Jailbird Nocturne
A downloadable game for Windows
The Guard Poggles have abducted you to a prison in a secret underworld - the Void of Interzonal Space. As you make your escape with another inmate (a cheese devil named Bleucifer), you stumble into a contract to track down a rogue wizard and prevent a demonic apocalypse. Underfunded, understaffed, and on the run, can you and your ragtag team get the job done and earn your freedom?
Jailbird Nocturne is a turn-based RPG about slaying demons, destroying prisons, and having to save the world when it shouldn't be any of your business, featuring a character-focused story in a surreal contemporary fantasy setting. It is the sequel to Danger Zone Friends, but you don't need to have played the original to enjoy Jailbird Nocturne.
Features:
- 10+ hours of adventure! A tale full of humor, twists, and intrigue.
- Lovable cast of characters! Befriend Feta Fiends, Poggles, and Nekomancers.
- Fully original art, sound, and music!
- Challenging but fair turn-based combat! Build up MP every turn! Time your moves carefully and manage status effects to survive.
- Bonk enemies with a bass guitar like you're in FLCL or whatever! Also, I don't know how the Gunchucks work either.
Bonus Content!
The game itself is free, but if you donate $4 or more, you'll also receive the game's .mp3 sountrack* and a .pdf walkthrough as thanks!
*The soundtrack is streamable (but not downloadable) on Soundcloud. Only new tracks created for Jailbird Nocturne are included. Tracks previously composed for Danger Zone Friends can be found in its soundtrack.
You can also buy the physical release from the Pizza Pranks Tape Market! (USB in a cassette case, $10 + shipping, includes the paid bonus content)
Controls are Z, X, and arrow keys. Downloadable for Windows. Created with RPG Maker VX Ace by a single person from 2020-2024.
Check out my website for more games and updates!
content warning: blood/violence/mild language/a low-res pixel art demon boob that my playtesters mistook for a pectoral muscle anyway
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- A Jailbird Nocturne Postmortem!Nov 11, 2025
- Physical release now available!Aug 31, 2024
- RTP now includedAug 21, 2024
- Jailbird Nocturne ReleasedAug 18, 2024
Comments
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What a lovely adventure. Nice snappy pacing, crunchy fights, loved-on handcrafted aesthetics, and the finale goes real hard. The writing's delightful and personal, and it goes for big feelings without overstating things, that's a rare win for games like this.
I love how often you split the party or change up the structure. It's very easy for this kind of game to devolve into rote videogamey episodes, but those regular dramatic shakeups kept it feeling like a real story. Personal highlight: one of the coolest and most unique implementations of a rival fight in an RPG I've ever seen.
This game was very fun. It feels like way more thought has been put into the battles than you get in most big rpgs, they're rarely trivial but never unreasonable (okay there's 1 which kinda is, but that's a single battle out of very many), and I never had to grind after I lost, coming up with a better plan was always enough. It makes me wonder what the big studios are even doing with all their resources, if a single developer with 4 playtesters can tune a game this perfectly. The characters are also very charming, and while the story isn't anything groundbreaking, it was good enough to keep me interested all the way through. Just an all-around great game really.
Thank you for the kind words! My design philosophy has been to encourage players to master the tools that I give them and to discourage grinding, so I'm glad that came through
Thank you so much for making this fantastic game. I was determined to beat it after I read your post mortem, having identified with so much of it, and I'm glad I did.
THANK YOU SO MUCH! It means a lot! I'm glad you liked it
Let me know if you want to chat game design any time! You had so many cool ideas in here, and I've been swimming around in the "I MUST MAKE A JRPG" latent space for a while now.