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