The words "this changed my brain chemistry" is thrown around a lot these days but man. playing this game as a lost 20something who'd just come home from university, spending the 2020 covid lockdown in my parent's attic in a dead-end small town. yeah let's just say this one hit home a lot.
Night in the Woods is- and allow me to be a little pretentious for a sec- less of a "game" and more of a playable visual novel using the medium of gaming to make a social observation about growing up in the digital age, making the fact that it is a game appropriate. I can see kids in English class 100 years from now discussing this text and how it reflected the experience of being a young adult in the early 21st century and late-stage capitalism, and as someone around the same age as the characters (are we called Zillenials? I like to call us Gen Void- we are u n m a r k e t a b l e), I can tell you it's pretty spot-on, probably even more so if you're American. It feels like playing through a great novel is what I'm saying.
Despite the 2017 release date this game feels a good few years ahead of its time, playing for the first time during the Covid lockdown really hit different and extra-hammered home the theme of "the world is broken and everything around you is changing and falling apart but you gotta find meaning and hope in it all and save what you can anyway" vibe, really added to it lol and was an experience I'm glad I had. Also Mae is literally me fr fr I've never related to a character more. her conversations with her friends and her mom were so weird to play through for me it was like the devs followed me around for a while. I am also short and kinda bug-eyed and am sometimes mistaken for a minor. I have an alcoholic father and am queer and adhd-coded with an array of mental health problems and kind of a disaster. she's sooo me guys. These characters feel way more human than a lot of other games and they are animals.
Some of my tips and advice for the game - explore everywhere and talk to everyone you can and exhaust their dialogue, this is a small game but has so much packed in and some of the best parts of the game are hidden in a secluded room or at the edge of the map or at the end of a seemingly obscure questline. Two playthroughs AT LEAST- Gregg and Bea routes- are recommended to get everything out of it but honestly I'm probably on my 6th or 7th playthrough and am still finding stuff.
Also play all the accompanying games- Demon Tower, the mini-game within the main game, is the Night In the Woods universe's answer to a souls-like game (dungeons, bosses, characters complain about how hard it is). It's a great game all by itself and does get genuinely challenging in the later levels (Finji you want to release Demon Tower as a separate game on PC, consoles and mobile sooo bad) Longest Night is a small game but adds lore to the characters and world. Lost Constellation adds even more obscure lore which is referred back to in the main game, but mostly stands as its own thing, acting as a story-within-a-story. I always play it around the holidays and it leaves me with a sense of hope going into the new year.
Night in the Woods is not a game I can recommend in good faith to just anyone, like you have to get it. Not everyone knows what it's like to be young and queer and mentally ill and directionless in a tumultuous time. Different journeys. But if you are a 20- or 30-something and lost, or even if you are older and still lost, or have ever been that person, well, this game won't offer solutions or change that. The only conclusion it has to an uncertain present is an uncertain future, which is way less depressing than it sounds, I promise (and for the people saying the game ends too abruptly- that's kind of the point?), BUT it might just change YOU, and maybe even save you a little bit. And eh even if it doesn't, you still played a fun game with great engaging characters and a cute artstyle, and a gorgeous soundtrack. And sometimes that is the same thing.
At the end of everything, hold onto anything
Night in the Woods is- and allow me to be a little pretentious for a sec- less of a "game" and more of a playable visual novel using the medium of gaming to make a social observation about growing up in the digital age, making the fact that it is a game appropriate. I can see kids in English class 100 years from now discussing this text and how it reflected the experience of being a young adult in the early 21st century and late-stage capitalism, and as someone around the same age as the characters (are we called Zillenials? I like to call us Gen Void- we are u n m a r k e t a b l e), I can tell you it's pretty spot-on, probably even more so if you're American. It feels like playing through a great novel is what I'm saying.
Despite the 2017 release date this game feels a good few years ahead of its time, playing for the first time during the Covid lockdown really hit different and extra-hammered home the theme of "the world is broken and everything around you is changing and falling apart but you gotta find meaning and hope in it all and save what you can anyway" vibe, really added to it lol and was an experience I'm glad I had. Also Mae is literally me fr fr I've never related to a character more. her conversations with her friends and her mom were so weird to play through for me it was like the devs followed me around for a while. I am also short and kinda bug-eyed and am sometimes mistaken for a minor. I have an alcoholic father and am queer and adhd-coded with an array of mental health problems and kind of a disaster. she's sooo me guys. These characters feel way more human than a lot of other games and they are animals.
Some of my tips and advice for the game - explore everywhere and talk to everyone you can and exhaust their dialogue, this is a small game but has so much packed in and some of the best parts of the game are hidden in a secluded room or at the edge of the map or at the end of a seemingly obscure questline. Two playthroughs AT LEAST- Gregg and Bea routes- are recommended to get everything out of it but honestly I'm probably on my 6th or 7th playthrough and am still finding stuff.
Also play all the accompanying games- Demon Tower, the mini-game within the main game, is the Night In the Woods universe's answer to a souls-like game (dungeons, bosses, characters complain about how hard it is). It's a great game all by itself and does get genuinely challenging in the later levels (Finji you want to release Demon Tower as a separate game on PC, consoles and mobile sooo bad) Longest Night is a small game but adds lore to the characters and world. Lost Constellation adds even more obscure lore which is referred back to in the main game, but mostly stands as its own thing, acting as a story-within-a-story. I always play it around the holidays and it leaves me with a sense of hope going into the new year.
Night in the Woods is not a game I can recommend in good faith to just anyone, like you have to get it. Not everyone knows what it's like to be young and queer and mentally ill and directionless in a tumultuous time. Different journeys. But if you are a 20- or 30-something and lost, or even if you are older and still lost, or have ever been that person, well, this game won't offer solutions or change that. The only conclusion it has to an uncertain present is an uncertain future, which is way less depressing than it sounds, I promise (and for the people saying the game ends too abruptly- that's kind of the point?), BUT it might just change YOU, and maybe even save you a little bit. And eh even if it doesn't, you still played a fun game with great engaging characters and a cute artstyle, and a gorgeous soundtrack. And sometimes that is the same thing.
At the end of everything, hold onto anything