All memories about this game are now forever tied up with the suicide of one of key creators Alec Holowka. I don’t really have anything to say about that but I do think that is very unfortunate as this game was a solid success and deserves to be remembered on its own merits. This still isn’t a game that I would have ordinarily bought for myself but I did remember the praise it received when it was offered for free on Epic and I wanted an easy game to decompress a little with after the intensity of Dirt Rally 2.
It tells the story of Mae Borowski, a girl who suddenly drops out of college to return to her small home town of Possum Springs. Her return is unexpected and as she moves back in to her childhood home, the different people in her life react in different ways. Her parents are worried and want to give her space to decompress but are also upset that she was given up on college. Her friend Gregg is delighted that his old partner in crime is back but another friend Bea is angry and hostile. Meanwhile Mae can’t quite put into words why she is back and possibly suffers from depression and bad dreams. As she spends the days playing with her old friends in the streets, she comes to realize that the town is slowly dying and businesses close and people move away. On top of the mundane problems the town has, Mae also becomes convinced that there is something sinister going on and indeed within a day of her return, she and her friends run across a mystery severed arm right on the street.
This is an adventure game that is so narrative focused with no real gameplay challenges at all that it’s essentially a visual novel. You can choose where to go, who to spend time with and what to say but the main plot is linear and fixed. The only challenge is in some very light platform gameplay elements. If you obsessively explore every corner of the town and talk to everyone everyday, you can learn more little stories about many of the townspeople. If you just talk to your friends everyday, you might not even notice those people are there and skip their stories entirely. The bass playing bits with your friends at band practice amounts to a rhythm game that I really suck at and you can play a fantasy game on your laptop but all this is optional and as far as I can tell doesn’t affect the plot in any way.
Once I understood the character of Mae a little more and her situation, I gained a better appreciation for what the designers were going for. I think I’m too much of an Asian square to have much sympathy for people like Mae who has little direction in life and essentially refuses to grow up. Yet I have to concede that the game is much better written than I had expected as Mae’s friend Bea expresses everything I wanted to say to Mae myself. She is angry at Mae because her own dream is to be able to leave this town and go to college herself. Even as Mae comes back home because it is where she feels most comfortable, everyone is in fact up gearing up to leave. For a game with such simple graphics, it is amazing how alive the town feels as you walk around and get to know everyone and everything. I love that some of the people you meet are those who grew up in the town but have since moved away and are only back for a brief visit. Meanwhile town elders like the council members and the pastor are trying to bring business or help others to mostly no avail, the old familiar story of small town woes.
Unfortunately alongside these human stories and Mae having mental issues, Night in the Woods also has a Twin Peaks vibe going on with missing people, weird things going on at night and Mae’s dreams being about her actually being in communication with an eldritch entity. When this plot gets resolved, it is done in a very quick, straightforward way that I feel isn’t satisfactory at all. I think it’s very natural in such stories as you run all over town talking to people to want to find out just who in town are living secret lives and doing evil deeds in the dark. But the game isn’t interested in allowing that at all. It insists on keeping the human stories and the supernatural stuff entirely separate and to me that almost fatally undermines the overall narrative. It is one thing to tell a story about a girl who has a problem with navigating the transition from adolescence to adulthood due to mental traumas. It is another genre entirely when Mae has these problems only because she has a deep connection with the horror that lives underneath the town. I feel that these twin narratives undermine one another and the game would be so much better off if it’s just one or the other.
For a game that I didn’t spend any money I suppose I liked it more than I expected. I love the town and Mae’s friends and family even if I didn’t like Mae herself. I love how practical and down to earth Mae’s parents are for example as they try to be loving and accommodative to Mae’s willful behavior while struggling with their own money problems. I also like that there are no gameplay challenges but there are Easter Eggs all over the place if you care enough to look for them. However I found the hints of the town having a dark secret to be intriguing at first but ultimately disappointing as almost all of Mae’s daily activities are about connecting to people rather than actually investigating the mystery. Overall not a bad experience but not the best adventure game either.
