I wanna tell you real fast about a video game. It's called Night in the Woods.
If you're into gaming at all, you have probably heard of it. If you're not into gaming, you probably have not. It is an indie game, made by a small loving team, that ran a highly communicative and engaging Kickstarter campaign on the back of a simple but promising trailer.
I love it.
I've only played about 90 minutes. I'm sure it's not perfect. I can already tell that some of its necessary limitations, the things that it does to keep me on narrative track, may @ some point feel like corralling. I don't really care.
I love it. Here's why:
It's been clear, following the Kickstarter campaign, that its creators are duly obsessed with execution, aesthetics, for lack of a better word...art. And y'know what my own big project is not yet as complete as theirs, so I say this with studious humility but: I'm obsessed with that, too. So I was hoping I'd love it. Because I'm obsessed with the idea that if you really focus on making every thing, every beat, every element of your [insert form of expression] matter and land, then that's what it's about. That's why this stuff matters and is good and imparts something from some humans (in my case, I guess, one human) to others.
And this team, already, has done that over and over for me as a player.
When I played a "rhythm game" early on after Mae, the insanely engaging protagonist (an anthropomorphized cat; all the characters are anthropomorphized somethings), reengages her old friends and rejoins with the band...the song was good, and had good lyrics, and I cared about the scene and if I did well in the song.
When I had to buzz up to an apartment and a button was missing so I pressed all the others and had funny conversations and during that time I noticed the hint that was how I beat this small puzzle and got past this bit:
- I liked those conversations. They were fun and funny.
- That made the gradual repetition of the puzzle element engaging.
- That made the puzzle fun; that made it a game.
When I got home after having some conversations and doing some things and it was night because I'd slept in until 4pm because [story]...it all completely worked. It completely synced up.
(At one point, team NITW, I fell through the floor of my house, btw. I'm pretty sure it was not supposed to happen. Reloaded just fine.)
When the scenes that Mae has with (deliberate, likable) reliable repetition with her parents--dad at night; mom in morning--are GOOD SCENES, then I engage them and learn from them and enter the world.
And, most of all, when every visual detail and musical beat is like...a piece of expression given form either visual or aural, and teaches me/says something about Mae and her world, and the state of emotion and existence of each...it's immersive. It's so, so immersive. I'm playing a AAA game now, as well, that I'm really enjoying, that I think is so great. But I'm not going to name it right here and right now because my point is this scrappy little indie is beating the pants off of it. NOT because of charity points, NOT because I so like the idea of a scrappy little indie. But because by controlling its small number of elements with such fine-toothed attention to aesthetic detail, they've created something completely and wholly engaging.
Thanks so much, Night in the Woods. I can't wait to feel more.
If you're into gaming at all, you have probably heard of it. If you're not into gaming, you probably have not. It is an indie game, made by a small loving team, that ran a highly communicative and engaging Kickstarter campaign on the back of a simple but promising trailer.
I love it.
I've only played about 90 minutes. I'm sure it's not perfect. I can already tell that some of its necessary limitations, the things that it does to keep me on narrative track, may @ some point feel like corralling. I don't really care.
I love it. Here's why:
It's been clear, following the Kickstarter campaign, that its creators are duly obsessed with execution, aesthetics, for lack of a better word...art. And y'know what my own big project is not yet as complete as theirs, so I say this with studious humility but: I'm obsessed with that, too. So I was hoping I'd love it. Because I'm obsessed with the idea that if you really focus on making every thing, every beat, every element of your [insert form of expression] matter and land, then that's what it's about. That's why this stuff matters and is good and imparts something from some humans (in my case, I guess, one human) to others.
And this team, already, has done that over and over for me as a player.
When I played a "rhythm game" early on after Mae, the insanely engaging protagonist (an anthropomorphized cat; all the characters are anthropomorphized somethings), reengages her old friends and rejoins with the band...the song was good, and had good lyrics, and I cared about the scene and if I did well in the song.
When I had to buzz up to an apartment and a button was missing so I pressed all the others and had funny conversations and during that time I noticed the hint that was how I beat this small puzzle and got past this bit:
- I liked those conversations. They were fun and funny.
- That made the gradual repetition of the puzzle element engaging.
- That made the puzzle fun; that made it a game.
When I got home after having some conversations and doing some things and it was night because I'd slept in until 4pm because [story]...it all completely worked. It completely synced up.
(At one point, team NITW, I fell through the floor of my house, btw. I'm pretty sure it was not supposed to happen. Reloaded just fine.)
When the scenes that Mae has with (deliberate, likable) reliable repetition with her parents--dad at night; mom in morning--are GOOD SCENES, then I engage them and learn from them and enter the world.
And, most of all, when every visual detail and musical beat is like...a piece of expression given form either visual or aural, and teaches me/says something about Mae and her world, and the state of emotion and existence of each...it's immersive. It's so, so immersive. I'm playing a AAA game now, as well, that I'm really enjoying, that I think is so great. But I'm not going to name it right here and right now because my point is this scrappy little indie is beating the pants off of it. NOT because of charity points, NOT because I so like the idea of a scrappy little indie. But because by controlling its small number of elements with such fine-toothed attention to aesthetic detail, they've created something completely and wholly engaging.
Thanks so much, Night in the Woods. I can't wait to feel more.
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