Definition 1

Noctis is a Latin word, meaning “night”.

Definition 2

Noctis is also a PC game made by, and only by, Alessandro Ghignola (or Alex), and Italian programmer. The game itself is a spaceflight simulator, made in 1996, although there have been a total of four versions, and a fifth is in development.

Background to Game

The game follows no direct storyline, but a background is given of the controlled character's race, the Felysians, who, after their home planet, Felysia, became unliveable because of industrialization, dispersed as explorers in ships called Stardrifters, to find another planet to inhabit. However, when they returned, they found Felysia uninhabited, their race gone, and only the remains of their cities and stray Felysian creatures left.

Now, the remaining explorers roam the galaxy alone, simply living and travelling the vast Universe.

Objective

There is no real point to this game, being a simulator, but there are still many many things to do. You operate your own Stardrifter, travelling to different star systems and planets that have yet to be discovered. You can walk on the surface of many of the planets and moons, and there are occasionally creatures found on planets suitable to sustain life. Your job as an explorer is to discover anything that had not already, and name it and log information about it.

Versions

The current and most up-to-date version of Noctis is Noctis IV, which is written in DOS. Therefore, there are many limitations involving graphics and resolution, etc.However, the game was programmed very cleverly. The galaxy of Noctis IV contains more than 78 billion stars, as many as any real galaxy, and is still little more than 1 Megabyte in size. It remains a freeware game.

The next version, Noctis V, is to be written in a new programming code designed by Alex, called Linoleum, and will have to be written again from scratch. The result, though, will be a much higher resolution and graphic capabilities, as well as increased frame rate and so on. The game will include lots of fixes and alterations, more than there have been in any previous version.

It is still under development, and no release date has been given yet.

You can find the official home of Noctis and Linoleum at www.anywherebb.com.