NOISE1
A downloadable game for Windows and macOS
A hacker-typing stealth game where you guide a desperate stranger through a mysterious station performing dark experiments.
Headphones recommended.
This game is free to enjoy. You may tip if you like, but do not feel pressured to do so. Just have a good time and share with your friends if you liked it!
Epilepsy Warning
This game contains high contrast color and occasional flashing/blinking. It does not currently have options to disable this, but I hope to eventually add that feature.
A Note on Difficulty
This is a typing game that plays out in real-time. If you have difficulty typing fast, or have a disability that might cause you pain by doing so, this might not be good for you.
Some of the later levels are quite challenging, and if you are unable to complete them but still want to see the rest of the story, you can use the «SKIP» command at any time to skip the current level.
Changelog
Version 2.0 — August 25, 2024
- Added sound effects and ambience! Play with headphones on for a good time.
- Some dialogue tweaks and a couple of level design fixes.
- This version only available on Windows for now, sorry!
Version 1.002 — January 28, 2020
- Attempt to fix game running way too fast when VSYNC doesn't work on some computers.
Version 1.003 — January 29, 2020
- Level now auto-resets when player dies. Windows was doing a weird bug where the input would stick during the reset screen.
- Made a bunch of levels a lot easier in the latter half of the game.
- Added Mac build for Mac OS High Sierra 10.13
Version 1.004 — January 29, 2020
- Fix bug where keystrokes were being lost on some windows laptops
Version 1.005 — February 7, 2020
- Fix bug loading JSON files on systems that use decimal commas by default
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Version 2.0 - Now with Sound!66 days ago
Comments
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I downloaded some game that caught my attention due to its style, I thought that I would play it for 10 minutes and either delete it because puzzles are not my thing (I'm stupid) or the game would end very quickly (as often happens with games from itch.io), but in the end I spent about 2 hours of my life on a good stealth-puzzle and I won't even delete it after completing it.
!Spoilers!
Throughout the game, the mechanics were constantly being supplemented and changed, not letting you get bored with the puzzles, and the puzzle levels themselves were made perfectly (it's quite difficult to type a lot on the timed levels because I have clumsy hands:D). The plot, despite its banality, pleased with the logic of what the characters do (But the enemies without firearms made me laugh, but they don't need them to hack the character's system with just one look and disable our access). Towards the end, the game mechanics became even more interesting (I had to press commands even faster and more, my poor hands). And then the main villain came out, whose trajectory of movement simply turned into randomness, because of which sometimes I had to press commands like crazy to buy a little time, and the very end pleased me with the fact that the villain did not stand on ceremony and began to take away our abilities and at the same time the levels themselves began to adapt to these complications
WAIT, DID THEY ARE FLY TO MY ADDRESS? WHAT THE FU-
—CONNECTION WAS INTERRUPTED
—ATTEMPT TO RE-ESTABLISH CONNECTION
—ATTEMPT UNSUCCESSFUL
The teleportation technology is called the facsimile, fax for short. In my imagining of the technology, it would destroy you and transfer your dust to the endpoint, reconstructing you there, but faxes had to be connected by some sort of physical conduit. So they have teleportation technology, but it does not work across empty air or vacuum.
i sat down and thought of a game where you help someone infiltrate a location and stealth around the facility. i decided i need references and inspirations, so i tried to find games for it, only 2 days later did i remember itch exists, so i open this, put in the "hacking" (or hacker?) tag and this was the SECOND (first, if talking about free ones) games on the list. A GAME THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I HAD IN MIND
right down to the gameplay itself, this is so close to what i thought of gameplay wise and i can't even be mad that what i wanted to make has been done already, bc it's SO well done here. this is beautiful, the storytelling, the immersive gameplay, the difficulty (as someone who prides myself over my typing speed, this was very humbling) and the visuals too
only thing is it would've been nice if there was any audio at all, just some funky computer sounds when you do things but other than that this is such a nice experience and i'm so glad i played it. thanks a lot for this!!!
edit: i just checked and they made ikenfell too? thats the OTHER game i wanted to play like 2 days that was so close to my idea of what i wanted to make... crazy
Haha thanks for the kind words, that's pretty funny that you thought of such a similar idea. There are actually a very small handful of other games with similar mechanics, but NOISE1 is definitely the most lo-fi one I know of.
Yeah audio would've been neat, I agree.
Well I ended up adding Audio to the game haha https://chevyray.itch.io/noise1/devlog/787954/version-20-now-with-sound
It won't run.
It just keeps telling me:
Unhandled exception. System.Exception: Could not create GL context: The operation completed successfully.
at Gaia.SDL2.PlatformSDL.Init(String title, Int32 width, Int32 height)
at Gaia.Engine.App.Run(String orgID, String appID, String title, Int32 width, Int32 height)
at Terminal.Game.Run() at Terminal.Win.Program.Main(String[] args) Do you have any idea what this means?
Thanks in advance. :)
p.s: I'm on Windows 10 Pro ver.1709 with
Intel HD Graphics 3000 on an oldish laptop
Oh, sorry to hear this! It looks like it couldn’t establish contact with the graphics API. i am not sure why this would happen, something to do with the location or version of OpenGL api, or maybe some graphics card incompatibility…
I don’t have time or the equipment to fix this, unfortunately. I hope this isn’t too common, i haven’t seen it too much
That's what I was thinking because my graphics card is pretty old and can't support the newer versions of OpenGL. Thank you anyway. :)
hello! im not sure if u are still developing the game but after the end when I used the QUIT command CMD started opening continously the game, almost got bluescreen but I forced shut down my pc, im on windows
Oh wow that's horrible! i have no idea how that happened, but the game can't control CMD after it's closed so i'm wondering if this is a DotNet Core bug (the runtime the language was made in). Can you tell me what OS version of windows you are on? It should be in System Settings > About Your PC.
Played this game when I first got it in 2020, just replayed it today, and I am yet again wowed at the beauty this game is and creates! It is a fantastic story combined with fun and interesting and challenging game play. Both times I've played it I've imagined myself as a far off space captain helping @ through their escape because the story is just so immersive! 10/10 knocks it out of the park
i think i left a comment on here a few years back, but man i love this game
This game caught me very off guard with how good it was. I was scrolling through the typing game section and decided to give this a try since I liked the ASCII art and then sunk multiple hours into it. The precise yet rewarding gameplay was amazing, and I loved that it kept adding more and more mechanics as it went on. I've never really enjoyed stealth games, but this one was absolutely amazing. Genuinely impressive with a decent story to go along with it, would definitely recommend although it is very challenging.
Simply exquisite!
Stealth is my favorite game genre. And I think there's so few takes as fresh as this!
The "2nd person" perspective is on point for a reinterpretation of the usual "intel gathering > time it > execution" game loop. It seemed to aleviate the player of the ironic robotic precision that avatar bodies tend to assume on this context.
The fact that the basic terminal hacking gui actually leads to the ascii presentation is what seals the whole deal. Not only it solves the ever present need for clear information for communicating stealth challenge, but it also creates a mystique suited for the narrative presented; We get to care for the characters motivations, we get to know the place and opposition, while the minutia of any other art direction with higher fidelity is dispensed. It is distant but warm.
Hey sorry I didn’t see this until now. This is a really nice review, thank you. 2nd person is definitely sketchy ground for game designers, with good reason, so it was nice to be able to explore it in a small experimental project like this.
Bravo!
this game is amazing, it's the perfect mix of quirky interface, adrenaline inducing gameplay and a cute story. It has nice level design, difficulty increases at a perfect pace... I really enjoyed this a lot, thanks for making this game <3
It could really use a soundtrack tho, I played a minimal uptempo techno mix in the background it really helped bring the atmosphere to the next level
I run it on wine and it worked correctly (unless there actually is a soundtrack, in that case audio doesn't work on linux :P )
I can't get the game to run using wine on linux. Is there a specific version that I need?
0040:err:virtual:virtual_setup_exception stack overflow 1808 bytes in thread 0040 addr 0x7bc49485 stack 0x1208f0 (0x120000-0x121000-0x2a0000)
I love this game. It's the first game where I don't hate the people I'm supposed to protect :)
Cool game, it took 3 hours for me to finish (with some little breaks). Even if it's an ascii game, it's well built. Also very challenging and difficult, but I beat it anyways. Some commands work on end screen, idk if it's meant to work like that.
Great, but I do not know what to do when x asks for music in the escape pod. What do I do
noise command
My thoughts on this short-but-sweet game:
Love the thematic elements that used the ASCII display in unexpected ways -- the styling was great; despite everything rendered by mono-spaced characters (Dwarf Fortress, anybody?) everything always felt very fluid.
As for the gameplay, it always evolved without overstaying its welcome. New mechanics were seamlessly integrated without feeling like an afterthought and none felt needlessly tedious.
Some of the later levels were quite tough, not because of the planning involved behind the puzzles, but because the lasers led for some VERY short windows of opportunity. I have a very fast typing speed and even I had to retry a few times.
The worldbuilding is great and the ending left me craving for more about the scenario. The characters do feel like real personalities, although at times they seemed a bit hackneyed. But I feel like that's more of a subjective bias on my end.
I'm not sure if the concept would hold water if made into a full game. But for its current length: just perfect! Thank you for this experience!
I Have Very Fun
Thank You So Much.....
Incredible game! Came in not expecting too much, but ended up with some fun gameplay, challenge, and a nice little story.
Only issue I had was lack of sound, though I don't know if that was a bug or not.
amazing idea! love it!
10/10, clever gameplay idea, awesome graphics execution
also made me feel things
the game is cool but esc should be "delete all" and not leave, holding esc however
Amazing adventure, thank you for this! I don't know if it improved my typing speed but I sure have panicked more than I should in some sections
The version of Windows does not work for me, I thought it was for my PC, but I tried it on another and it did not work either, what can I do?
I'm loving this. Real quick, does the game have any sound?
its beautiful - only complaint is that it ends
I loved this game.
In terms of gameplay, it's more of a timing and typing game than a puzzle game, but it is really well made, and a lot of thought was put in renewing how we approach the levels. There are many twists that will recontextualize every elements of the level, for example quards being able to open doors, the X 'monster' being able to kill other guards or even Hunter which changes the game entirely thanks to RNG.
I really loved the story bits and other setpieces making me interract with the characters, making them more than just gameplay elements, which played a big part in setting the tone of the game. The story was fairly cliché, nothing surprised me, but I believe it was with intent, reinforcing the idea of getting back to the time where we started seeing on cinema hackers typing random shit on green on their big square laptops. And I still ended up carring about the story, and litterally 'playing along' thanks to the writing.
Also quick thanks for not having any weird characters anywhere to type. As someone on azerty keyboard, I sometimes have trouble with these kind of games made for qwerty.
Also another quick thanks for taking your time to work around how to integrate in-game explainations for why each command exists, and how you can interract with the characters, it really helped me with immersion.
I do not know how to conclude, as this comment is mostly just dumping why I think this game is amazing.
Please play it.
The game crashes very often in main menu and early gameplay
I really enjoyed this game, though I had absolutely zero audio the whole way through, was that normal or was my game bugged out?
I really really like the look of this game, but it keeps kicking me out at seemingly random times.
Is anybody else having this issue, or does anybody know what I can do to resolve it?
This game is AWESOME! Not enough well made stealth games! Love the graphics, gameplay makes me feel like a hacker from a 90's movie, and the story is excellent! Emotionally invested in an '@' and 'X'. The cutscene in the quarantine area is really well done! More people need to play this game!
this game is absolutely wonderful! so much good from such a simple concept, will be telling all my friends about it!
Incredible!
This is such a great idea for a game! The minimalist approach really let my imagination visualize everything. Thanks for including the ability to skip, I love the idea but I'm nowhere near fast enough to play this.
Very interesting so-far, this is going to be fun
um... why does the pathing restrict me from running straight to door F?
AMAZING game, really, just. Phenomenal.
Absolute banger. Genuinely furious more people have not played this
Thank you so much for submitting NOISE 1 to the itch.io bundle for racial justice and equality! I've been reviewing games for my indie gaming site from the bundle and stumbled across NOISE 1. I loved the way you made this game!
Full Review is here in case you're interested: https://knavegaming.com/noise-1-review/
Your game is amazing
I'm from Perú, thank you for this amazing experience for real.
I really like the game, but I put it down for a few days and can't remember the command to toggle the lasers. Can somebody remind me? An in-game HELP or command list would also be greatly appreciated :)
I really felt for x and @