Nocturne In Yellow is a Freeware First-Person Shooter created for the 2015 Indie Game Making Contest. In it, the player assumes the role of Vikenti, a man who finds himself on a strange island full of horrifying monsters. Vikenti soon discovers that the strange creatures are the work of the island's enigmatic master binding the souls of the dead to his thrall and decides to press further, determined to put an end to the horror.
The game can be downloaded here
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Due to the extremely short length of the game, all spoilers are unmarked.
Not to be confused with Nocturne (1999).
Nocturne In Yellow contains examples of the following tropes:
- Alien Geometries: The final level has a lot of these, though they may be one of the most normal things about it.
- Badass Bookworm: Despite his skill with weaponry and willingness to go toe-to-toe with undead horrors and an Eldritch Abomination, Vikenti is just a librarian, not a warrior.
- Bottomless Magazines: Vikenti apparently has an infinite supply of arrows for his bow, but this is Averted for the bolt-action rifle, where the player does actually need to collect bullets.
- Bow and Sword in Accord: Or bow and spear, in this case, though the player isn't likely to be using the spear very often since they have an infinite supply of arrows.
- Breath Weapon: Zmey Gorynych's three heads attack by spewing fire at the player, as is to be expected from a dragon.
- Dark World: The fifth level, the Anti-Cathedral, requires the player to go through portals that lead to a dark, ruined reflection of the Cathedral in order to find keys needed to progress.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Downplayed. The final boss has Vikenti defeat an unknowable Soul Eating Eldritch Abomination, though Morena says he probably didn't defeat it so much as inconvenience it enough that it left, "like the buzzing of an insect causing one to recoil."
- Don't Fear the Reaper: While Morena isn't particularly friendly and is fought as a boss, she repeatedly warns Vikenti to turn back and seems genuinely reluctant to kill him, letting him off with a warning in her first boss fight. Even when she is actually trying to kill him, it's mostly just to spare him the fate that would befall him if he was defeated by the island's master.
- Eldritch Abomination: The master of the island. Precisely what it is is never made clear (though there are a few allusions to the King in Yellow), but it's something so unimaginably alien and powerful that even Death is afraid of it and it is said to be constantly devouring hundreds of souls without even thinking about it.
- Eldritch Location:
- Level 6: Clock Tower. It consists of a large number of floating (and sometimes invisible) platforms hovering inside what appears to be an endless mass of crimson clouds.
- The seventh and final level, Heart of Darkness, is much weirder, including endless voids, featureless white rooms, seemingly random teleportation, textures that look like television static, Alien Geometries, floating water, and sometimes even seemingly broken level geometry, skyboxes, and textures.
- Flechette Storm: Several of Morena's attacks involve her summoning and launching a flurry of flying red daggers.
- Flunky Boss: Koschei and Morena both summon weak enemies during their respective boss battles, which have a very high chance of dropping mana, health, bullets, and salt crystals when killed. The Final Boss can only damage the player through summons, and does not attack directly.
- Flying Face: Zmey Gorynych's three flying heads, as well as a standard enemy type that appears to be the decapitated head of a woman.
- The Goomba: Zombies. They're slow, only have a melee attack, and have very little health.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Vikenti has blonde hair and is fighting to free the island from the influence of its dark master despite his fear, simply because it is the right thing to do.
- Hell Is That Noise: In-Universe. Morena says that the souls devoured by the island's master make an utterly horrifying noise, which she hears constantly for as long as it is in the world.
- Homing Projectile: A few of the enemies and bosses have these. The player can use the Pallid Mask to get in on the fun as well.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: The first fight with Morena. Thankfully she spares Vikenti at the end, leaving him with a sliver of health and a warning to turn back.
- Horrifying the Horror: The master of the island is so terrifying and mighty that Death herself is afraid of it.
- House Fey: The boss of the third level is a Slavic house fey called a Domovoi. He mentions working for and protecting the former residents of the house he is in before it was taken over by the master of the island.
- Humanoid Abomination: The boss of the fifth level is apparently some kind of vision or avatar of the island's master. It appears to be a humanoid figure wearing a hooded yellow robe that teleports around the room and messes with your vision when it gets too close.
- I Have Many Names: Done by Morena when she reveals her true identity.I have been Freyja. I have been Thanatos. I have been Maman Brigitte. I have been Anubis, Izanami-No-Mikoto, Erishkigal, Hades, Santa Muerte, Azrael, Daena, Ankou, and more.
- Multiple Head Case: Zmey Gorynych has three disembodied heads that fly around the arena, breathing fire at you.
- My Master, Right or Wrong: Domovoi doesn't like the master of the island, but he is a House Fey who serves whoever owns the house he resides in.
- Mythology Gag: Zmey Gorynych's head bear a very close resemblance to DOOM's Cacodemons, a nod to the fact that the game uses a modified version of DOOM's engine.
- Named Weapons: Vikenti's bow is named Vechnost and his spear is Koroleva.
- No "Arc" in "Archery": Vikenti's arrows are completely unaffected by gravity, allowing the player to potentially snipe off enemies from very far away.
- No Name Given: The island's master is only ever referred to as such or as some variation on "it" or "that thing". There are a few hints that it might connected to The King in Yellow though.
- One-Hit Polykill: The White Coal artifact allows your arrows to burn through enemies. The game is gracious enough to make it so the first group of enemies encountered after this artifact is obtained are all in a nice orderly line.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Zmey Gorynych is the boss of the third level. It's a wingless reptilian dragon with three disembodied flying heads that look like Cacodemons.
- Our Liches Are Different: One of the bosses is Koschei the Deathless of Slavic folklore, who is probably the Ur-Example. His nature as a lich is only alluded to in the game though.
- Playing with Fire: Domovoi, the boss of the third level, is a House Fey that lives inside a fireplace and attacks by shooting spreading flames towards you.
- Power Floats: Koschei and Morena both hover around the battlefield during their boss fights.
- Public Domain Character: Koschei the Deathless of Slavic folklore serves as the boss of the fourth level.
- Salt Solution: Your supply of grenades is restored by picking up chunks of salt crystal, implying that the grenades use salt in some way to harm the creatures you fight.
- Skull for a Head: Koschei has an ox's skull atop his shoulders, though whether that's his actual head or just a mask is unclear.
- Soul Eating: The island's master is doing this constantly on an unconscious level, though Morena says it's feeding off basically everything else too.
- White Mask of Doom: The artifact that is acquired by defeating the fifth level's boss is the Pallid Mask, which Vikenti is seen wearing in cutscenes after that point.
- Wolf Pack Boss: While Zmey Gorynych does attack you by itself, its three floating heads and body all have separate healthbars. As each one is killed, the rest begin to attack more ferociously.
