NOISE 1 Review – Knave Gaming

Grade: A

Sci-fi adventure as a white knight hacker supporting a jail break via terminal commands.

NOISE 1 caught my interest immediately. Right out of the gate, all you see is command-line text spinning across a terminal. You are a bystander scanning web traffic and you get an SOS.

Opening of the story reels you in right out of the gate

You are unable to type in full sentences, and they warn you to stick to simple commands. Anything more complex, and your intrusion into the network will be detected.

As our prisoner wends their way through the levels, you type simple commands into the chat and support the breakout. You are the guy in the chair, adapting and communicating furiously to support the hero!

Briliantly molding game mechanics

As you go through the game, the mechanics shift in how you are supporting this jailbreak. The map is represented in a simple text-based grid layout on the left where you can see the prisoner, “@”, in relation to their surroucings.

At the start of the game, what you can do is very simple. You can OPEN and CLOSE doors. You can project NOISE from the terminals to create a distraction for the guards. Third, you can lock in the guards behind a door after distracting them. Fourth, you can turn ON and OFF tripwires. Finally, you can SCAN your surroundings.

The mechanics continually shift every couple of levels to add in or evolve a new layer and challenge (GO/STOP, SHOOT, CAMO) and it’s all wonderfully ingenious. I was able to work my way through each level successfully, but if you get stuck, there’s a SKIP option to push past one of the harder levels and just focus on the story.

I’m helping the prisoner avoid a security guard “S”, who’s stalking around the corridors.

An engaging story

NOISE 1 fully captured me with the story. The text was engaging, and you felt absolute urgency in the situation. You had this ONE shot to help “@” find his love “X” and get them out of this laboratory. “X,” though, has had some experimentation done on them, which…well, I’ll leave the rest I’ll leave in spoiler tags!

NOISE 1 Story Spoilers

“@” finds “X,” but “X” has been turned into a monstrosity murderer. Now, instead of sneaking around, you are running full tilt away from “X.” You are distracting “X” by opening doors and putting guards in its path. (Red squiggles represent the blood on the ground on screen, which is both adorable and creepy!)

“@” decides to destroy the entire station along with himself and “X” to protect the outside world, but we tell him to STOP on the suicide run, and instead of destroying “X,” we can contain their power and help them regain consciousness. Not before “X” grievously wounds “@,” though, and our main character loses consciousness.

Now, the boss appears and hacks our communications line! “H,” for Hunter, stalks us, and instead of the simple rhythmic motions of the guards, “H” moves in herky-jerky movements in random directions. This makes the planning much harder and the adaptations much quicker in the levels.

Eventually, you find your way to the docking bay area and commandeer a ship to escape. “H” follows, and you get a final boss fight show-down with the enemy.

At the last moment, “X” asks for your location so that she can bring “@” and heal them. You ask yourself, is “X” really safe? Or, is the consciousness they gained only temporary before they become a rampaging monster again? The game ends with “X” and “@” docking at your station and leaves you on that cliffhanger.

Overall Impression

I went into NOISE 1 with no preconceived notions and no idea what kind of game I was playing. On the other side of the game, I came out with a memorable gaming experience and playing through an amazing sci-fi short story.

I think the most impressive part of NOISE 1 is the story’s depth with the limited graphics. The limited graphics encouraged the player to build their own mental picture, which sold the narrative. The best comparison I can make to give someone a sense of the game is that scene from The Matrix where Neo gets a phone call and gets very specific instructions.

This scene captures the vibe from NOISE 1!

If you can’t already tell by now, I loved NOISE 1. What a hidden gem of a game!

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