★NIGHTMARE CASTLE★

Welcome to Nightmare Castle...

...where the skeleton monsters are all bad to the bone! Date, Hate or Escape - which route will you choose?

A narrative-rich hybrid dating simulation RPG set in the Undertale Multiverse featuring the Bad Sanses, with a supporting cast from many AUs!

THE ADVENTURE BEGINS!

A walk in the woods one evening leads you to a mysterious portal. Entering it will change your fate forever!

EMPTY SOUL...?

You learn something strange about yourself - that you SOUL Trait has faded to nothing, leaving it hollow, empty…but what could this mysterious affliction mean?

TOUGH CROWD!

You’ll meet many colorful characters along the way while exploring the Multiverse, but five of them are dateable! Each has his own unique personality with virtues and flaws, strengths and weaknesses. Some may need a gentle hand, while others won’t tolerate your pity. It’s up to you to discover how to get into your datemate’s good graces!

But be warned: befriending these broken souls isn’t always easy. The Nightmare Crew isn’t exactly a welcoming bunch. You’ll have to prove yourself to them somehow…

NIGHTMARE

"Tch - idiots, all of you…"

Not only is Nightmare the self-proclaimed King of Darkness, he’s also the God of Negativity and future Emperor of the Multiverse - that is, if he can destroy his fool of a brother, Dream, and those obnoxious starry-eyed allies of his. He’s cherry-picked some of the most powerful monsters in existence to serve under him, referred to simply as the Crew, in an effort to bring those ambitions to fruition and become ruler of all.

KILLER

"wanna have a *fun* time?"

Though he may be a skeleton, Killer can definitely be the life of the party! But don’t be fooled by his mischievous antics and smiling façade - Killer is Nightmare’s right hand assassin and commander of the Crew for a very good reason. He’s also the only one who gets away with calling Nightmare “boss” instead of your majesty or sire.

CROSS

"sometimes sacrifices must be made in order to gain true freedom."

A former soldier from a destroyed timeline who once worked with Nightmare, Cross has a complicated past that has led him to come full circle. He sees his current contract with Nightmare as a necessary evil, a means to an end…though his goals are only known to a very select few.

DUST

"...i’d rather be alone..."

Only Killer and Nightmare seem to know anything about this quiet, brooding, temperamental loner who only recently arrived at the castle. You’ll typically find him in the library, poring over some old sci-fi novel with a distant look in his irises. Though he isn’t usually one for conversation, Dust does seem to talk to himself quite a lot…

BUTCHER

"heya sweetmeats, punkin, tidbit, lambchop, cupcake, treat..."

Butcher and his younger brother Pyre have been through hell and back, and sadly, it shows. These days, as long as there’s a roof over their heads and food on the table, Butch is willing to serve the hand that feeds Py - even if that means doing Nightmare’s dirty work. Still, it’s better than still being trapped in the ruined, horrific world they came from, at least…

SECRET ROUTES...?

Maybe there are, maybe there aren’t…otherwise they wouldn’t be secret, now would they?

…

Okay fine, who are we kidding?! Of course there are secret routes! See if you can find them all!

BUT WAIT - IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT DATING!

Nightmare Castle isn’t your average Dating Sim - it’s a hybrid RPG, after all! That means there’s lots to do in order to achieve your goals!

COOKING, SHOPPING, FIGHTING - OH MY!

Whip up a special treat full of love or a restorative dish to cure what ails you with your sensational virtual senpai, Chef Mettaton! Just because he lost his body doesn’t mean he can’t live vicariously through yours in the kitchen! The fantastic MTT himself will make you into a gourmet guru in no time, guaranteed!

But how to get all of those special ingredients? Well spend that G, high roller! Fill up your inventory with hundreds of unique items from distant worlds to help you on your quest!

However, life at Nightmare Castle isn't always fun and games. When there’s several strong personalities all living under one roof, conflict is bound to happen! Defend yourself or help keep the peace with the strategic turn-based battle system! Tread lightly, or you might not last long...

And hey, we know you’d never want to cause trouble on purpose…right, partner?

SOUL Traits

Actions have consequences that can affect those around us, and ourselves, in ways we may not fully realize. Decisions made, words spoken, items consumed…your path in life can alter nature of your very SOUL.

As you experience Nightmare Castle, you may find your empty SOUL will start to take on one of the seven attributes that reflects your actions:

Never give up, never surrender.

Do what’s right above all else.

Your patience will be rewarded.

If you can be anything, be kind.

Truth in action, justice prevails.

Strength to take on challenges.

Change the world to achieve your goals.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Are you a hopeless completionist like the creator of this game? Well lucky for you, there’s more than just tragic backstories to unlock! Discover the hidden secrets of Nightmare Castle and get some shiny virtual feel-good rewards for all of those hours spent overachieving!

THE END…?

There are many ways to end your adventure - some good, some bad…but what’s the point of it all? Why does leaving Nightmare Castle with just one ending feel not quite right?

DEMO v1 COMING TO WINDOWS/PC SOON!

★ ABOUT THE GAME ★

Thank you for being a fan! It sure will. The battle system is one of the indispensable aspects of the game - some major plot points even rely on battles that must be completed in specific ways to advance the route, and a battle outcome may lead to particular events or endings. However, the majority of gameplay is in VN format, where it's dialogue intensive, story driven interactions with characters.

The game will be 100% free. I'm paying for development costs completely out of my own pocket, and there won't even be donations accepted.

We're hard at work finishing up the item art for NMC. This is the Bowie Knife, a special use rare item. @amaryllis-ca-glisse doing great work as always!

Especially love the texture on the blade, very nicely done. The details are amazing.

I kinda lied. This is another smaller update, because...

*cries silently*

Ahem - for some reason ClipStudio Paint did not like my old GPU. I fought and struggled with it for a year - sometimes it would display the correct resolution of an image, sometimes not. Brushes were just straight up broken most of the time. Exporting to any format was a nightmare as it wouldn't preserve quality. And forget anti-aliasing. It was either jagged edges or blur.

So when I managed to finally get everything colored and put into Live2D Cubism, it was a fucking mess, to say the least. Small mistakes or lack of quality is amplified a hundredfold in Live2D, and needless to say, with poor quality, incorrectly rendered files coming out of CSP when animated looked like hot flaming pixel garbage.

You can see the difference in the screenshot above, where I've opened the sketch image for Nightmare's sprite redesign from CSP into Medibang. All that shitty blurry worthless detritus is CSP, and the smoother lines drawn over are in Medibang. These two files are the same canvas size (4500 x 7200) and resolution (350ppi). The difference is ridiculous. I have a new GPU in a completely new PC now, and CSP works correctly more often but not always with my new hardware. So I'm abandoning it completely. Which sucks, because I did upgrade to 2.0 EX and paid for it. Waste of money and time.

So what does this mean for the game? It means I have to do all of the sprites over. Again. Which is a huge setback and so, so many hours of work. Each of these sprites, while I only have to do the art once for each, is extremely tedious with a zillion layers per sprite with all the little details and articulated pieces separated out. And then I have to go back into Live2D and re-map these new sprites to the animations, test everything, implement them in Unity, replacing all of those old sprites, reworking the code, testing, testing, and testing some more.

So it's gonna be a minute before I can do that big juicy update I wanna do to show off all the redesigned elements of the game. BUT IT'S GOIN', Y'ALL. Slowly but surely. We're getting it done.

also yes he no longer has the stupid jacket his emo phase is over he grew up and put on an old man sweater you're welcome

Small update before bigger update:

So if y’all happen to glance at the Internet once in a while you might’ve noticed the explosion in AI tech over the past year-ish, especially the development done with LLMs (large language models) and related services such as ChatGPT.

As a software engineer and computer scientist who’s been working on web services, applications and yeah, those infamous online chatbots of yesteryear like Alicebot-type pre-programmed chatterbots for decades, I (Novella) jumped on the chance to get into the development of this tech early. The field is moving so fast that it’s quite literally developing by the hour, and it’s been an experience unlike anything I’ve previously worked on, to say the least. And the past year of craziness in this rapidly emerging field is just the beginning.

So while I’m indeed working on these AI development projects until the early hours some nights, I’m still chipping away at Nightmare Castle when I can. I know, it’s been forever, but like I’ve said before - no matter how long it takes or whatever slows things down, I’m not willing to give this project up. It’s changed a bit over that time, but I believe it’s definitely change for the better, and if I hadn’t ended up being delayed a few times along the road I don’t think I would’ve been nearly as satisfied with the result. I’m still very much excited and passionate about this little pet project and I’m looking forward to sharing more of it soon.

In the meantime, start preparing to meet your new AI overlords 😈

Just wanted to share some of the amazing item art our artists have done over the last year. The game has 100+ items so far, which will likely increase with subsequent chapter releases and further development.

First up: items by @amaryllis-ca-glisse

Crab Apple

Alignment: Integrity

This shiny blue fruit looks like a crab and tastes like one, too.  Much better cooked than raw.  Restores 5% HP.

Sea Tea

Alignment: Patience

Made from magical glowing marsh water. Slightly salty in taste.  Restores 10% HP.

Raven Quill

A fancy writing quill made of a raven’s pin feather and a gold nib. Could make a fine gift for someone who writes often.

And now some items by @indydrawsstuff

Hot Cat

Alignment: Neutral

Made from a plant called water sausages. Tastes like a mix between hot dogs and mushrooms, looks like a longcat.  Restores 20% HP.

Firewhiskey

Alignment: Bravery + Determination

High-proof distilled alcohol infused with fire magic. Burns going down. Restores -5% HP.

Cup Lifenoodles

Alignment: Justice + Perseverance

Cup Noodles from another world.  The rarest flavor of instant ramen in a cup, highly sought after by instant noodle connoisseurs.  Restores 85% HP and cures any status effect.

Just a small sample for now - don't wanna give too much away ~✨but I am constantly impressed how talented our team is in so many ways.

Hope everyone had a good holiday season✨

Just wanted to do a mini post and let y’all know what’s coming in the next few weeks. Progress is slow but still going. Here’s what you’ve got to look forward to:

- A showcase of the amazing work our artists have done so far over the last year

- The complete redesign of all character sprites, including animations, with an updated master post

- A ~15 minute playthrough video of the alpha demo to demonstrate game functionality and tease the story of the Chapter 1 demo

There will also be announcements regarding positions/work for the game, including VA and sound editing, stay tuned for those. Until then, stay thirsty.

Thanks, we're doing better. Still got a hole in the roof but things are moving along. Hope y'all are doing alright after the storm too.

Welp, considering that various AUs have different flows of spacetime, it's pretty difficult to pinpoint an exact date during which the story of Nightmare Castle unfolds. However if we're going off of the universal non-time standard of the Anti-Void, which has matter but not time (the Void has time, yet not matter, in contrast) we can guesstimate and say it occurs around Multiverse Creation Cycle #15. A Creation Cycle is loosely based on the amount of "time" it takes for one hundred AUs to be created and destroyed. Also, to answer the question you meant to ask -

An update…

…but definitely not the one I wanted to do.

For those of you who live in America, you probably saw the coverage of hurricane Ian over the last week. One of the deadliest, strongest and most destructive hurricanes in US history.

Our house was located at the eye of the storm during landfall, in Cape Coral, FL - just north of Fort Myers, which was completely destroyed by the inner eye wall.

We were extremely lucky to get away with just this amount of damage. There is no water or electricity, and the damage will take months to repair. However, we did not get flooded as badly as Fort Myers, and just ten minutes south of us, the bridge island of Matlacha, one of our favorite places, is now nothing more than a broken strip of sand and debris in the ocean.

Our family and friends are safe. That’s the most important thing of all.

As for the game, this is another setback, but that’s all it is. Just a delay of potentially a couple months. I don’t have my work PC back with me yet, which has the GPU to run Unity and of course all the files for everything, but on our next trip down on the 10th we’ll be collecting more belongings to bring with us to our temporary housing, including the computers. I will need to be working, and so in my spare time can continue to pick away at game dev as well.

For anyone else impacted by this storm, I hope you’re safe as well, and good luck on recovering too. We’ll pick up the pieces and move forward as we always do.