I'm not exactly a "gamer" (chz) and only I've only dabbled in the hobby recently (thanks lucas!!). My experience has been great with several, the first video games I finished being The Red Strings Club and Minit– anyway, that's for another post. Over the course of the past month, I played and finished Night in the Woods and boy, oh boy, was it fantastic.
Essentially, Night in the Woods is about Mae: a 20-year-old fresh out of college, having just dropped out. The story begins when she's just gotten back to her hometown, Possum Springs. Possum Springs gave me probinsya vibes except the setup was quite urban– I got that vibe because it was small, everyone appeared to know everybody, and it seemed faraway from the hectic-ness that comes with most cities. Right off the bat, I'm captivated by this game's visuals.
I'm not very good at critiquing art styles or visuals or anything, really, but NITW was just beautiful. I especially love how they so wonderfully render light (or darkness), the use of colors is so simple yet striking. Speaking of, something I noticed is how NITW lets you feel time pass on your own. The game has no concrete way of measuring time, no day counter, no calendar. It allows Possum Springs to speak for itself, the days getting more and more orange, more dead-leafy (this is not a word) through time.
It took me at least three weeks to finish. Storywise, I found the beginning a bit confusing. The freedom that the game allows you, I feel, ended up as a double-edged sword to me because while it's good to know you can do more than just "stick to the plot," I got slightly thrown off because I had no direction. After a few in-game days of doing random tasks and filling up Mae's journal, I feel that's when things unfold enough such that I had objectives.
Honestly, I'm not going to make this too long because I don't know how to talk about things without going into details and spoiling (because if you're reading this I really do recommend you play this game). But, all in all, NITW stole my heart– with all its soft afternoon friendship times and its crazy, slightly terrifying plot twists. Its characters were written so beautifully and were so painfully human (yes, so human you can end up finding their choices questionable!!!), clearly an irony as they're all ANIMALS. You're bound to empathize and feel for them, one way or another, because their flaws and aches are all-too-human narratives. In my case, Mae's aimlessness and internal struggles, Bea and her grappling with responsibilities and dreams, Gregg's VIBE (I'm GREGG) and insecurities, and Angus... I don't know... Angus is like, logical and pragmatic. Two things I struggle to be.
Really, it's a soft, simple game that allows all its seemingly mundane interactions to come together without highfalutin complexity, allowing room for commentary on identity, mental health, GOD (!! who would've thought?), and even existence. It allows you to face so many questions, but never prods you to find the answers immediately. You can flesh them out on your own. I know I will, maybe after another run of the game and a slice of pizza.
