Night in the Woods
I was born in a small town
Developer InfInIte fall publisher fInjI price US$ 20 AvAilAble At Steam www.nightinthewoods.com
At one point in Night in the Woods a minor character says to Mae, the feline protagonist, “Hey can we hang out sometime?” Mae blinks, as the two of them sit on a roof high above the main street of Possum Springs, their legs dangling over the edge, “Isn’t that what we’re doing?”
Night in the Woods isn’t what I was expecting. I’d assumed it would be a cutesy 2D platformer with a spooky story, self-aware dialogue, and Limbostyle puzzles. I was wrong. Night in the Woods is narrative-driven adventure that consists almost entirely of conversations with friends, neighbours and other people around town. Mostly, though, it’s about hanging out. Mae’s a 20 year old college dropout who has returned to her home town of Possum Springs, the kind of working class “rust belt” town that globalisation left behind. The mine’s now closed, and so’s the supermarket, and every second store on Main Street is boarded up. No one has a phone because you can’t get reception anyway. The kinda place where kids mostly just hang out and do dumb shit.
Mae reconnects with her old high school friends with just the right balance of enthusiasm, awkwardness and a desire to make up for lost time. She joins up with her old bandmates - still practicing and still yet to actually play a gig. She runs into younger kids who know her by reputation only, and a cranky elderly neighbour who’s never forgiven her for some terrible incident in her teens. She goes to a party and throws up on her ex.
Poking through the suburban mundanity is the odd hint that not everything is quite as it seems. As
the right balance of enthusiasm, awkwardness and a desire to make up for lost time
Mae wanders around town, chatting with people and exploring every nook, cranny and rooftop, you’ll catch glimpses of mysteries and metaphors that run much deeper. How did that janitor know your name? Why does your aunt keep warning you to be careful? Whatever happened to that missing kid?
Turns out Night in the Woods isn’t really about the nocturnal, arboreal adventures of cute animals. It’s about being human, growing up and the fumbling attempts to make something of our one shot at this weird thing we call life. It’s about people who change, who cling to the past, who can’t seem to change no matter how hard they try.
Night in the Woods is about escapism. It’s about the stories we tell ourselves when we’re listless and bored. It’s about the fantasies we create to serve as motivation to strive for something better, or at least to give us hope that there is something better.
It’s about realising it doesn’t matter if your mum isn’t cool because she loves you no matter how badly you screw up. It’s about not knowing how to say the things you want to say to your dad but you know it means something to him when the two of you share the couch in front of his favourite tv show. It’s about friendships that endure and bonds that grow stronger through fights and forgiveness.
You really should hang out there.