In the year I came back to my home town, my sister was born.

Most of the friends that I had forgot about me, and what seemed so familiar as a child was now alien. The bus route changed. A new McDonald's opened near my house, and a giant condominium blocked my childhood home's view of the ocean.

The sky was more grey than I remember.

This year I turn 20.

I'm every bit as directionless, confused and angry as I was seven years ago.

I think night in the woods struck a chord with me because of this. When I visit possum springs, it reminds me of when I was 12, in a place that was familiar and different. For me, it's hauntingly nostalgic, and reminded me of a time that I miss dearly.

---
Stuff I liked
---

The pit-a-pat of a pretty bad matte black cat's paws on the roof approaching a rat clad in a snug shrug is interrupted with intermittent grunts of effort.

The sound of everything, from the crunch of autumn leaves, the rubber-like twang of power lines, and sizzling of fresh pierogis.

The echoes of delinquent chatter reverberate throughout an abandoned subway. The scuttling of pets and other small rats (children) overlap with the sound of a sputtering engine of an ancient vehicle in desperate need of repair, a car and driver in no hurry to reach their destination. It's a small town after all.

The soundtrack is soft, the humming of the theramin and synth mimicking the whistle of a chilly autumn breeze. It feels like a lullaby. It's calm. Eerily so. But it feels comforting in its own silly, off-kilter way.

These noises go a long way to making you feel like you're there. It does wonders for the atmosphere of this unknown small town in the middle of nowhere. Historical possum springs. It feels cozy. It feels familiar.

Mae's dynamic demeanors are expressed in the smooth animations of actions and reactions to scenarios and inputs. Each character's body language tells you just enough about each person to know at least a little of what they're like.

The paper cutout feel of the art style makes the game feel homely. Like a children's book. The (smooth?) feeling of it's presentation matches it's wiggly and slick character animations.

It's easy on the eyes.

There's also something about the writing in Night in the woods that makes the world feel lived in. Dialogue feels like something me and my friends would say. An awkward slip of the tongue might inadvertently make another panic. Infuriating passive aggressive back and forths eventually explode into a heartbreaking argument. Poems by selmers. It feels real.

There's attention to detail in every offhanded comment. Fragments of stories of the town's inhabitants and escapades are drip fed to you via Mae's recollections and interactions with random objects in town, big events in the past alluded to throughout the game for you to figure out. Where everybody knows everyone. In possum springs, word gets around.

---
Mild Spoilers
---

Night in the woods is a game about mourning. It's about mourning a loved one, a childhood that left a long time ago, a town that used to thrive, now a shambling corpse of what it once was, a toxic cesspool of broken dreams. A black hole, sucking up all the ambitions its inhabitants had,and spitting them out the other side, listless. Hopeless. Tired. But in this town of nothing, empty town of no renown, people find solace and comfort with each other. There is love to be found, there are friends to be had, in a hopeless town where few can escape, where everything stays stagnant, frozen in time, while everything else changes. There's something about this game and it's themes that I find hopeful.

At the end of everything, hold on to anything.

There's one aspect of the story that really stuck with me, the feeling of needing to escape. Mae couldn't find her place in university. She felt so out of place, that she sacrificed everything her parents worked for to return home. Bea couldn't leave her borderline abusive household because how could she abandon her family? She couldn't go to college because she was poor, because she was dealt a horrible hand in life. Gregg and Angus are actively trying to escape possum springs to find a better life. It's everywhere, and it feels messy. In the transitory period of entering adulthood, I constantly feel like I need to get away from everything, that the weight of my responsibility as an adult is crushing me. Living is messy.

I'm the same age as Mae now. It's scary. But playing this game, feeling lost and confused, was comforting in a way. Maybe if you feel the same you'll like it too.