The GWJ Adventure Game Club - Game 10: Night in the Woods

Night in the Woods (2017)

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C-c-c-combo breaker! No, my pick will not be the game of the month for the fifth time in the row, the game for August 2019 shall be Night in the Woods.

Young woman cat catwoman Mae has dropped out of college and is now returning to her hometown of Possum Springs. Her parents are of course concerned for her, their only child. As Mae lives in their attic, she reconnects with old friends, and explores Possum Springs anew. The town has suffered in the past couple of years, and Mae uncovers some secrets that perhaps would've been better off left undisturbed...

I will throw a trigger warning up here, the game does deal with mental health issues (which I'm willing to delve more into in a spoiler if need be), so be aware of that going in, and don't feel bad if you need to sit this one out, folks. Self care is important!

You can find the wikipedia page here, usual spoiler warning apply. How Long to Beat estimates about 12 hours to completion, and there is some replayability since there are some either/or chapters.
Available on Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, PS4 and XBox One.

You can find the main thread over this way. We'll be playing Night in the Woods in August 2019, with an extra month if needed.

I would like to join in on this.

I keep irregularly pecking away at this on Switch. Last I recall, I think I got halted by

Spoiler:

Demontower, the game within the game

and through sheer stubbornness I can't continue without completing it. I'm so close!

I'm in for this one.

I'll happily play this again

mr_n00b wrote:

I keep irregularly pecking away at this on Switch. Last I recall, I think I got halted by

Spoiler:

Demontower, the game within the game

and through sheer stubbornness I can't continue without completing it. I'm so close!

That was certainly the part of the game that gave me trouble on my first playthrough. I still considered the game "finished" even without that part.

Huh not sure I have this one.

Little bit of a hiccup. The mouse isn’t supported on the Mac so I’m using a controller. Which is probably going to feel more comfortable for me anyway.

Oh that’s weird and unfortunate.
As it’s 2D, I feel it should be pretty accessible. In fact.... now that I think of it... I’m wondering if I didn’t play it with my XBox 360 controller back in the day... hmm.... anyway, I feel it should lend itself well to it. Fingers crossed!

Yeah. The mouse wasn’t working and I thought it was some kind of temporary glitch but a support post (back in 2017) apologised for the lack of mouse support on the Mac. Seems incredible that it’s still the case but it must be a tougher problem than it sounds.

Controller feels good.

Totally forgot about a little bit of fun I had with the Soul Calibur VI character creator:
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I started early and played through Mae's first day back in town. The game has such an incredibly formed aesthetic, it's really breathtaking. I'm terrible with the band, but did much better at the first song than I recall doing last time. Not sure how I'll play things out this time, but I can't wait to see.

I bought this game for Switch a year or so ago, and was very excited about it based on everything I'd heard, but something about it never clicked for me. I've made two serious attempts to get into it--once, when I first bought it, and again whenever the last time I was on a trip somewhere and thus had my Switch with me--and just never really got sucked into it. I like the art style. I mostly like the characters and think the dialog is clever and very well-done. It's just never quite held my attention. I'm going to make a concerted effort to finish it now that it's the game club pick, however.

I think the big problem for me with the game so far is that it's not interactive in places I wish it were, and it is interactive in places I wish it weren't.

In what I've played so far, I've been given some amount of choice in the things I say to people and the decisions I make, but they feel pretty limited, it's unclear what effect the choices have, and I've found multiple occasions where I had a choice in mind that the game wouldn't offer to me. I don't have to be the decisionmaker in every game, I can appreciate games where the creator has decided the identity of the character you are controlling and you are just along for the ride, but then I need the game to give me something else to latch onto for why I'm playing it instead of watching a youtube video or something.

Where it does feel like I have freedom in the game is where I'm given a general direction of the next thing to do (go find this character and talk to him about the party, e.g.) and I'm in this semi-open world with very light platforming. It makes me wonder whether there are other things I should be exploring, things I should be looking for, people to talk to. And there are some minor things out there--tiny conversations, little shops or other locations you can enter that are not directly on your path--but as far as I can tell, there's not much reason to do those things. So I get torn between the feeling of "ack, don't miss out on some conversation or semi-hidden location where you could find something interesting" and "ugh, I'm just wandering all over the place instead of advancing the game." When it seems like, if I'm careful, I can figure out ways to jump from one tree limb to the roof of a house to a telephone wire to another ledge, I spend like 2 or 3 minutes trying to figure it out, and then I get up there and...nothing.

In returning to the game, I'm going to try harder to meet the game on its own terms. I will not anticipate making big important decisions about stuff, and will also move on more of a critical path, not asking myself "hmm if I really just nail one of the songs while practicing in the bedroom, I wonder if something will happen" and not checking that room upstairs that's blocked off with boxes for the 5 millionth time to see if maybe now I can do something in there. Maybe that will help me find my way with this. We'll see!

I bought the game yesterday on Steam, installed it on my HTPC, and played the first ten minutes. I totally did not expect to find myself playing Guitar Hero when I picked up that bass in the corner.

Will play more today, probably.

I really, really sucked at that part. Like really, really bad. My friends didn’t seem to mind too much though!

Yikes. Can’t see myself being good at that. After doing a similar thing in Yakuza my drinking buddy wasn't very impressed.

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Eleima wrote:

I really, really sucked at that part. Like really, really bad. My friends didn’t seem to mind too much though!

Is being good at it a requisite for anything? (I sucked at it pretty badly, and want to make sure getting good is not worth spending time on.)

If memory serves, doing well unlocks hard versions you can play in Mae's room, but doesn't impede progress or anything. I'm fairly dire, too. If I have one issue with this game it's that I end up concentrating on the input sections of the screen during the rhythm game and miss all the bits going on at the edges.

Did "practice in your bedroom" get added at some point? Because I don't recall that AT ALL.

i feel like playing really badly is more in keeping with Mae's personality anyway

I spent some time with this over the weekend. I had a couple of really charming and interesting scenes with Gregg and Bea. I've deduced that, at this stage of the game, it's about choosing whether to spend a day with one or the other of them? I'm not quite clear on whether picking one or the other of them is like, a Choice, or if I'll end up experiencing the same amount of stuff with both of them by the end anyway (like maybe at some point Gregg stops being available to hang out and then I complete all the Bea hangouts?). Anyway I had interesting and amusing interactions with both, and some kinda silly minigames involved as well. I liked that a lot.

I did discover one thing I hate about this game, unfortunately: the dreams. I don't think this is really a spoiler, as it's more of a mechanics thing, but just in case, spoiler tagging...

Spoiler:

So I'm pretty sure in my long ago beginning of this playthrough I only encountered it one time, but over the weekend, I had a dream sequence after going to bed after each day's completion. It's like a platforming section in a kinda random city map. The goal seems to be to find four different ghostly figures playing instruments, and once you find them all and they're all playing, you need to stand...somewhere...to end the sequence. I really, really did not like these sequences, and am not happy that I'm guessing there are several more in my future.

First, I did not like that I am just kind of guessing at how this is supposed to work, the game doesn't really make it clear. Second, the area of map is big enough that it's slow and cumbersome to cross from one side to the next, so when you're not finding the third or fourth figure for whatever reason, it is a real hassle to explore the whole map, especially if you accidentally fall off a little ledge, or if you've checked a spot before but can't find the fourth figure and so thing maybe you might've missed something and so have to go back to previous spots... Tedious and unpleasant. Third, and most critically, I was playing this in handheld mode and it was almost impossible to see where I was going and where I could stand and jump. I thought it was the game being intentionally vague and mysterious and it was making me really mad until I realized I could adjust the brightness on the console level. After I did that, it was a tiny bit better--at least, it significantly reduced the number of times I thought a ledge continued and instead fell to the ground and had to start back up again--but still not great. In the first dream I was stuck on (I think it must've been the second in the game?), at the bottom of the map there was like an overlapping set of paths where it was not clear to me that I could actually take the lower path. It wasn't until I googled the solution and ended up on a Steam forum that I finally figured out where I was supposed to go. Ugh.

Anyway, that ties in to my earlier recollection/complaint that I enjoy this game least when I make the mistake of taking the platforming seriously. The fact that the platforming is mandatory in the dream sequence is a big problem for me. If there were an option to just skip the dream sequence altogether, cut to whatever image it wants to show me at the end, I would be very happy to do that.

In short the dreams are a distillation of what I don't enjoy about this game. The rest of it is still charming and fun, though. I am curious how far into the game I am/how far from the end I am. I must've put at least 4-5 hours in at this point? But maybe too much of that spent aimlessly wandering and chatting with people. I hope to have finished this by the end of my upcoming vacation.

Katy wrote:

Did "practice in your bedroom" get added at some point? Because I don't recall that AT ALL.

I have no memory of it, but if I did run across it, I probably wouldn't have used it anyhow.
I'm fairly certain the whoel guitar hero stuff has no bearing on the outcome of the game, ultimately.

Mrlogical, I'm right there with you on the dream sequences. Those were the least enjoyable, and most confusing bits for me too. Didn't detract too much from the whole, though.

bobbywatson wrote:

Is being good at it a requisite for anything? (I sucked at it pretty badly, and want to make sure getting good is not worth spending time on.)

pyxistyx wrote:

i feel like playing really badly is more in keeping with Mae's personality anyway

It is not, other than achievements. I think you get slightly different comments from your friends (I sucked in my playthrough; my partner super duper terribly sucked). But comments when you suck (which you probably will unless you practice a lot) are that they are playing songs you never actually got a chance to learn.

Katy wrote:

Did "practice in your bedroom" get added at some point? Because I don't recall that AT ALL.

I think it was added in a patch/update.

mrlogical wrote:

I spent some time with this over the weekend. I had a couple of really charming and interesting scenes with Gregg and Bea. I've deduced that, at this stage of the game, it's about choosing whether to spend a day with one or the other of them? I'm not quite clear on whether picking one or the other of them is like, a Choice

Only spoil yourself if you really wanna know...

Spoiler:

It's a Choice. There are three (IIRC) nights you make a choice who to hang with, and each has an event for that night, and you can't do both. You need to play the game twice to see all the content, choosing a different person than you did last time. My partner did all Bea, I did all Gregg; I don't recommend one over the other, but I slightly recommend committing to one or the other for a playthrough.

mrlogical wrote:

I did discover one thing I hate about this game, unfortunately: the dreams. I don't think this is really a spoiler, as it's more of a mechanics thing

I don't think it's a big spoiler either, but just in case, here's a hint I figured out about halfway through playing.

Spoiler:

You can occasionally see a little light flash on the edge of the screen during dreams. This leads you to the next whatever you have to find. Unfortunately, there are several dream sequences; but by following the light flashes, you can get through them much easier.

mrlogical wrote:

I am curious how far into the game I am/how far from the end I am. I must've put at least 4-5 hours in at this point? But maybe too much of that spent aimlessly wandering and chatting with people. I hope to have finished this by the end of my upcoming vacation.

I assumed that like many cute little indies this would be fairly short, but you still have a way to go. You can try to beeline through it, but if you play "thoroughly" (talking to everyone and looking for little secrets everywhere), you might have another 20 hours left. (I have a bad sense of time, don't hold me to that, but I was surprised how long I played this.)

Thanks, beepo, yeah, I deduced your hint myself, though until I turned up the brightness that didn't solve everything.

howlongtobeat gives Night in the Woods 8.5 hours for main story, 12 hours for "main + extras" and 23 hours for "completionist." I'm definitely not aiming for completionist, so I'd guess I'm steering towards a 12 hour or so experience. I noticed yesterday that the Switch tells me I'm about 4 hours in, so, I definitely have more time left than I'd guessed. 12 hours is pretty long for a game like this!

Played a little more and I adore the atmosphere. I need that for a game like this it has to be a world I'm happy to exist in otherwise I can get too impatient.

Tried practising my guitar with the controller. Expecting me to switch between more than two buttons on the controller rapidly and repeatedly is a non-starter..... It has just occurred to me that's where I'm going wrong. Maybe, if I locate the equivalent keys on the keyboard, I'd stand more of a chance.

Honestly, don’t overthinking the guitar part. It won’t change the story and if you allow yourself to not care, I guarantee you’ll get more enjoyment!

I shall endeavour not take it too seriously. The visuals are funny regardless .

I finished NITW over my vacation (including playing at least a couple of hours while in the middle seat in the back of my minivan as I endeavored to keep an 8 month old and a 3 year old happy). I loved the characters, thought the dialog was incredibly sharp, and really liked so many sequences in the game. I do think the game fell down a bit in the big picture plot, probably by trying to do more than necessary. Spoilers for stuff about the final third or so of the story:

Spoiler:

When there's finally a reveal about the crew of people in the mines who weren't miners who were sacrificing people to a God, or something, because they thought it would improve their lives and the conditions in the town, or something...for me I had extremely strong "final act of an Uncharted game" vibes, making me say "oh no, this was going so well, why are you bringing this supernatural BS into things?!?!?!" This was just not what I wanted or needed from the story. It really didn't work for me. I didn't get the mechanics of how the, I dunno, cultists?, separated Mae from her friends when they were chasing her, or how/why Mae's friends told people a modified version of what happened (I mean, I get why they didn't say "we were hunting ghosts..." but just "we stumbled across this group of people in weird costumes who seemed to be planning to kill someone and then they chased us!" seemed warranted), or how the cave collapsed (I understood from the scene where someone tries to grab Mae that the elevator broke in the struggle but how did the whole thing collapse? and also why, after saying they could go, did one of the group decide to chase after Mae, and are they really all dead and/or suffocating down there at the end of the game?). Anyway, I could go on, but I didn't think any of this fit in the game at all. It felt like an obligatory attempt to put in a more traditional video game plot. If my time with Mae and her friends just ended with Mae opening up to her friends and taking steps towards taking care of her mental health, that would've been a solid conclusion to me.

I'm a little frustrated to learn that some conversations with friends are mutually exclusive with others. This just seems like a strange game to give multiple playthroughs, and I don't think it would challenge the core design of the game to allow for more of these conversations to occur, so I don't get why that choice was made. I think I'd like to see this team's writing and visual design combined with another game design approach.

The game also inspired a bunch of other thoughts in me about my time in college, about friendship, and about dealing with people with depression, but eh, maybe I will write about that later. Suffice it to say for now that I thought these characters and relationships were so well-rendered it led to me spending a lot of time thinking about my college years and things that I missed and things that I wish I had done differently.

Really glad I played this. My Switch seems to say I finished in 5-6 hours, but I suspect that may be a bit of an undercount...I would guess more like 8.

Another thought I had about this game: on the Switch, I wish this game supported video saving rather than screenshots, and/or that word balloons would persist for longer than a single button press in conversations. There were so many excellent little exchanges between characters that I would love to save and share, but without being able to turn it into video, and with each balloon disappearing following the next, there was no way to share a single image showing a funny exchange. There's a lot of clever bits I would have tweeted out if there had been a way to do that. Oh well.