Written by JM Nuqui
Title: Night in the Woods
Developer: Infinite Fall
Publisher: Finji
Price: $19.99
Genre: Adventure, Platformer
Also Available On: Steam, PS4, XB1
I am an avid fan of Visual Novel games. It's full of story and superb character development. Danganronpa Series and Zero Escape series are just one of the best I've played. Well, Night in the Woods brings that Visual Novel type of game while having the freedom of venturing around Mae Borowski's platforming style. The game development got a green light after a successful Kickstarter campaign and was first released for Windows, MacOS, Linux and PS4 last year.
Night in the Woods is not your usual adventure game. Though I did not like how it could trigger suicidal thoughts as misery was treated as if normal on the games day to day life. The game voices out the feelings of what is typically hidden inside a person's heart. It's the first time I've felt this heavy feeling on a game. Maybe it's because, it happens in real life. Depression and Suicidal thoughts, crime, that day to day issues and problems, and random deaths happens in game as if its normal in day to day event. If you can digest that and not take it seriously, the depth is something to praise. It's so natural and you'd feel the uniqueness of the attitude of every character even with such simple character design.
There are lots of things happening in the life of our college drop-out Mae Borowski's with our little kitten is famous around town for causing trouble. She's your typical trouble maker getting the ire of many citizen of Possum. All characters and major events are drawn in her notebook that can be pulled out anytime in the game. It might be a small little town with a few folks to talk to. Interestingly, it's like watching "13 reasons why", Netflix series. You'd be curious what really happened to Mae and what's really the point of this whole story. You'd think you're doing stupid and simple mini games then end up getting hooked with it and would really want to know what's next. There are branching points as well were in you get to bond with other characters and know their stories depending on your choices. The game is that deep and that adds replay value to the game. Mae can be so nice or so rude and troublesome depending on the choices you made. Your progress with the story is going to be drawn on Mae’s notebook and even as odd as it looks it helps remind you what Mae has encountered throughout the story.
The games' graphics is simple but of beauty. It's rich and colorful graphics feels like watching a colorful Saturday cartoon. It's so simple that you’d think it was designed by young elementary students. But nevertheless, you'd never expect that kiddie design characters talking about adult stuff could fuse in a video game. Walking around Possum feels pretty alive, the detail of everything around you, that's even made with simple graphics is feels fresh and again alive. It feels like walking on a real town. People walking around the street, cars moving around, leaves that scatter as you move around, and the background moves as you stroll around town. The details reacts to your movement which I really would praise the developers even with low budget has able to give emphasis to the games every detail.
The music is simple and calm and yet it blends with how miserable the aura of the surroundings. The sound mixes misery and calmness which would bring back the argument I mentioned early about hopelessness and misery being too normal for this game.
There are lots of stuff you can do in Possum Springs aside from venturing and talking around folks. Random stuff to poke around to and mini games to play. There's a rhythm game where you can practice your guitar skills and a full game dungeon crawler that you can play on your laptop to name a few. Each chapter has its own mini game which makes it fresh each time as you dig dive into the games story. You'll never know what happens next and the weird thing is, you'd be doing simple stuff but still enjoy it.
This is one of those successful Kickstarter campaigns. It delivers what was promised to the backers unlike sample, Mighty No. 9. It's a fresh Visual Novel X Adventure game which quality is on par with those already known like Danganronpa and Zero Escape series. I highly recommend you give this a shot if not for the suicidal theme. It would trigger misery to those suffering from depression for sure. Stay away if you have problems with that. This game won't help you overcome that. Nevertheless, it's a masterpiece.
Pros:
- Amazing Story, Graphics and Music
- Random Mini games
- Rich breathing environment and those suffering depression
Cons:
- Misery theme not good for Kids
Overall: 4/5
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