Predominantly, it is a visual novel: a fixed, linear narrative that asks players to click through mountains upon mountains of dialogue. At other times, it is an exploration-based 2D platformer. At some points, Night in the Woods is a rhythm game. This sense of writhing generic unpredictability affects what you actually do in the game, as well. On top of that, it adds a glaze of supernatural horror, without ever losing its grounding in careful observation of small-town life. Night in the Woods aims for the quotidian slow burn of an Edward Yang film, where the unhurried rhythms of everyday life suddenly give way to shocking bursts of violence. And so she loiters about, aimless, apathetic, in the recession-wracked community of Possum Springs, waiting for her friends to get off work so that she can hang out with them. Her reasons for doing this remain vague, as she is uncomfortable discussing them with friends or family. Initially this might be taken for a leave of absence, but as the game progresses it becomes increasingly evident that she means to drop out. Mae is a college student who abruptly returns home. This is all part of the generic dance of Night in the Woods. What’s scary is the loss of economic security, and the horrible lengths that some people will go to wrestle back even a modicum of self-respect. Because deep down, what’s scary in Night of the Woods isn’t the ancient Lovecraftian deity dwelling unseen within the mines of Possum Springs. She doesn’t know that a few days later she’ll be staring into a hellmouth.īut, simultaneously, Night in the Woods also proves Bea right. She isn’t genre-savvy enough to foresee her story’s twists and turns. Bea doesn’t know she is in a horror game. Bea’s response? “The scariest stuff is like really really boring.”įrom a certain angle, Night in the Woods proves Bea wrong. He’s here to tell you they’re gonna take your house.” Mae charges Bea with being depressing and boring. And no one in power gives a shit, or they’re actively making it worse, out of spite or profit.” Against Mae’s protestations, Bea continues spinning her terrifying yarn: “A regular stranger person outside your window.
Bea replies: “Things are like monumentally screwed right now. Genre troubleĪt one point, attempting to conjure a ghost while ambling around a graveyard, our player-character Mae (an anthropomorphic cat) asks her friend Bea (an anthropomorphic crocodile) to tell a scary story. I am just going to out and say it: It is inconceivable to me how this game, which was Kickstarted way back in March of 20-fucking-13, ended up being such a perfect allegory for the Trump/Brexit era. And it is here, quite surprisingly, that the horror of Night in the Woods erupts. This past decade of economic malaise has ground down on the Boomer generation and the Millennial generation in different ways, resulting in starkly divergent generational politics. It also casts a keen eye towards generational differences. The game is striking in its precision: the shuttered shops, the service jobs taking over from industrial jobs, the emptying pews. ( This one, profiled just before the 2016 election, in fact.) I found Night in the Woods to be a revelation.
Although I now live in a Midwestern city, I grew up in, and still have plenty of family ties to, a community much like the game’s Possum Springs. Night in the Woods corrects this omission. Whatever you call them, they have not frequently been the subjects of videogames.
You may call the denizens of these communities the rural precariat. It pinpoints the fears and uncertainties of post-2008-recession America, in particular those portions of rural/small-town American that have been hit by the collapse of the industrial sector and the one-two punch of meth and opioids. Night in the Woods is the most 2010s game so far released in the 2010s. I will be discussing how this very important game’s themes resonate all the way to its ending. Find out why below the fold, but beware of spoilers if you haven’t played it yet, and plan to. Night in the Woods tells the most vital story of any game in 2017. We’re only halfway through the year, but I doubt very much that it will be bested in this regard.
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