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With the seemingly never-ending layoffs plaguing the video game industry, keeping a running list of “studios I’m worried about” has become almost second nature. You might think that this list would be largely comprised of studios known for churning out shovelware or mediocre titles, but in fact, it’s almost the complete opposite — I think more about the development teams still trying to find their footing in today’s market. This is what piqued my interest in Velan Studios’ Midnight Murder Club, which just wrapped up its first closed alpha/playtest.
Chances are, most of you might not recognize the name ‘Velan’ at first glance, which is a shame, seeing as how their first release was a mixed-reality Mario Kart title and their second was Knockout City, a criminally underrated multiplayer game that never got the recognition (or financial success) it deserved.
For their latest, Velan has gone in a bit of a different direction. Midnight Murder Club is a six-player first-person shooter that, at first glance, looks a bit like Clue mashed up with well, any number of indie PvP shooters. Admittedly, there are plenty of competitors in this space, but Midnight Murder Club‘s twist does enough to set it apart from the rest of the pack. For the most part, the entire game is pitch black, with the only light coming from you and your opponents. Each player is armed with a trusty flashlight, which can be used to illuminate what’s ahead of you, and a revolver, which lets off a flash of light and a bullet trace when fired.
(Not) Alone In The Dark
To be honest, it’s kind of bewildering that no other studio has attempted this before, and having spent a few hours with Midnight Murder Club‘s closed alpha, I’m confident in saying that the team at Velan has stumbled onto a very promising mechanic. Granted, it’s not likely to win over those who prefer first-person shooters bevy of perks, weapons, and killstreaks, but the minimalist approach works well here.
Matches are relatively short (think 10 minutes, or so), and this time pressure keeps players on their toes. There’s an ever-present sense of tension and dread as you clumsily stumble around the game’s sole map (an old Victorian mansion), doing your best to suss out where other players might be skulking about. As you might expect, headphones are a must with this sort of game, as gunshots and footsteps are your primary clues to mapping out your immediate surroundings.
Shoot To Thrill
Team deathmatch and free-for-all are by no means novel game modes, but they take on a new life with Midnight Murder Club. Your natural inclination to play it safe, moving slowly from room to room or cowering in a corner, is directly at odds with the need to engage other players head-on, lest you fall behind in the leaderboards. Proximity voice chat lends itself well here, whether you’re picking up on the opposing team’s muffled discussions from two rooms over, or screaming at the top of your lungs as you get ambushed by a light grenade.
Midnight Murder Club‘s other modes also show promise, though there are certainly some wrinkles that need ironing out. Thief in the Night splits players into 3 teams of two, with each pair tasked with scouring the mansion for valuable skull fragments, that can either be deposited into a vault on their own for a small bounty, or combined with other fragments for a bigger payday. The vault is only active for a few minutes each match, so the core gameplay loop largely devolves into a cycle of scavenging and depositing. Unfortunately, the actual process of searching the mansion for valuables doesn’t offer a ton of excitement, and it’s all too easy to have your hard work undone if you’re taken out by one of the opposing teams.
Hunter/Hunted leans more into the realm of asymmetrical multiplayer. Two players are randomly chosen to be hunters outfitted with single-shot revolvers and superior vision, while the other four are stuck with six shooters and a complete lack of night vision. The squad of four is tasked with destroying four totems spread randomly across the map, with the pair of hunters trying to stop them. It’s a perfect mode to showcase the game’s one-time-use tools (which are dispensed from vending machines strewn around the map), and the tides of battle can easily be turned with a light grenade or a well-timed use of a bulletproof vest. Still, it was hard to get a sense of how balanced this mode is, which largely stems from the limited number of players that were given access to the closed alpha — I was only able to try out this mode a couple of times.
Midnight Murder Club certainly shows a lot of promise, and if Velan can polish and refine the modes and mechanics on offer, I can easily see it slotting into my rotation of addictive, multiplayer party games. With more playtests planned for the future, we’re hoping the team has a few more opportunities to stick the landing before it releases later this year.
Disclosure: a friend and former colleague of the author contributed to Midnight Murder Club’s development.
