Let's Finish Noctropolis (Update #15)

[Gonchi]

Part 1: The life of Peter Grey
Part 2: 'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my bookstore door
Part 3: Do not go gentle into the City of Night
Part 4: Asking father why, for there are many things I don't know
Part 5: I know you, I made out with you once upon a dream
Part 6: Succubus set up us the bomb
Part 7: Gee, Stiletto, if I knew there was gonna be a test, I would've studied
Part 8: This suit is made for walkin'
Part 9: Talking the talk
Part 10: Breadcrumb trail
Part 11: If at first you don't succeed...
Part 12: Errand for a Mad Hatter
Part 13: The Puzzles of the Opera
Part 14: Meat the Butcher
Part 15: The Doctor is Insane
Part 16: ???

Extras
Main Theme (3 MB)
Comic Books (8 MB)

Introduction

Noctropolis is a mouse-driven, point-and-click adventure game developed by Flashpoint Productions, better know for 36 Great Holes starring Fred Couples, if you like golf, maybe, and published by Electronic Arts right around the time they went Nazi Germany on the gaming industry.

… an elegant logo for a more civilized age.

Released in the waning heyday of graphic adventures, it gathered some notoriety due to its violence (some gore, which is rather mild by today's standards) and sexual situations (partial frontal nudity and implied rape, which probably would have caused a huge fuzz today), but went otherwise unnoticed on adventure packed store shelves.

The game places you in the shoes of comic book fanatic Peter Grey as his life crumbles apart around him in an unyielding avalanche of adversity that makes suicide seem like a viable and appropriate course of action (cue M*A*S*H theme chorus), when he is suddenly whisked away from harsh reality to the dark mean streets of Noctropolis, a city of perpetual night, where he finds purpose as it's new vigilante champion.

The setting is sort of what you'd get if you took Adam West's Batman put him in Burton's Gotham and had it behave like Miller's Sin City. Something like a campy Watchmen.

(Achievement Unlocked: Shameless name-dropping!)

Without further ado, let us begin...

 

[Gonchi]

Let's Play Noctropolis, Part 1: The Life of Peter Grey

Spoiler

As the Flashpoint and EA logos fade, we are treated to a panning view of the city of night and a rousing opening theme. The title slowly forms and the credits are displayed.

(Download and listen to the Noctropolis main theme!)

Next, we see this ominous room, filled with ominous characters.

The music is also ominous.

The figure at the far end turns towards the table, flinging his cloak dramatically before speaking.

Ominous!

Meet Peter Grey.

A true codex spirit!

Mail threats? Further proof of codexian ties. Who's Peter Grey's alt?

We take the bills, because this is an adventure game and everything not bolted down is useful for something and should fill our inventory until we figure out or guess its true purpose.

Unfortunately we can't read the threats.

As you can see, the store is pretty much dead (let's face it, would you purchase from a bookstore with leaking pipework above the shelves?). Let's get out of here...

Bummer...

Unable to leave, we try the door at the far end...

What a dump.

Littered around the office are stacks of comics, more unpaid bills and important paperwork, and lots, lots of junk.

Random trivia: The first release of Noctropolis came with a physical copy of this comic. It's something of a collector's item.

Well that sucks. To sympathize with Peter, think of Firefly.

In addition to that bit of bad news, there are also notices from the telephone company, kindly informing us that the service has been disconnected due to our unpaid account balance, the power company, warning of imminent service termination if we continue to fail to meet payment arrangements, and our bank, saying our building's loan is seriously delinquent and that repossession is pending. An eviction notice is included.

We pick them all up, they're probably useful for something.

On our desk is this letter. We pick it up, because our pockets are large.

The desk drawers have been stuck closed for longer than you can remember. Taking into account the state of the room, it's probably better that way.

Turns out Peter Grey's coming out of a rather torrid divorce.

Since we're gluttons for punishment, we pick up the divorce papers and photo/postcard. That's what our inventory currently looks like.

Ouch.

Apparently, in the divorce settlement, Peter got a desk with two drawers that don't open, a stereo system that doesn't work, a lamp that flickers and a chair. His ex-wife got everything else, including his self respect and his balls.

Yeah, that'll teach her.

Fuck reality, let's read a comic book.

(Download and read the Noctropolis comic book! Go on, it's plot relevant...)

As we finish reading our comic, our TV suddenly turns on by itself.

(That's actually happened to me a couple of times.)

Poltergeist! :shock:

A girl! I've heard about them...

(Unfortunately, this never happens when my TV suddenly turns on by itself.)

Yeah, come to daddy...

Oh, yeah...

What's the matter baby, why'd you sto... wait... what the...

AAAHHHHHHH!

... yeah, I'd still hit it.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on whatever floats your boat), there's someone ringing on our store's door. If it turns out to be a raven, I'll fucking kill myself.

And that's all for now. In the next update, we'll answer the door and read more comics!

 

[pipka]

Sexy!

 

[spekkio]

Yup, back in the day even EA was awesome decent...

 

[marlboroo]

whoa western sadako!

please continue

 

[lightbane]

Cool stuff, so grimdark and bleak it's hilarious (probably done purposely), continue it and don't abandon it when it was to end like certain forummembers...

 

[Luzur]

Sexy!

NIPPLE FLASH!!

 

[Schattenjäger]

Fuck yeah, more obscure adventure games. Please, carry on, my dear good countryman.

 

[Gonchi]

Let's Play Noctropolis, Part 2: 'Tis some visitor...

Spoiler

When we last saw our loser hero, he was about to get gnawed on by a vampiric poltergeist when some late visitor suddenly came ringing on his store's door, stirring him from his nightmare/dream.

Ok, so we're about to get robbed by a very clumsy thief or there's a midget at the door.

Let's find out!

A child courier? I thought the US had laws against this sort of thing...

The game has branching dialogue, though, while in future conversations behaving like an ass will have consequences (the fatal kind), here you will receive the package regardless of what you answer, so they are mostly irrelevant.

The courier is an incredibly annoying rhyming riddler, so we get this over with quickly like so:

: Who is the package for?

: Grey... My name is Peter Grey.

: I've got the ticket right here.

You can only give this response if you actually have the ticket. Which we do. Pick up everything not bolted down for the win!

Alternately, if years of adventure gaming hadn't turned us into shameless pack-rats, we'd of just walked back into our office and picked up the stub with the sweepstakes letter. The courier just waits for us at the door, instead of slipping a notice to go to the post office in 24 to 48 hours to pick up the package like most postal services do.

Noctropolis: -10 for realism.

Ominous!

She drops the package through the mail slot and takes off.

That's it? What a ripoff...

Peter doesn't seem to mind and immediately starts reading the comic, right there, standing in front of his door. Don't you open and read your correspondence at your front door too?

Download the Noctropolis comics in the main post.

Unlike other LP's, ours comes with its own canon comics.

In our inventory we now have the two metal tokens.

How odd, one warm, the other cold...

We'll now step back into our office, as I would like to introduce you to the Noctropolis' user interface, and briefly explain it's game mechanics.

A single right click brings up The Triangle, as the game manual refers to it, containing all of the game's action commands. Most of them are fairly self explanatory, such as "Talk", "Get" and "Look".

"Travel" opens up the world map (or in this case, city map) allowing you to travel to different locations (hence why they call it travel, duh). It's also useful for jumping to another area without needing to backtrack through many screens. Unfortunately, when it would be most useful it is (in)conveniently disabled, as you will inevitably see as we proceed in the LP. "Goto", on the other hand, is the option you use to move around a room and from one to another.

"Move" functions somewhat as the interactive action for everything that isn't in your inventory (such as pushing a crate, or flipping a switch), while "Use" on the other hand is reserved exclusively for items in your inventory.

And therein lies one of Noctropolis' biggest flaws. The game basically comes down to using the right item in the right screen. Yes, screen.

Allow me to demonstrate;

Using, oh, let's say, the silver token in our office:

Whereas carrying out the same, inexplicable impulse in our store front:

Yeah, couldn't possibly have done that in our office, why would I even try?

You can imagine what this implies in regards to puzzles. And granted, you might say that adventure games were always trial-and-error inventory crawls, but this is a bit too much.

We now continue with our scheduled LP.

Flip it, Pete!

Woo, look at that sucker fly... didn't look quite that large a second ago, though...

What the... it blew up?

The Goa'uld are attacking! Scatter!

Pow! Right in the kisser!

I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.

Join us next time as we venture forth into the City of Night!

 

[Darth Roxor]

We take the bills, because this is an adventure game and everything not bolted down is useful for something and should fill our inventory until we figure out or guess its true purpose.

In other news, a desperate astronaut tries to use every item with every other item

Also, that vampire poltergeist looks EXACTLY like one bitch I know.

 

[Gonchi]

Cool stuff, so grimdark and bleak it's hilarious (probably done purposely), continue it and don't abandon it when it was to end like certain forummembers...

Generally speaking or was there another Noctropolis LP that was abandoned?

I shall endure, fear not...

Fuck yeah, more obscure adventure games. Please, carry on, my dear good countryman.

Gotta love obscure adventure games. I considered doing Drascula or Hollywood Monsters for a while, before settling on Noctropolis. Maybe next time.

So are you Manya or Bolso?

 

[ghostdog]

Niice I was going to play this game at some point, but now I don't have to.

Sexy!

NIPPLE FLASH!!

There's actually full frontal nudity in the game, and from a playboy bunny no less. I think, it was one of its selling points.

 

[CrimHead]

Wow! I'm suprised. That's some really nice writing for a video game... Is it this good throughout? I might have to give this game a go.

 

[Gonchi]

The music's also pretty good, and so is the acting (by FMV standards). Can't appreciate those in an LP so I'd recommend playing the game.

The audio was a pain in the ass to configure properly back in the day, though thankfully DOSBox has come to our rescue.

 

[GarfunkeL]

A-haha, I remember this one! A friend actually bought it because of the buzz about violence, gore and nudity in it. We were somewhat titillated, though it wasn't much

 

[Brother None]

Looks pretty damned cool. Even the comics are good, even if the formatting is a bit weird.

 

[Schattenjäger]

So are you Manya or Bolso?

Penãrol para siempre, hermanito.

 

[Gonchi]

Looks pretty damned cool. Even the comics are good, even if the formatting is a bit weird.

There were talks with Image Comics about doing Darksheer series, though nothing came of it.

I imagine the physical copy included with the game was edited in some way to fit all the text.

So are you Manya or Bolso?

Penãrol para siempre, hermanito.

Nadie es perfecto.

And while we wait for Page 2, here's a longer, alternate dialogue with the courier.

: You must have the wrong address.

: My direction is keen and just as foreseen, I've stopped at the shop where the comics are dropped. Now.

: I'm closed. Besides, my deliveries arrive on Thursday.

: The night flies on invisible wings, hiding those that pull your strings. If you allow the darkness to swallow you whole, the teeth of the night will temper your soul. Alive.

: What the hell are you talking about?

: Darkness and dread are impeccable friends, but not the companions I'd recommend, unless you posses this package. Care to?

: Who are you?

: I'm a harbinger of the ultra-state, a herald, an usher and omen of fate. Small as I am, I am all of these things, and they're woven within the package I bring. Heavy.

: Who sent the package?

: Cygnus Comics, Sweepstakes Division. I can see in your mind there's a price you envision. Peep hole.

: Cygnus Comics delivers every Thursday.

: Ah, but sometime called Thursday may never appear, while the prize from Cygnus I'm holding right here. Accept.

: The prize must be from the Darksheer Sweepstakes!

: Of course it's the sweepstakes, so search through your keepsakes, present me the ticket stub and the prize will be yours. Sheer.

The conversation can be strung out even further, and so can most dialogues throughout the game.

 

[Brother None]

What do we need page 2 for?

 

[ghostdog]

I'd prefer page 3

 

[GarfunkeL]

Ha! And somehow very suitable for this game, too!

 

[Gonchi]

What do we need page 2 for?

Did we really want about 100 screenshots loading on a single page?

I'm on a very old laptop with a fairly slow internet connection. It'd make my computer bleed.

 

[Schattenjäger]

I hereby sign the petition for page 2.

Please collaborate.

 

[Brother None]

What do we need page 2 for?

Did we really want about 100 screenshots loading on a single page?

I'm on a very old laptop with a fairly slow internet connection. It'd make my computer bleed.

And I had to climb to and from school through 5 feet of snow, uphill both ways!


Ok fine. It seems not strictly super-necessary because of size of screens, but I'll show my noble side in taking pity on you poor internet/computer bereft cretins.

 

[silver crowaxe]

Page 2 ahoy.