Night in the Woods

Mechanics

Gameplay as such here is filled with exploration, featuring platformer elements. Thus the player walks, jumps, talks to characters encountered and uses the protagonist's abilities to discover subsequent secrets of the town and its neighbouring areas. In the meantime, the player can engage in many other, unusal activities, such as playing a bass guitar or having good time with friends. These seemingly simplistic mechanics contain a series of subliminal messages, as well as a massive number of weighty existential questions many people have probably tried to find answers for. Above all, the creators discuss subjects such as transience of all things, longing for that what cannot be re-gained, inevitability of death or whether one is capable of preparing themselves for it. Despite the fact that different characters are represented by animals here, they are along with the fictitious Possum Springs, filled with analogies to the real world. One can almost find a chunk of their own life here.

Technical aspects

In terms of the visuals, Night in the Woods for PC, PS4 and etc. offers carefully-crafted, though simple, old-school hand-drawn graphics, which is typical for indie games. The graphics were created by Scott Benson, who is both an animator and cartoonist. Although it was his debut in the gaming industry, the art style he had been popular for was applied here. The game's sympathetic soundtrack on the other hand, was created by Alec Holowka himself.