Review: The levels are puzzle-like, but have a tense/action feeling that you don't find in puzzle games. Overall I enjoyed playing the game and seeing the characters succeed.
The writing was tense and conveyed the emotions of the protagonist in a way that matches up with how you feel after completing each level. However, the story was not engaging because the characters only have goals, not personality.
I felt really cool using the terminal interface, as it had some unique communication things in the beginning, and the parts where your platform is hacked, are surprising. Unfortunately, they didn't use it as much as I expected. This made the typing-to-interact interface a little annoying at the end.
on ----BRIG----, here is, frame by frame, the path of (S)ecurity guard, when going from terminal 1 to terminal 2: (I set the links so that they open in a new tab)
Should seem pretty normal. Now, please note that @ is on the left of X. Here's what mysteriously happens if @ is on the right of X (easily done by telling X to go to terminal 3, then back to 2):
So... anytime @ is on the right, S seems to... conveniently think NOW is the time to check on terminal 2???
So far, this had been consistent: any time @ was not on the right of terminal 2, S would never go through there. Anytime @ WAS on the right, the whenever S would go in front of terminal 2, he'd do a detour.
Finally, THIS gem What is the last one, you ask? I just go caught is all? Notice the lack of commands on the right. I-DID-NOTHING (again). S DECIDED TO GO CHECK THE ROOM!! CASUALLY OPENED THE DOOR AND FOUND ME!
Besides when @ is on the right of X, "these" seem to pretty much only happen when TAB is held/used to speed up everything, so it's maybe linked to that (and the randomness of H's path?) (or I'm just too impatient) Either way, PLEASE don't tell me it's intended behaviour...
I know this was 7 months ago but this is really weird
All these things happened to me too but only when S and Hunter crossed paths (since they can't just phase through each other): if they cross paths before S goes between terminal 2/5 and the room/fax, S decides to check terminal 2/5 instead to clear the path for Hunter, and if they cross paths while S is already halfway through the corridor, he decides to enter the room (or the fax), again, to clear the path for Hunter. If they cross paths while S is almost done crossing the corridor, then S might decide to just cross the entire corridor backwards and then check terminal 2/5 for some reason, or Hunter might decide to wait for S to finish crossing (probably depends on the exact frame they cross paths??? idk)
However in your screenshots it doesn't seem like S and Hunter are crossing paths at all so that's weird
I just downloaded NOISE1 as part of the racial justice bundle. I love how the game looks. What game engine did you use (if you don't mind telling), or did you make your own for this game?
i looooooooooooooved this game! i got it as part of the racial justice bundle, but i think it would be well worth the 10 bucks too. who knew TYPING could be so stressful and so rewarding, all at once?
I caused a bug: the X saw the S and @ at the same time. It went for the S and I couldn't direct @ any more, who ran to a corner after getting scared from the X, who for some reason stopped being able to see @. I had to hit Esc to restart manually (and I also never figured out how to get it to go for the S and had to skip this one, lol): https://imgur.com/a/66syeHm
Hello. I think your game is really cool. But I keep having a crash right after I do the second scan in the first level:
Fatal error. System.AccessViolationException: Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt. at Gaia.OpenGL.GL.DrawElements(Gaia.OpenGL.PrimitiveType, Int32, Gaia.OpenGL.IndexType, IntPtr) at Gaia.OpenGL.GraphicsGL.Draw(Gaia.Engine.Texture, Gaia.Engine.Shader, Gaia.Engine.Mesh, Gaia.Engine.PrimitiveType, Gaia.Engine.BlendMode, Gaia.Engine.RectangleI ByRef) at Gaia.Engine.Graphics.Flush() at Gaia.Engine.Graphics.End() at Gaia.Engine.App.Run(System.String, System.String, System.String, Int32, Int32) at Terminal.Game.Run() at Terminal.Win.Program.Main(System.String[])
this game was sooo good <3 i was immediately interested when i read the description and the plot really held up to what i expected.
i was hooked from the beginning :)
the mechanics are super great and i thought the game's difficulty progressed in a nice way. never felt impossible to do but was still challenging! the last few levels were so difficult, the ones after the CAMO command was introduced omg @.@
i actually cried (real tears) during the "epilogue" when you play @ and X a little song and the command...is Noise 1 :'-) i totally didn't expect that name drop
all together, i loved the game! thank you for making it!
This game absolutely rules! I've had a similar idea knocking around in my head for years, and could never work out how to make it into an actual game, but this is such an elegant mechanic - imo the best hacking game I've ever played. Wonderfully tense, while not punishing my frequent mistakes too harshly. The ending left me with a tear in my eye and a grin on my face. I'd love to see this idea developed further, it has so much potential.
awesome, really glad you liked it! yeah i'd had this game written out for 5 or 6 years and only finally gotten around to putting it to code. thanks for playing!
Absolutely fantastic. I enjoyed the unique control scheme, and it never felt like it was getting old (although I can see how a slow typer could get very frustrated).
The story was cute and well-executed. I was really invested the whole way through. I especially liked some of the smaller details, like how a character later in the story destroys noisy terminals instead of just turning them off. It’s a small thing, but I thought it was really neat.
Ran nicely under wine, which is great.
I did run into one bug: if you manage the doors too well in the last level (where you’re shooting all the guards), the guards can form little traffic jams, and the guards don’t start moving again after the doors open. I had to restart the level in order to kill all of them and progress.
What an excellent, tense, dramatic experience! After each of those later levels, I kept hoping there would be no more, my nerves were so shot! A couple of times I even found myself yelling "GO!!" at the tiny @. Very well done, enjoyed every minute, and the length felt perfect. Now to let my poor shaking hands recover.
I got a little ways into this game on my stream, and enjoyed every second. Very much looking forward to finishing this game up, fantastic aesthetics, well-thought mechanics enabling that aesthetic. Overall, a fantastic game! Glad to see you're considering adding music or sound, that'd address the only shortcoming I've spotted so far! Even just some ascii-bell like beeps on successful actions would be fantastic.
i love this so much, i'm so happy it got included in the bundle and that i got to play it! also always thrilling to see characters go by they/them pronouns, cheers for that also :) :)
The game just closes after finishing second level, and if I start it back again and press L (to load) it closes again. Any ideas what might be the problem?
(happens both in fulscreen and in window)
EDIT: This might be related to the problem that was mentioned earlier, since I have my language settings set to Polish (well, the system is in english, but the "format" settings are polish), which uses comma as decimal separator, but I thought that was fixed already.
EDIT2: Can confirm that changing the separator fixed it. So I guess that patch didn't fix it on the game side.
I probably implemented the patch incorrectly. I just uploaded VER. 1.005, which hopefully fixes this, if you want to download the latest version and give it a try. When you run the game, it should say v0.005 on the title screen.
yes, unfortunately that's the only option at the moment. i've had offers to help port it to linux, which I will probably accept later, but i am currently finishing another game and don't have the time to do one myself.
There’s one problem under WINE actually. When switching to a different window out of fullscreen mode, the game stops rendering anything when you switch back to the window. The solution is to switch to windowed mode.
The bug with locales using commas as floating point separators is still not fixed (the one that crashes the game when it loads guards in some levels). I've managed to fix it by replacing all dot separated floats in level JSONs with comma separated ones. My advice on how to fix this permanently is to use Convert.ToSingle(STRING, System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture) instead of Convert.ToSingle(STRING) while still using dot separated float values in JSONs.
I've just uploaded a build (Ver 1.005) which hopefully fixes this. If you haven't completed it yet and would like to give the new build a try, feel welcome.
i didnt realize reviews arent public, so i am putting this here too in case anyone looking at this page is curious about noise1. play this game!! you will be glad you did!! but you have to type fast!!
my review:
noise1 is an absolutely incredible game!! it took me about 2.5 hours to finish and i loved every moment. youve gotta think on your feet my heart was POUNDING. story even made me tear up a bit, it was very tender and sweet. plus everyone uses they/them. thembo rights. but for real, wow, i am stunned and im recommending this to all of my friends. im so glad i found noise1, i really loved it to bits, like i seriously cannot properly express just how much i loved this game. im so glad this was in the bundle, as its an experience i would have probably missed out on otherwise. thank you for this game, what a privilege it was to play!!
i got this in the bundle and it's the first game i played :D i love the aesthetic and the puzzle-solving!! it's so good. thank u for making such a fun game!!
hi! I recently bought this game in the big bundle and i'm really enjoying it! however, one of the levels seems to not be loading correctly, as in, it's just the little @ sign waiting in a room and it won't accept commands (it's during the quarantine part). is this intentional, like, does the player have to guess some hidden password, or is it a bug?
this is almost certainly the case, here. the game will occasionally not tell you what to do, or try to trick you up. it's me experimenting with agency and player expectations, but unfortunately, due to the nature and aesthetic of the game, it can sometimes seem like the game is broken lol
Got the game in the big bundle, the description and ASCII art caught my eye so it was one of the first I played. Truly loved it, amazed at what you were able to do with such a simple interface both gameplay and story-wise. Only had to skip 1 level in the laboratory that either involved very precise timing or I was unable to figure out correctly!
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Review:
The levels are puzzle-like, but have a tense/action feeling that you don't find in puzzle games. Overall I enjoyed playing the game and seeing the characters succeed.
The writing was tense and conveyed the emotions of the protagonist in a way that matches up with how you feel after completing each level. However, the story was not engaging because the characters only have goals, not personality.
I felt really cool using the terminal interface, as it had some unique communication things in the beginning, and the parts where your platform is hacked, are surprising. Unfortunately, they didn't use it as much as I expected. This made the typing-to-interact interface a little annoying at the end.
On my computer, the .app works fine without the Itch launcher. I'm using MacOS Mojave 10.14.6
Pretty weird glitch I found:
*contains spoilers*
on ----BRIG----, here is, frame by frame, the path of (S)ecurity guard, when going from terminal 1 to terminal 2:
(I set the links so that they open in a new tab)
NOISE1_S_path_step_1.png
(I apparently skipped step 2)
NOISE1_S_path_step_3.png
NOISE1_S_path_step_4.png
NOISE1_S_path_step_5.png
Should seem pretty normal. Now, please note that @ is on the left of X.
Here's what mysteriously happens if @ is on the right of X (easily done by telling X to go to terminal 3, then back to 2):
NOISE1_S_glitchpath_step_1.png
NOISE1_S_glitchpath_step_2.png
NOISE1_S_glitchpath_step_3.png
NOISE1_S_glitchpath_step_4.png
NOISE1_S_glitchpath_step_fiv-waitwhatwhatwhat.png
NOISE1_S_glitchpath_pleasenopleasenopleaseno.png
NOISE1_S_glitchpath_why_sad-face.png
So... anytime @ is on the right, S seems to... conveniently think NOW is the time to check on terminal 2???
So far, this had been consistent: any time @ was not on the right of terminal 2, S would never go through there. Anytime @ WAS on the right, the whenever S would go in front of terminal 2, he'd do a detour.
Now, I wanted to check if the same thing happened with Terminal 5 and...
Upon marvelling upon how hard it is to go to the lower part of the room, these things happened:
S casually checking terminal 5
S casually checking the... fax????
S casually checking terminal 2 (you may notice that the commands on the right are no longer there. Did I do anything? NO, S CAUGHT ME (us... them... whatev.)! I-DID-NOT-MOVE!)
S, which was midway through... goes BACKWARDS??? [...]
[...] IN ORDER TO GO CHECK ON TERMINAL 5??? MAKE YOUR MIND!
Finally, THIS gem
What is the last one, you ask? I just go caught is all? Notice the lack of commands on the right. I-DID-NOTHING (again). S DECIDED TO GO CHECK THE ROOM!! CASUALLY OPENED THE DOOR AND FOUND ME!
Besides when @ is on the right of X, "these" seem to pretty much only happen when TAB is held/used to speed up everything, so it's maybe linked to that (and the randomness of H's path?) (or I'm just too impatient) Either way, PLEASE don't tell me it's intended behaviour...
I know this was 7 months ago but this is really weird
All these things happened to me too but only when S and Hunter crossed paths (since they can't just phase through each other): if they cross paths before S goes between terminal 2/5 and the room/fax, S decides to check terminal 2/5 instead to clear the path for Hunter, and if they cross paths while S is already halfway through the corridor, he decides to enter the room (or the fax), again, to clear the path for Hunter. If they cross paths while S is almost done crossing the corridor, then S might decide to just cross the entire corridor backwards and then check terminal 2/5 for some reason, or Hunter might decide to wait for S to finish crossing (probably depends on the exact frame they cross paths??? idk)
However in your screenshots it doesn't seem like S and Hunter are crossing paths at all so that's weird
My feelings in a nutshell
-H------------<| @xAmazing game!
I just downloaded NOISE1 as part of the racial justice bundle. I love how the game looks. What game engine did you use (if you don't mind telling), or did you make your own for this game?
i wrote a custom engine for the game in C#/.NET Core
i looooooooooooooved this game! i got it as part of the racial justice bundle, but i think it would be well worth the 10 bucks too. who knew TYPING could be so stressful and so rewarding, all at once?
I caused a bug: the X saw the S and @ at the same time. It went for the S and I couldn't direct @ any more, who ran to a corner after getting scared from the X, who for some reason stopped being able to see @. I had to hit Esc to restart manually (and I also never figured out how to get it to go for the S and had to skip this one, lol): https://imgur.com/a/66syeHm
Hello. I think your game is really cool. But I keep having a crash right after I do the second scan in the first level:
Fatal error. System.AccessViolationException: Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt.
at Gaia.OpenGL.GL.DrawElements(Gaia.OpenGL.PrimitiveType, Int32, Gaia.OpenGL.IndexType, IntPtr)
at Gaia.OpenGL.GraphicsGL.Draw(Gaia.Engine.Texture, Gaia.Engine.Shader, Gaia.Engine.Mesh, Gaia.Engine.PrimitiveType, Gaia.Engine.BlendMode, Gaia.Engine.RectangleI ByRef)
at Gaia.Engine.Graphics.Flush()
at Gaia.Engine.Graphics.End()
at Gaia.Engine.App.Run(System.String, System.String, System.String, Int32, Int32)
at Terminal.Game.Run()
at Terminal.Win.Program.Main(System.String[])
Is there a fix or workaround?
huh, this is the first i’ve seen of this. i can’t address the issue right now, i’m currently crunching to finish up another project.
sorry about that, i wish i could get you a quick fix but atm i have no idea why that would happen.
the only thing i can think of is if you have other software running that is poking at graphics memory, like recording software or another game.
Amazing game, couldn't recommend more. Just wish there'd be some small amount of sound.
spoilers for the game in the comment!
this game was sooo good <3 i was immediately interested when i read the description and the plot really held up to what i expected.
i was hooked from the beginning :)
the mechanics are super great and i thought the game's difficulty progressed in a nice way. never felt impossible to do but was still challenging! the last few levels were so difficult, the ones after the CAMO command was introduced omg @.@
i actually cried (real tears) during the "epilogue" when you play @ and X a little song and the command...is Noise 1 :'-) i totally didn't expect that name drop
all together, i loved the game! thank you for making it!
This game absolutely rules! I've had a similar idea knocking around in my head for years, and could never work out how to make it into an actual game, but this is such an elegant mechanic - imo the best hacking game I've ever played. Wonderfully tense, while not punishing my frequent mistakes too harshly. The ending left me with a tear in my eye and a grin on my face. I'd love to see this idea developed further, it has so much potential.
awesome, really glad you liked it! yeah i'd had this game written out for 5 or 6 years and only finally gotten around to putting it to code.
thanks for playing!
I really really liked this game and the characters!! Who knew Unicode characters could make me feel such an array of emotions
Absolutely fantastic experience. Everything was so well balanced, so intriguing and so exciting! Thank you for this wonderful game <3
Absolutely fantastic. I enjoyed the unique control scheme, and it never felt like it was getting old (although I can see how a slow typer could get very frustrated).
The story was cute and well-executed. I was really invested the whole way through. I especially liked some of the smaller details, like how a character later in the story destroys noisy terminals instead of just turning them off. It’s a small thing, but I thought it was really neat.
Ran nicely under wine, which is great.
I did run into one bug: if you manage the doors too well in the last level (where you’re shooting all the guards), the guards can form little traffic jams, and the guards don’t start moving again after the doors open. I had to restart the level in order to kill all of them and progress.
What an excellent, tense, dramatic experience! After each of those later levels, I kept hoping there would be no more, my nerves were so shot! A couple of times I even found myself yelling "GO!!" at the tiny @. Very well done, enjoyed every minute, and the length felt perfect. Now to let my poor shaking hands recover.
Also runs great under wine on linux.
Truly a beautiful experience.
The concept, the plot, the feelings I had just by seeing some ascii characters move and flicker is something unique.
With just an "@" and an "x" you made me feel sad, angry, relieved, glad. Even with no music at all.
You've conveyed all this with just "some" text. You've got the spark. Keep it up.
11/10 would like to see more.
100% recommended.
loved it! NEED to know more of the story
I love this game. The mechanicks, the plot the design. Everything about it. Best game One of the best games I've played. Good job.
This game has NO BUSINESS being as good as it is. I almost cried like twice over a little flickering @ and X.
im a sucker for non-straight romance <3 (i hate heteros)
aww thanks! glad you enjoyed it : D
I got a little ways into this game on my stream, and enjoyed every second. Very much looking forward to finishing this game up, fantastic aesthetics, well-thought mechanics enabling that aesthetic. Overall, a fantastic game! Glad to see you're considering adding music or sound, that'd address the only shortcoming I've spotted so far! Even just some ascii-bell like beeps on successful actions would be fantastic.
thanks for playing! yeah you should be able to finish it in a few hours.
This was an absolutely amazing experience.
The plot moved me to tears.
The title drop at the end made my heart melt.
I'm glad I played this :)
aww that's great to hear! : )
I'm really surprised with the quality and the uniqueness of this game. Thank you for this amazing game, dev.
glad you enjoyed it, thanks!
What a cute idea! This entry would do well with some sound effects and background music :)
i agree! hopefully after my main project is done i can come back to this and maybe add some music and sound to it :) i think it’d add a lot.
i love this so much, i'm so happy it got included in the bundle and that i got to play it! also always thrilling to see characters go by they/them pronouns, cheers for that also :) :)
thank you! glad you enjoyed it :)
can you make this a roguelike with procedurally generated levels?
i'm busy finishing ikenfell.com right now, but that'd be pretty cool
The game just closes after finishing second level, and if I start it back again and press L (to load) it closes again.
Any ideas what might be the problem?
(happens both in fulscreen and in window)
EDIT: This might be related to the problem that was mentioned earlier, since I have my language settings set to Polish (well, the system is in english, but the "format" settings are polish), which uses comma as decimal separator, but I thought that was fixed already.
EDIT2: Can confirm that changing the separator fixed it. So I guess that patch didn't fix it on the game side.
I probably implemented the patch incorrectly. I just uploaded VER. 1.005, which hopefully fixes this, if you want to download the latest version and give it a try. When you run the game, it should say v0.005 on the title screen.
Seems to work now. Thanks!
aww yes!! glad to hear
this game was incredible from start to finish, and I loved every moment of it!
wow, thank you! glad you enjoyed it :)
Any way for a linux port? this game looks interesting :)
It works flawlessly under WINE.
yes, unfortunately that's the only option at the moment. i've had offers to help port it to linux, which I will probably accept later, but i am currently finishing another game and don't have the time to do one myself.
There’s one problem under WINE actually. When switching to a different window out of fullscreen mode, the game stops rendering anything when you switch back to the window. The solution is to switch to windowed mode.
oh cool thanks for the heads up. if i spot anybody else having that problem i’ll let them know your temp solution. thanks for posting it here!
Hi,
The bug with locales using commas as floating point separators is still not fixed (the one that crashes the game when it loads guards in some levels). I've managed to fix it by replacing all dot separated floats in level JSONs with comma separated ones. My advice on how to fix this permanently is to use Convert.ToSingle(STRING, System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture) instead of Convert.ToSingle(STRING) while still using dot separated float values in JSONs.
BTW very enjoyable game.
Cheers
I've just uploaded a build (Ver 1.005) which hopefully fixes this. If you haven't completed it yet and would like to give the new build a try, feel welcome.
Also, thanks!
i didnt realize reviews arent public, so i am putting this here too in case anyone looking at this page is curious about noise1. play this game!! you will be glad you did!! but you have to type fast!!
my review:
noise1 is an absolutely incredible game!! it took me about 2.5 hours to finish and i loved every moment. youve gotta think on your feet my heart was POUNDING. story even made me tear up a bit, it was very tender and sweet. plus everyone uses they/them. thembo rights. but for real, wow, i am stunned and im recommending this to all of my friends. im so glad i found noise1, i really loved it to bits, like i seriously cannot properly express just how much i loved this game. im so glad this was in the bundle, as its an experience i would have probably missed out on otherwise. thank you for this game, what a privilege it was to play!!
thank you so much for the super kind review <3
i'm super glad the game evoked such strong emotions for you. also, thanks for playing this in a bundle with over a thousand other games hahaha
I dare say "It's a master piece!"
Never thought an ascii game could be tense enough to get my heart pounding!
Loved that it really does make you feel like a hacker and how realistic it actually is!
I'm definitely playing this again once I've forgotten how to solve the puzzles!!!
thank's so much! i'm glad you liked it. even i forgot how to solve some of the puzzles, and i only released it a few months ago lol
incredible game! a clear concept executed carefully. I love nethack and have often wished for a more 'cinematic' type of game in ascii. great job
thanks you! glad you liked it
Thank you for letting me save these two wonderful thembos from their dumb tankie ex-friend. Great game.
thank you for saving my BBs
I skipped it. Now I can't skip back.
Also the engine room resets the level after dies. Is that the intended ending?
spoilers:
that wasn't the ending. You were supposed to tell him to stop instead of go until he realises there's another way
Oh hey, I was wondering what would have happened if I’d said
GO. ThanksThe level before the engine.
I was found by the thing but it ate S and the game was softlocked (I was froze to the right of C and X continues to move). Race condition bug?
I couldn't beat that level because of that. Or maybe I'm solving it wrong.
YES. Reminds me of ZZT World or something like that. But better.
The story seems like FRANXX so far.
that's pretty high praise, thank you!
i got this in the bundle and it's the first game i played :D i love the aesthetic and the puzzle-solving!! it's so good. thank u for making such a fun game!!
aw, thanks for playing! awesome that it was the first you picked out haha. i hope you're enjoying the other games in the bundle as well.
hi! I recently bought this game in the big bundle and i'm really enjoying it! however, one of the levels seems to not be loading correctly, as in, it's just the little @ sign waiting in a room and it won't accept commands (it's during the quarantine part). is this intentional, like, does the player have to guess some hidden password, or is it a bug?
If I recall correctly, one of the levels starts out that way and you need to scan or ping to get @'s attention.
this is almost certainly the case, here. the game will occasionally not tell you what to do, or try to trick you up. it's me experimenting with agency and player expectations, but unfortunately, due to the nature and aesthetic of the game, it can sometimes seem like the game is broken lol
Got the game in the big bundle, the description and ASCII art caught my eye so it was one of the first I played. Truly loved it, amazed at what you were able to do with such a simple interface both gameplay and story-wise. Only had to skip 1 level in the laboratory that either involved very precise timing or I was unable to figure out correctly!
<3 thanks for making a good game.
oh wow thank you! yeah some of the levels are a bit tricky, and the difficulty curve is a bit wacky sometimes.
glad you enjoyed it!