KickStarter Nighthawks - urban fantasy vampire CYOA RPG written by Richard Cobbett and published by Wadjet Eye

[Life of the Party]

Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/753131002/nighthawks-the-vampire-rpg-0

https://www.wadjeteyegames.com/games/nighthawks




https://af.gog.com/game/nighthawks?as=1649904300

Spoiler

Three months ago, you died. And in that moment you were reborn as something new.
A monster. A predator. Not a creature of the night, but one of its masters.

Unfortunately, things aren't simple as they used to be. Vampires have been exposed to the world, and though your existence is tolerated, your nature is not. But every new era brings new opportunities, and in the chaos of a world gone mad, even an outcast may rise. An outcast can change everything.

This is the story of how you rose.

Nighthawks is the new urban fantasy RPG from Wadjet Eye Games (The Blackwell Series, Unavowed) and writer Richard Cobbett (Sunless Sea, The Long Journey Home)

Enter a decaying city as a fledgling vampire out to climb from rags to riches. Feed your endless hunger. Run your own nightclub. Master secret powers. Embrace the night and live its stories. Gather fellow outcasts and bind them with favours, with potential allies including vampire magician Madame Lux, con-artist turned cult-leader Maze, and insane doctor Samuel, whose withered brain considers no fate worse than death.

Then, as the fragile peace threatens to snap, be ensnared by modern politics and ancient conspiracies that will forever decide the fate of both human and vampire societies.

What part will you play? Who are you in the dark?

 

[Bester]

"A single Bluetooth earpiece leaks the latest hit album; something this outdated club is unlikely to play for another twenty years"
Problematic wording. You can read it as "something this outdated" (pertaining to the latest hit album) and then stumble, or "something [, that] this outdated club". So, 50% readers will stumble on this sentence.

"Your wrists are bound to its arms".

"in a chair in the club".

This is bad. I like the theme, I love vampires, but I'm not sure I need to waste my time on this, if these people didn't spend a single minute editing the text. Fucking EDIT THIS SHIT.

 

[Infinitron]

Published by Wadjet Eye? What's the story here? DaveGilbert MRY

 

[Mustawd]

Agree with Bester . Writing is not good in the examples he showed.

 

[cherry blossom]

So is this exclusively a visual novel? Where is my adventuring, I don't see a game screen. Looks like a hidden object game with dialogue? What is the deal with Wadjet Eye's involvement, Dave Gilbert?

 

[Life of the Party]

Sunless Sea writer and Blackwell developer team up for urban vampire RPG Nighthawks

Nighthawks is largely inspired by the "urban fantasy" of Vampire: Bloodlines.

Sunless Sea writer Richard Cobbett—who occasionally writes for PC Gamer—and Blackwell developer Wadjet Eye jointly announced a new game today: Nighthawks, an "urban fantasy RPG" about living as an outcast vampire in a grim society.

"Enter a decaying city as a fledgling vampire out to climb from rags to riches," the official site reads. "Feed your endless hunger. Run your own nightclub. Master secret powers. Embrace the night and live its stories … Then, as the fragile peace threatens to snap, be ensnared by modern politics and ancient conspiracies that will forever decide the fate of both human and vampire societies."

We'll learn more about Nighthawks when it arrives on Kickstarter next month. Details are scarce at this stage, but according to Cobbett, Nighthawks blends the literary style of Sunless Seas with "the dark atmosphere of beloved urban fantasy games like Vampire: Bloodlines." Judging from its announcement trailer and some early images, it plays like a modern, grimdark adventure game driven by branching dialogue and interactions. There also seem to be several resources to manage, including your bank balance.

Nighthawks is a vampire RPG from Wadjet Eye and RPS pal Richard Cobbett

There are few sentences that have me sitting up and paying attention faster than ‘inspired by Vampire: Bloodlines‘, so interactive fiction/RPG blend Nighthawks already had me. That shot comes with a chaser, too; it’s a collaboration between Wadjet Eye (of the excellent Unavowed) and prolific word-spewer and RPS regular Richard Cobbett (Sunless Sea). Suddenly, I want to know absolutely everything about it. It’s early days for the game yet, but you can check out the first trailer below while you wait for its Kickstarter debut on September 5th.

Rather than attempt to juggle genres as the often-clumsy (but I still love it anyway) Vampire: Bloodlines did, Nighthawks looks to be playing to Richard’s strengths as a writer. While there are stat checks, resources and other such RPG gubbins, it’s laid out like a piece of lusciously illustrated interactive fiction. Apparently you’ll be playing as a recently turned vampire, and on top of your usual creature-of-the-night duties (biting people), you’ll get to play a more regular night-owl role, running your own nightclub – the titular Nighthawks.

Nighthawks is set in a True Blood-esque world of contemporary vampire fiction. Neck-biters are no longer a secret, and some cities are starting to come to terms with that, accepting them as (mostly) regular citizens. There’s rumours swirling around regarding secret vampire mind-powers, talk of ‘blood crimes’ in the newspapers and plenty more going on. It’s an unsteady, dangerous situation, and as anyone who played Vampire: Bloodlines will tell you, that kind of shaky ground presents new opportunities for a cocky, recently-undead punk to rise to the top.

We probably won’t know all the gritty details about Nighthawks until its full Kickstarter debut on September 5th, but until then, we can at least paw hungrily at its official site here.

 

[Neanderthal]

Oh great a "writer" from RPS, just what I always wanted in crpgs.

 

[MRY]

First I heard of it. Sounds like an interesting variant on the idea behind Unavowed.

 

[Life of the Party]

Then, as the fragile peace threatens to snap, be ensnared by modern politics

 

[ItsChon]

RIP. Sunless Sea had good writing, but the homosexual music in the trailer and the sub-par writing in the screenshots doesn't bode well for this project. That's not even commenting on the lack of any gameplay footage and that bullshit line on "modern politics".

 

[mediocrepoet]

"A single Bluetooth earpiece leaks the latest hit album; something this outdated club is unlikely to play for another twenty years"
Problematic wording. You can read it as "something this outdated" (pertaining to the latest hit album) and then stumble, or "something [, that] this outdated club". So, 50% readers will stumble on this sentence.

Not really. You do know what a semi-colon does, right? Or is your point that the writing should be made for a fifth grader?

Like: The man has a single Bluetooth earpiece in his ear. From the earpiece, you can hear the latest hit album. That hit is something this outdated club is unlikely to play for another twenty years.

So much better, right?

 

[Roqua]

Is Wadjet Eye the same people that came out with that recent adventure game with absolutely no rpg elements at all that advertised it as an rpg?

How, or why, would anyone on a site supposedly about rpgs trust these people? I bet I could remake Duck Hunt exactly as it was and advertise it as an rpg. I would have used Donkey Kong or Mario Bros. as the example but rampart retardivism has already pushed those games solidly into the rpg category by the monkey people. I'm pretty sure Duck Hunt is one of the few games left that hasn't been re-genre'd. I bet I could make a game about drawing circles around my nipples and advertise it as an rpg and the monkey people wouldn't even bat an eye. Or eyelash. However that saying goes.

I also appreciate how monicled the codex has become where they are hyper-focus on writing over the game parts of games. Games are about mechanics. Rpgs should be about the rpg mechanics, in toto. You can have a great rpg with shitty writing, but no amount of quality writing will ever made a shitty game a great rpg. Maybe you guys should read books and go to book sites instead of ruining the rpg genre with your weird fetish of needing slightly interactive digital books instead of regular books for sane people. Stop being monkey people and try to be real people with sane ideas that make sense.

 

[Ranarama]

Homosexual music, bad writing and "modern politics" all seem inescapable for modern V:TM. It was always the game for emo edgelords. So it's about as expected.

If the art doesn't get NSFW then it's wasting it's time.

 

[Lurker47]

Seems pretty gay.

 

[Neanderthal]

Wulfgar disapproves.

Nobody'll get this reference.

 

[Tigranes]

Oh great a "writer" from RPS, just what I always wanted in crpgs.

Don't you know? It's a journalistic decision to randomly make up grammar as they go

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

vampire rpg

what's that?

is there hope?

a reason to rise from the spiral of decline ever since Bloodlines?

coming to kickstarter

 

[Background Character]

I know this won't be Bloodlines 2 but I'll still play it

 

[Darth Roxor]

written by Richard Cobbett

 

[Rahdulan]

So, going the LN route with some dice rolls? Still... it's Wadjet.

 

[Tiospo]

First I heard of it. Sounds like an interesting variant on the idea behind Unavowed.

Totally backing this

 

[Shilandra]

It might not be too bad. It looks like you'll be able to abuse people and make them do things against their will which is at least a small positive sign.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Bah, everyone and their pet rock wants a vampire game. Where will I get a proper vampire hunting game?

 

[Tao]

I clicked the thread hyped, i left it

Why is so hard to make something like Redemption or Bloodlines, they weren't even that good and they are still the best vampire games out almost ¿25? years now.

O maybe a new Kain/Soulreaver. To this point i could even buy a fucking remake FFS.

Even the Castlevania series are meh nowdays.

 

[Bester]

Agree. And what irks me is that they're going to cash in on all those vtmb-starved people. I wouldn't be surprised if they got 50k, or even 100k for this. This is fan abuse.