Top-Down Terror: Noct, Teleglitch And Darkwood

Noct [official site] is a top-down horror game in the tradition of Teleglitch and Alien Breed. It's grainy, thermal-imaged satellite-view is the antithesis of a sedate bird's-eye-view, stripping away tactical oversight and contemplation. Noct is one of several recent games to create a tense and claustrophobic experience by twisting a typically expansive, liberating and distancing viewpoint. We covered it when it arrived on Kickstarter and since then it's been picked up by Devolver and is preparing to enter Early Access. It looks splendid, as you can see for yourself in the embedded footage and teaser trailer below.

That's streamer internisus playing an early prototype a few months ago, with no commentary. If you attended Rezzed, PAX East or SXSW you might have spotted - or even played - a recent build. Developers c3sk decided to run the game in coop mode at the Devolver booths.

Noct was demoed with forced coop at PAX East, the reason I used forced coop for the build was so that total strangers could try the demo together, even though they had never gamed together before. This of course proved to be an even more exciting/frightening experience for some compared to the Single Player game option.

The game features persistent worlds and you'll be able to join servers with other players or host a world all of your own for solo play.

While Teleglitch comparisons do spring to mind, I'm also obliged to mention Darkwood [official site]. Still in Early Access, it's shaping up to be one of the year's boldest horror games. From a similar perspective, it delivers everything from slow-burn dread to screaming terror and the development team are responding to feedback in a commendable fashion. You can read my thoughts on an early version right now but chances are I'll be revisiting soon. Or prodding someone else toward the dark spaces between the trees.