I got a big soft spot for this title. When I got my Switch this was one of the first games I tried out from the eshop. It looked interesting and up my alley and it certainly was. But it also inspired me to start writing about games and my experiences with them because I had a lot to say for such a short experience.

I really love the style this game has, the pencil strokes and choppy movements give it a special kinda flair that other games don't have. I really liked the woman you interact with as well. Oddly enough, I actually like how she was designed? Her body has curves and it feels very natural. She dosent look like a plastic model she looks like a regular person. That adds to the experience I think because a lot of the game is just learning about her and this situation you're in.

It's a super short experience, you can get to the credits in like, 30 minutes. But there are many endings and ways the story plays out to where it gets expanded to about 3-4 hours.

It has a bit of an immature sense of humor depending on the route you go. And there ARE very invasive routes you can go. Snooping through her things and being a creep. But I think having multiple options are welcome. It would be more weird if those WERENT in a game like this.

I do have a big issue with the "real" ending. The very last piece of info you get. It was so mean spirited and didn't really add anything to the game. I'm not sure why it was included because as it is it is great.

It's down to earth and warm and cozy to play. It has great style and it really sticks out in my mind for notable indies I like.

Would very much recommend this little gem. It's nothing crazy but it's something I'll always come back to

English | Español

A very short visual novel that can be completed in just five minutes, but with great replayability due to the different ways of dealing with this awakening after a one-night stand. It can make you laugh, make you uncomfortable, make you emotional; it's good.

Una brevísima novela visual que se puede completar en apenas cinco minutos, pero con gran rejugabilidad debido a las distintas formas de afrontar este despertar después de un lío de una noche. Puede hacerte reir, sentirte incómodo, emocionarte; esta bien.

This one works well within its very tight limitations, with animations that appear rotoscoped and a surprising quantity of possible interactions. Despite its small number of scenes, there's a good bit to click through. Even though it is broadly successful within those limits, I would have preferred a few more possibilities and rooms. While some scenes do allow the player character out of the main room, the results are too focused around getting out the door. I enjoyed a few playthroughs to explore the flexibility of the game, but the invisible walls became noticeable long before I found most of the endings.

One Night Stand has a singular goal - to capture the awkwardness of waking up in a stranger's bed, with a pounding headache and no memory of the night before. Over the next 20 minutes, you will slowly piece together how you ended up there, as well as learn about the girl whose company you've found yourself in.
Lucy Blundell, the creator, reportedly got the idea for One Night Stand while imagining the reason behind a dour man's mood on the train. She obviously put a lot of heart into it, too. It stands as an interesting peek into the mind of a developer who we've not yet seen again. While it is not a particularly great game, it is a promising one to see from a dev breaking out on her own. I hope she does release a new project in the future; I'd like to see how she's evolved in the years since ONS.


SHORT REVIEW

Visuals: 3/5
Audio: 2.5/5
Story: 3/5
Gameplay: 2.5/5
Worldbuilding: 3.5/5
Overall game score: 3/5 [2.9/5]


IN-DEPTH REVIEW

Visuals:
While ONS' art direction is generally nice, it does - unfortunately - have a few glaring flaws that bring it down a lot for me. Particularly, the mooted pastel colors make the visuals very muddy. Nothing stands out from its surroundings because of it. I also found the shaky lines of Robin's sprite to be an eyesore, rather than a cool stylistic choice.
That being said, the rotoscoped animations of Robin are just beautiful. You rarely see many fleshed-out animations in indie titles; meanwhile, ONS has multiple, all of which are extremely charming and expressive. They add a lot of character to her - character that might be completely absent otherwise.
Overall, 3/5.

Audio:
Fairly average in this department, ONS sports a few decent background tracks and middle-of-the-road sound effects. The little song you get to hear if you earn the best ending is pretty nice, if simple.

Story:
One Night Stand sets out illustrate a 'day-after' experience, with all the discomfort and embarrassment such a thing entails - especially when you can't even remember the encounter. Your only goals are to learn about the girl you've slept with, and to figure out how you ended up with her in the first place.
This is a really intriguing idea for a short visual novel to me. It fits the genre perfectly, with its straightforward, but interaction-heavy, premise. I find it engaging when games hone in on a more 'human' topic that isn't often directly addressed in the medium. My favorite recent example of this is Florence, which has a near-perfect execution of this concept. On the other hand, ONS definitely has its flaws and trips up in places - but I still really dig the idea behind it.
I will say that ONS succeeds very well at portraying the exact vibe it's going for. The dialogue, while stiff at times, is both cute and palpably awkward. Robin is a likeable and pretty character, with a surprisingly fleshed-out personality (for the very short length.) And there are many ways your time together can end, from getting kicked out naked to becoming actual friends.
The most important factor in making the story work is the tie between it and the gameplay. You can only interact with so many items in a single run; which ones you choose will influence what you can bring up as a conversation piece. Additionally, whether you snoop or not influences which ending you get. The ability to control bits of the narrative, as well as where the story ultimately goes, makes it a much more satisfying experience.
Speaking of the endings, there are twelve total (with some slight variations in the mix too.) The rather drastic differences between them is quite impressive. My only issue is that there's not enough disparity in the runs' dialogue to warrant seeing all of them... which is something I will continue discussing in gameplay.
Overall, 3/5.

Gameplay:
While the sheer number of endings is something to praise, I found it difficult to be excited about each new playthrough. You actions DO influence certain bits of conversation and how the game ends, that much is true. But a majority of the story beats and interactions still remain the same. This, coupled with the fact that ONS is so short (15 minutes a playthrough), means you spend a lot of time rereading the same lines over and over.
That being said, I do really like that you can only interact with so many items in a single run. The ones you choose will play into possible dialogue, giving access to interesting tidbits about Robin's life. This does make two or three playthroughs worthwhile, to at least see what everything has to offer.
Overall, 2.5/5.

Worldbuilding:
The worldbuilding is by far ONS' strongest suit. Robin is a reasonably fleshed-out character for the short length of the game; her room is realistically lived-in, with many personal belongings strewn about that give insight into who she is as a person. The followup dialogue only adds more flavor.
In fact, learning about her is the most engaging part of the game. [SPOILERS] There's her interests in music, concerts, vinyl, reading, and writing. You can ask about her relationship with her brother. There are hints that she may be LGBT+. [SPOILER END] She's probably not a character I'll remember down the line, but I appreciate how much these things enrich the immediate experience.
Overall, 3.5/5.

Overall game score: 3/5. One Night Stand is simple in both aim and execution. It has things it does fairly well, but it also has a lot of flaws, too. Unfortunately, it will end up being another one of these random Steam buys that I won't remember much down the line - save for the very lovely animations on Robin. Still, I DO think it's a good start for a new solo dev, and I hope that Lucy continues to improve her work.

Pretty forgettable and boring to get all the endings.

There are just a few choices to make, even though they make impact. It literally has a "fast forwarding" button.

Meh

After I recently played VideoVerse and also having listened to them on The Back Page Podcast I knew that I could trust Lucy Blundell’s writing.

In a way this game has passed me by but I will also admit here that the title conjured up something in me that put me off. It wasn’t thinking about one night stands themselves but when videogames attempt to be sexy, more often than not it’s a miss, sometimes cringe and potentially offensive.
This title is not.

One Night Stand is a very short experience but one that encourages you to try it again to discover the different outcomes your decisions can make, surprising revelations and ultimately rack up a selection of different endings.

Each of these are full of wonderful writing, full of realistic and relatable notes. If there is any moment of cringing it is something you have opted to see. There are very few characters involved as you’d expect and the main being the woman you have found yourself awake next to - even their name is a spoiler.
She can be funny, sweet or even cold but again, feels real.

Replaying the story you can skip text and the options are quite diverse considering the, almost, one room setting. These retries also gave me a light feeling of a good detective game, discovering evidence and piecing separate dialogue together with a mental red string that not only painted a much fuller picture than I could visually see but one with some good “ah ha” and “oh shit!” moments.

Speaking of what I could see visually, I love the art style. A simple pencil sketch looking feel that gave me Hotel Dusk vibes. Great facial expressions from your one-night stand and lots of brilliant details within the room that again enhances the feeling that this story is not purely fiction.

In the end however, I feel a little conflicted about this title. It is smartly written, beautifully presented and executed well but whilst I do not dislike short games playing the same short game over and over made me feel contradictory views of wanting more but also finding getting the last few endings more of something like busy work than the mild detective feel I had gotten earlier.
An argument could be made to just get a few endings and put it down when you feel you’ve seen enough variation, but having a screen full of blank squares you know you can fill, boxes you can check - it’s hard to do that when you know the effort, at least in terms of time, is so low.

I enjoyed my initial ending with this game, I played it “as if” it was me and was pleased. It made me want to see more of the world and that is good.
I enjoyed doing things I would definitely not, going for things I felt were possibly the stupidest decisions and having a good laugh at them.
The writing carries this game and it is definitely worth a play considering it's about the price of a coffee - ultimately I’m just not sure that this format of short with a dozen endings is my vibe compared to long with a few endings, but that is fine. There is space for all types of storytelling and I’m happy that we get to experience them.

This is a very short and sweet visual novel . What I really appreciate are resisting the temptations to violate privacy for a health relationship. On the other hand, I am conflicted with how the game rewards a completionist behavior with achievements and insights. I do think that some of the choices to get completion seem to move an internal relationship meter but observing the actual result seem contradictory so I had to resort to a guide. Still, the best ending for me does still reward that restraint as tricky as it can be. The secret message though I feel is unnecessary as it sours the positive meaning it is going for. Lastly, the rotoscope animations are really nice which is above and beyond for a small product.

Overall, an unique and good experience given its indie scale along with that is my recommendation. Also, the developer is asexual which makes this creation much more intriguing.

So I had neither played a visual novel before, nor did the term pop up despite my interest in story driven point'n'click. But I had the spare 99 points for the game being on sale at the Nintendo eStore and One Night Stand somehow caught my attention. A sex game on family friendly Nintendo?! Not quite.

According to Wikipedia Lucy Blundell got the idea for her game debut One Night Stand while watching a miserable looking man on public transportation. She then rotoscoped footage shot of herself via mobile and used a free visual novel software called Ren'Py. The rather visual short story turns out as a chamber play assuming the protagonist woke up hungover next to a naked woman. The being dizzy feels real.

So One Night Stand let's the player try to find out how he ended up in the situation as well as offering plenty of interactions to influence the outcome, i.e. how much of a walk of shame it's going to be. The interesting aspect here is no matter how cool you both try to handle it, it's at least a little awkward.

I was surprised One Night Stand was first released on Windows PC rather than a mobile device as your first intuitive playthrough will last a few minutes, but for me, there was a huge motivation to find out what would happen if I didn't try to act as myself.

So One Night Stand appeared to be the ideal game to return to every once in a while to try and see all the twelve ways to complete. On the other hand, I was curious enough to master that within two sessions. That could also have something to do with the game mechanics being close to what I know as point'n'click, something you can't take for granted in a visual novel as Our Worlds Is Ended just taught me more recently.

The Switch version of One Night Stand not only offers to actually play it on a portable device. You can also pick if you'd like to control it via touchscreen, pro controller or with motion control support using joy cons. As much as I like my pro controller, using touchscreen turned out to be most convenient to me, even though I prefer not having to clean the screen from my prints all the time.

From my perspective One Night Stand was a great introduction to the format that way, as interaction still felt something like a puzzle whilst it was actually a maze of morality to a rather elaborate story told from a mid to end twenties point of view. Though that still is quite young to me, grown out of the demand for party nights let alone sexual adventures on that level, it's on the other hand a lot less juvenile than games I'm aware of to handle sexually related topics.

That still doesn't exclude the opportunity to put on her panties and try to get away with it, but details like this are rather a refreshing humorous turn of events to expand the variety of behaving like a jerk than an actual puberty joke.

I liked that about One Night Stand a lot. There are certain limits of exploration when it comes to details like the woman's dissimilar id's, but it doesn't seem to be the point to find out the exact story why she might have or use these. Most of us can imagine that and an ellipsis in these cases is probably more exciting than the plain explanation. It's more about how good of an idea it is to search her wallet while she's in the bathroom in the first place.

I guess if you didn't bring up the empathy before you played One Night Stand, there's an actual chance for you to learn your date is a human being with emotions, too. And that's quite reasonable as legitimation for whatever you're bold enough to try in this game.

So you ended up in bed together after having too many drinks. Shit happens. People of all genders do that. Doesn't matter. Is that a reason to take a snap of her sleeping naked to show your friend? You'll eventually find out. And then you hopefully learn through communication that this woman is actually nice and you don't really want to do anything like walking out while she's throwing up in the toilet.

One Night Stand is a beautifully realistic take on virtue and temptation of quite regular people, who got into a situation they can't even remember. It's up to the player to decide what's best to handle while having the freedom to experiment. I think though most of us wish in the end to have met under other circumstances. At least I was able to get to know an interesting person I would like to spend more time with if I was the protagonist.

That's quite an achievement for a program some people see as just a short game. In fact, I even saw it as a goal to try and make it last as long as I could, depending on behaviour. I'd say One Night Stand is one of those indies to profit from not having to match any standards, being good at being what they are and eventually finding their audience. If there's more like this, I'd love to play it.