The characteristics of the two different versions of No Man are reflected in the type of interactions you’ll face in each timeline. “One of them is more passive, trying to pick up the pieces after something has happened,” producer Evan Stark says, “while the other No Man is a more active, making things-happen kind of guy” The soundtrack in Constant Testament is very different to the familiar jazz of Black Rapture. Indeed, the way the score fluctuates in both timelines has changed. Abel: “It’s not evolving as you move through a linear space – it’s responding more based on conversations or paths of interaction. It’s a lot more driven by the plot than the environment, I think.” Anthony says Andy Warhol has been “a huge inspiration” for the game’s art, which also folds in influences from comic artists such as Paul Kirchner (Dope Rider) and Wes Wilson’s psychedelic poster designs. “So many of our interactions look like cutscenes but they’re actually not,” Abel says. “We’ve done things like enlarging the cursor to make it more obvious, so it’s like: this is clearly gameplay.” “It’s gonna be at least twice as long [as Genesis Noir],” Stark says, “without overstaying its welcome.” The extra text is one key factor in that longer runtime, Anthony says. Those who enjoyed the first game’s Improvisation chapter will be pleased to learn that Nirvana Noir will have more interactive musical elements. Stark: “The toy-like aspect is still a really good North Star for us with our interactions” Producer Evan Stark and studio co-founder and technical lead Jeremy Abel
Just as its story transcended space and time, Feral Cat Den’s 2021 debut, Genesis Noir, eluded easy categorisation. Such was the fluidity with which it shifted between genres, in fact, that Evan Stark, who wrote for and edited the game, has made an interactive joke about it on his website. Was it a ‘cosmic noir thriller’, as he initially posits? An ‘interactive fiction adventure’ (the definition he settles on)? Perhaps, as several lines of strickenthrough text in between suggest, it doesn’t matter, so long as “you’re having fun playing the thing and getting a good story from it”. That, surely, is hard to argue with.
In any case, a sequel didn’t seem especially likely. Genesis Noir does, after all, end with the whole universe “splitting”, as technical lead Jeremy Abel puts it, or “exploding”, per creative lead Evan Anthony. Yet the ramifications of that final choice – as watch-peddling protagonist No Man arrives at the apartment of jazz singer Miss Mass and the player either hands her a flower and steps inside or tosses it and departs – were perhaps
