January 27, 2023

My Night In The Woods Review, Remastered

Playing the hits!

As I noted in my previous post, in 2022 The Young Folks closed up shop. For those of you who might not have known me from there, it was an entertainment focused website mostly focused on millennial audiences (when it was launched the name made more sense, okay?) and was the first publication willing to run my work. To their credit, we were given ample time to archive our entire output for the site and given explicit rights to run elsewhere as we saw fit. 

With that in mind, I’m going to take a page out of the game industry’s book by taking content that was once easily available and is no longer due to forces beyond anyone’s control and rereleasing that with minimal effort changes on an entirely different platform. At least I’m not going to charge you a subscription for it.

First up: my review of Night in the Woods, in honor of the game’s physical release, which is still available via Limited Run Games until Sunday, January 29th. 

I’ve always been fond of this review. It gets pretty personal, in retrospect more than I should have been, but that’s exactly how the game left me. It also was - if I recall correctly - somewhat popular beyond normal traffic for the site. It certainly got some positive traction in communities I normally don’t frequent, which taught me an important lesson about keeping an open mind about who’s reading your words. 

(The next part of this is going to get kind of heavy with content, so if you are sensitive to talks about abuse and suicide please skip to the first instance of bolded text.)

However, any revisitation of this game would be incomplete and dishonest without at least mentioning events that occurred after its release. During a rise of #metoo stories in the games industry in 2019, developer and composer Alec Holowka was accused of emotional and physical abuse by a former partner and colleague in the indie space during their time together in 2012.12 These accounts were corroborated elsewhere and in the other developers of the game and swift action was taken to separate from Holowka. Publisher Finji also distanced themselves, and the physical release was put on hold until literally now. I won’t get into the details of the accusations and I encourage you to look at the sources linked for more details if you need, but they are infuriating, horrifying, and disappointing to read. 

I remember when these allegations came out and I was heartbroken, especially at the concern of the people coming forward that people’s love of the game would lead them to disregard them, or worse. Then it got worse. 

Days later, Holowka’s sister released a statement revealing that they had lost Alec to suicide.3 It’s a truly tragic end, both for a person who will never have the opportunity to improve themselves and for those who put themselves forward in the attempt to spur change for them and him. Nothing in any public account asked for anything more than for Holowka to be held accountable and be driven to seek healing himself, and it’s a damn shame that we never got to see that.

These events are heartbreaking and a tragedy, but they are important to remember in context of this game in particular. Art that is particularly moving often reflects things about their creators and it's clear some of these struggles of Holowka’s made their way into the game. They may even be a part of why the game has been so resonant. At the risk of spoiling my own republished work, it’s also important that while these kinds of struggles are difficult to overcome, they can be. I found not just struggle but encouragement and peace though Night in the Woods, something that was the crux of this review. That’s what I hope others can take away as well. 

If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide, please contact the National Suicide Hotline at 988.

(The following was originally published on TheYoungFolks.com on February 25, 2017, however throughout I will leave Notes From The Future, either adding new context or corrections. Think of it like a director’s commentary.)

“You are always welcome here,” my mother reminds me as I haul in boxes of my possessions. I know that she’s telling the truth, but I also know that she doesn’t really have the room for her son who’s already moved out once and tried to expand his life. Even so, losing housing at the church with a part-time job and unreliable school schedule basically eliminated my other options. I feel like a failure.

Note From The Future: It’s probably obvious what I’m doing here narratively but in the interest of telling on myself, of course I didn’t come up with this “compare your life experience to playing a video game” review idea. I took it from one of my favorite written pieces of all time, Jason Schreier’s review of Final Fantasy XV for Kotaku.4 It was still very fresh in my mind at the time and felt like a suitable format for processing the emotions I had after playing NITW. As they say, if you’re gonna steal, steal from the best.

Night in the Woods is an adventure game three years in the making, following a successful Kickstarter campaign and growing a dedicated fan following. The story takes place in Possum Springs, a town that could basically be Small Rural Town, U.S.A. You play as Mae Borowski, a twenty-something woman moving back home from college for nondescript reasons. Having been away for some time, Mae now must settle back into small town life and reconnect with her family and her friends, a task that turns out to be easier said than done given Mae’s personality.

Also, everyone in this game is an anthropomorphic animal character.

A majority of your time with Night in the Woods centers around this, with Mae going out to explore Possum Springs and interact with the various townsfolk. While there is an exploration element to the game-as a cat, Mae is capable of accessing hidden areas, for example, a majority of time is spent talking to other characters or no one at all. Since this is a pillar of the game, characters can only be interacted with when they have something to say. Early on, a lot of what they have to say questions Mae and why she’s back. She’s not interested in talking about it.

It’s been a couple of years, and the anger of being sent the equivalent of back in time has worn off. There’s still hesitation, a lot of it coming from the way people have started to shift in talking. I’m hearing a lot more about the perceived failures of the government and a whole lot about ways of life being threatened. A lot of the time, I don’t see it. Sometimes, I just played along because I didn’t want to be ostracized more for not being useful. Other times, I chose not to notice. We hadn’t had a class in weeks. Even though I told myself I was doing what I wanted to, secretly I doubted my choices.

Mae’s friends make up most of the main cast. Some are glad to see her back in town, others less so. Adventuring with them is what actually progresses both the main plot and everyone’s individual arcs. Often, we’re taken outside of the city for adventures and will often see these facilitated by mini-games meant to add more interactivity to events. Where other narrative-driven games add such things for fear of being called “not a game,” here they feel like reasonable extensions of the main game. None of these mini-games are difficult really, but some do have a bit more of a learning curve that you might not get the hang of the first time. Through these events, we come to learn a lot about where all of these folks have come from, and where they aren’t going.

Note From The Future: What a stupid fucking paragraph this is, actually. This kind of writing is a remnant from that period of time where everyone had stretched the “walking simulator” discourse for too long and I felt a need to defend it, even though I was clearly playing a goddamn point-and-click adventure game. But of course, that’s kind of what a lot of the “walking simulators” were too. Anyway, while I’m making slight corrections and edits to this as I go, I’m leaving this stupid paragraph as a monument to make sure I don’t go this far up my own ass again.

Unsurprisingly, living in a coal-mining town in this day and age isn’t exactly great for attracting opportunity, and it becomes increasingly clear that Night in the Woods is about being a millennial in a world that doesn’t know what the hell to do with you. Many of the young adults in Possum Springs carry heavy weights on their hearts, often as the result of circumstance or their own actions. Others simply have no motivation at all, they’ve given up on ever leaving the town or making something of themselves at all. Several of them fall into the LGBTQ+ community, with at least one possibly being asexual. Relationships with their family members are strained often.

But it isn’t just those damn millennials that get all the attention. The other residents of Possum Springs get their fair share of development and concern. Given the town’s implicit history, it is a fairly conservative town (though, thankfully, not that kind of conservative) and its residents are feeling the hit too. Mae discovers that her parents have put themselves in quite a bit of debt in order for her to be “the first to go to college.” She’ll often pass the town council talking about the need to bring back businesses and/or jobs in order to “save the town.” That same town council puts a wrench in the humanitarian efforts of the new pastor of the local church, who notably refers to God with ‘they’ pronouns.

Note From The Future: If you haven’t figured it out already this pastor character really got to me. While they’re honestly not as important to the game as I made it seem here, I very much made a point to talk to them as often as I could. Imagine my unrealistic shock at finding out co-creator Scott Benson has his own Evangelical background.

While all of this is going on, Mae discovers that there may be a murderer in their midst, and they might not be mortal.

“You really should just stop this.” Matt’s my best friend, he can tell I’m not enjoying this anymore. “It’s frustrating, I know. But what else can I even do?” “I don’t know, maybe it doesn’t matter. Getting walked all over isn’t going to get you anywhere though.” “Where else do I have to go?”

Some people aren’t going to like the way Night in the Woods chooses to unfold its story. A lot of the time will be spent wandering around Possum Springs, and while some sections of the town will only be accessible later on, eventually everything becomes laid bare. True to the implication before, there really isn’t much going on in the town. For myself, the intimacy shown by the character interaction fills in the blanks. I couldn’t help but travel from edge to edge of the town every time the day cycled, out of fear of missing more of a conversation or a storyline. While yes, everyone is an animal, Night in the Woods avoids making puns or jokes at the expense of the narrative. No Zootopia style gags here. In fact, I’d say most of the cast of the game is more human and have more personality than actual humans in other games. If anything, the anthropomorphic motif is used to lower the audience’s guard and tell a more impacting story.

The central mystery does take some time to pick up, admittedly. The game is far more interested in the themes and motifs that make up its backbone than the plot itself. In spite of this, the themes do actually manage to converge back on that mystery in a way that is satisfying, even if you will likely figure it out beforehand. Despite managing to nail the culprit on the nose myself, the fact that Night in the Woods actually went for the ending that it did surprise me. For a game so grounded, the reveal at the end - the actual events during the titular night in the woods - almost feels like too high of a concept, and again may not sit well for everyone. I loved it, personally, and felt it tied the bow quite nicely. And yes, it’s worth not being spoiled. The fact that they actually go for it is almost unbelievable.

Note From The Future: Oh boy did I really sell this, eh? In my defense, we were all still reeling from the reality of a President Donald Trump and everyone was trying to figure out how the hell that happened and I’m just saying Ron Howard should have adapted this instead of ‘Hillbilly Elegy.’

I’m sitting on the bathtub floor while the hot shower water runs over me. A part of me wants to cry, but I just can’t muster the emotion. My mind keeps going back to the email I received, the old church told the new church about the feminism piece my wife shared around. The reason we left. They didn’t know that I’m the one who showed it to her. My skin is getting wrinkly, I’ve been in here for a while, unmoving. Inside my head, my world is spinning. I’m seeing everything differently. I realize, at this moment, that I don’t belong there. I probably never belonged there. I don’t know if I belong anywhere. I kind of don’t care.

Note From The Future: Because this was going up as a video game review, I didn’t even think to link the piece in question. It’s “How Sexism in the Church Almost Ruined My Life” by Jennifer C. Martin. Funny story, I actually ended up becoming Twitter friends with the author and she’s super sweet even though I don’t chat much cause I’m so convinced none of my mutuals actually want to put up with me. I know you have no reason to read this but if you do, you’re my goddamn hero, Jen. I wouldn’t be where I am without you writing this piece. 

As a whole, Night in the Woods is a meditation on disillusionment. While this is generally associated with the millennial generation, I’m not sure myself that it’s age-specific, and this game makes a pretty strong case for the same. However, Night In The Woods also realizes that there isn’t a single, if any, good way to break it. If anything, the game feels like an acknowledgment that not only does disillusionment happen, it can happen and be a net good, depending on how it is handled. What is being advocated for here is for healing and moving forward, seeking help and good influence, even if you yourself are not a perfect one. Mae shoplifts, she is awkward in public situations, jobless, not healthy, and unsure. She’s also determined and cares about her friends and her town.

This atmosphere is key to keeping Night in the Woods from turning into a monotonous or preachy experience. There isn’t a big meta reveal, there’s no grand enduring triumph. You’ll become just as familiar with Possum Springs as you would your own neighborhood. In most elements, lacking these tricks would be weaknesses. Instead, they are strengths. I felt personally invested in the day to day as if it were my own-in a lot of ways it felt that similar. More times than I want to admit, the dialogue had me in tears at its familiarity and resonance. I immediately began recommending this to close friends and family who I knew would feel the same. I would easily recommend this to people accustomed to playing games on their phone. To all of them, I would say the same thing:

You will see glimpses of yourself in this game. You might not like what you’ll find. It will be worth it.

It isn’t a spoiler to say that the final word in Night in the Woods is “Decent.” However, Night In the Woods is far more than decent. It’s the best game I’ve played in 2017, and there've already been a lot of good games in 2017. Yet, Night in the Woods was more than even that to me. I was deeply and personally impacted by this game, in a way I always say games are capable of but many never achieve.

Sitting in my office, I play the final few moments of a little indie title. I told my editor I had a hunch about this game, and I’ll be glad to report I was right. Through this game, I’ve revisited moments of my life I wasn’t even aware I didn’t process completely. With those memories and emotions in my mind, I look around at the room. I think about the chain of events that brought me to this room to begin writing a review of a video game. I think about my wife, dozing off on my lap while I played the game. Looking back at the screen while the credits roll, I nod. “Decent. Decent, indeed.”

Note From The Future: Look, I literally wrote this within hours of finishing the game. Only one other game has ever lit the same kind of fire under my ass, and for an entirely different reason.5 Unfortunately, I didn’t realize until days later when a friend who did take my recommendation from this review pointed out to me that ‘Night in the Woods’ has different ending dialogue options! I closed this whole thing with an affirmative that you might not see. Risks of writing such a personal piece. Even so, I couldn’t bring myself to come back and try to rewrite the ending, even this time around.

Hey, that wasn’t so bad, was it? Maybe we’ll do this again when I feel I can’t squeeze in a full blog want to revisit the old work. If this was bad, please let me know. 

No Warp Zone this time, because next time we’re going to be having a bit of a recommend-palooza.