Ultra-Indie Daily Dose: NOD Is An Escape Room Of Existential Pain
Hello, you glorious gluttons for all things indie horror! Are you just starving for the newest of the new, the most unknownest of the unknown? If so, you’ve come to the right place. Welcome to the Ultra-Indie Daily Dose! In this series, we’re going to pick a new game every day from an indie horror creator you’ve probably never heard of. No million-dollar budgets or factory productions. This is the space for the little guy with not but a developer toolkit and a dream. So if you’re down to roll the dice on something different, then stick around and check it out!
Welcome back for another spooky Daily Dose! Today’s game is brought to us by developer IllusiveCenter. NOD: A Meditation on the Existential Pain of Becoming, or just NOD, is a game idea originally conceived of for Ludum Dare 47. IC came back to finish the job, and in the process, created a strange game as fascinating as it is frustrating.
NOD is a game about escaping a labyrinth. One that appears to be a single room. You’ve got a map with probably 30 or 40 directions—up, up, down, down, left, right, etc—and you’ve to do it in the exact order or teleported to the beginning and have to start again. And you may not always be in a room where you can check on your progress safely.
There’s more to NOD than simply escaping an escape room. There are a ton of little details that make this title so charming. Along with the skeletal main character are a number of other little skeletons who have long since abandoned the idea of escape. They have a lot of good stuff to say, and even items to give you. Items that are purely for looks. But still.
You can play NOD on itch.io by clicking here.
