Sleepless Night (visual novel)
Sleepless Night is a free horror visual novel developed and published by Marcel Weyers, an author and translator. The game was released on March 31, 2012 for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. It was released in English and German and was later translated into Spanish. On November 22, 2012 the game was released on Softpedia.
Gameplay
The player chooses a name for the protagonist at the beginning of the game. He then makes decisions at certain points in the story to influence the outcome of the game. It is possible to see one out of ten possible endings, depending on the choices. The game includes some point-and-click elements.
Plot
You go with your classmate Haru to your house to work on a school project. When he decides to stay the night and watch horror movies you fall asleep and Haru disappears in this night. You have to find a way out of your house. The course of the game changes now based on the decisions by the player. However, there is one "true ending" and several bad endings where the protagonist dies in cruel ways.
Development
The game was developed with Ren'Py, an engine for visual novels. The story and characters were developed by Marcel Weyers. He used the character Haru from his German book series Shadow-Trilogy. The music was created by Marcel Weyers as well. The character design of Haru was done by NoodleBrains while the backgrounds were created by Auro-Cyanide and Mei Miyamura. The game was created in less than a month. A trailer was released on March 31, 2012.
Soundtrack
The official soundtrack was released on December 1, 2012, and includes five tracks at a total length of 5:24 minutes. The soundtrack was nominated for the "Best Original Score" in 2012 by VNs Now!. However, the visual novel Cinders by MoaCube won the award.
- Shadow [1:01]
- Quiet [0:44]
- Mystery [1:08]
- Dead [1:41]
- Horror [0:47]
Sequel
On December 5, 2012 a sequel with the title Sleepless Night 2: Ladies' Night(mare) was announced. The second game features three new characters from the book series Shadow-Trilogy; Midori, Natsumi, and Shizuka and offers new locations and gameplay elements. Sleepless Night 2 is set to be released in 2013.