April Assassination #4 (Backlog)

One of the best walking simulators I had the pleasure of playing. For a game where you barely do anything more than walking left and right and interacting with NPCs and certain objects, this keep me hooked more than it had any right to.

What makes Night In The Woods from a good to a great game its the quality of the writing. All characters are multi-layered and believable, and their interactions always go a layer deeper than you would expect. Not only that, but everyone has some pathos, including the setting i.e. the city of Possum Springs. Trauma is everywhere, like it or not. What changes is how people react to it and deal with it. And our protagonist, Mae Borowski, is really flawed, which just gives a lot of room to create these situations where emotionally unstable folks just clash and have to deal with the fallout later. It's great.

The production values are also pretty high. The UI is clean and allow you to focus and take in the environment. Animations are fluid and every scene is shock-full of detail and props that enhance the believability. The soundtrack, man, is glorious. And don't get me started on the journal, so shock-full of personality just through doodles. The game sprinkles minigames every now and then to switch things up, and it really helps. Things like band practice, miracle babies feeding time, eating pizza, opening windows, etc. It didn't need to do that, but I'm glad it does.

All in all, it's one of those games that refuses to be explained. When you put all cards on the table, it sounds boring or subpar. When you play it, it's a vibe and works much better than you would expect. It has to be played slowly, maybe one day at a time, so there's enough time for all the themes to sink in. I highly, highly recommend it for anyone who has the minimal interest on walking sims and just human nature and the tragedy of human condition.