Night in the Woods - A Platform Adventure About Personal Growth and Spooky Secrets

Sometimes, it is nice to live the life you are used to. You can talk to the same people, do the same things you usually do, go to the places you know, and there is hardly anything that is unfamiliar. Well, that is until things start taking an unusual turn. On the surface, this game may appear to be a cute game with its cartoonish graphics, but underneath that is a journey about personal growth and discovering awful truths.

Night in the Woods is a platform adventure game where you play as Mae, a recent college dropout who has returned to her hometown of Possum Springs and the characters are zoomorphic animals. Possum Springs is a mining town that has been stagnating economically with not much to do there. Nonetheless, it is the home that Mae is familiar with and wants to return to. She revisits her parents, friends and neighbours, whom she used to talk to during her childhood. She can interact with the characters she encounters along the way. Through these interactions, we learn more about her childhood, the people of Possum Springs and the history of Possum Springs itself.

At the beginning of the game, I was introduced to Mae. She meets a janitor and they have a brief conversation before he fixes the door and leaves for the night.

Exiting from the station, I help Mae make her way back home but I am confronted with an obstacle course, introducing me to the parkour level features of the game. These parkour levels were not anything special but were short, required just a little thinking and were quick to solve once I figured it out.

Eventually, I find myself in Mae’s home and that’s where we find out that she recently dropped out of college and wanted to stay in her hometown of Possum Springs for a while. The next in-game day, I explored the town and what it had to offer. There is not much guidance from the game itself, encouraging an exploratory approach to the world that depends on the player to learn information by themselves. By speaking with the citizens and interacting with objects, trivia and pieces of the story are revealed.

I eventually met Mae’s friends and that’s when I was introduced to one of the few mini-games – A rhythm game similar to Rock Band where you have to press the keys at a certain time as they slide down the screen. Regarding the music, they were fun to listen to and the soundtrack was quite extensive. From rock jams to classical tunes, they fit into their respective situations well.

There were more mini-games that are introduced later on such as tossing pierogi’s in your friend’s mouth or shooting water balloons at townsfolk for an annual event. The games were quite simple as they typically did not require more than the movement keys and one action key, but the variety of games implemented into the game were a nice break and were fun to play, even if they had little to do with the plot itself.

Speaking of the plot, the pacing felt like a slow-burn. I could only learn so much about Mae’s childhood and the history of Possum Springs, but I was wondering when the actual story would begin. and how these details will become relevant. I did not want to think the game was dull so I kept pushing forward and I was glad I did because things started to pick up then.

Eventually, Mae experiences strange dreams and each subsequent dream becomes progressively more bizarre. Aesthetically, the colours chosen for the design gave the dream levels a beautiful atmosphere while masking the creepiness that accompanied the end of each dream. They felt like a chore to complete at times, but were fine otherwise.

As the days go on, Mae continues to try to re-adjust to the life she had before going to college while suffering from her worsening dreams. For each day, we get to decide which friend Mae hangs out with and do a unique activity with them. Through these activities, we learn more about the characters and form a closer connection with them. There were many cute moments, but there were also some tense or sadder moments as well, highlighting the game’s ability to handle serious topics. The dialogues between the characters give them some depth that made me empathize with them. If there is anything that the game does well, it is rounding out their personalities and bringing these characters to life with their unfortunate experiences that shaped them the way they are today.

Although life does appear to be normal for Mae despite her bothersome dreams, disturbances occur in Mae’s real life as well. Just like Mae, I was confused and curious to try to find meaning behind all of these events. This is where the story truly begins, which is quite late into the story. Mae and her friends begin the investigation and along the way, more facts are learned.

Things eventually start to intertwine as we start to make sense of everything Mae experienced. The game progressively becomes darker and soon, the reasons behind most of Mae’s experiences are revealed. There were some details that were not resolved, but I think they are up to the player to theorize, which the ambiguity may annoy some people depending on who you are. Personally, it would be nice to have some more closure at the conclusion of the story, but it is fine otherwise.

Overall, Night in the Woods was a unique experience and I enjoyed the game for the most part. There were a few dull moments when things felt like they were slowing down, but the pace picked right back up afterwards. I enjoyed the collection of mini-games that supplemented the main story and the themes it touched on were well put together. Immersing you into the world, there was a lot to learn about the characters, the setting and the reasoning behind it all and the journey was worth it. Do not let the art throw you off. For how cute the settings and characters are drawn, the game can handle and embed serious topics. For anyone looking for a platform adventure game, A Night in the Woods might be worth giving a shot.