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- Jun 15, 2014
Let's Sperg Jaimas Plays a Mediocre Game: Night In the Woods - A Narrative Game Better Than Most JRATG Titles
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- Jun 27, 2014
A church, it seems - dedicated to some foul worship.
The group encounters the congregation soonafter, and we get a major set of revelations.
I wasn't wrong.
The miners, ages ago, found that Possum Springs was dying - a mining town with no mine, quarries that were running dry, industry that was failing. It's a midwest town whose relevance had faded. In desperation, the Miners tried to find additional ore, only to discover... The Black Goat. It offered them bounty and prosperity - if only they satisfied its hunger. They fed it only those who wouldn't be missed - drifters, non-locals, the homeless.
Suddenly, the disappearance of Casey, Gregg and Mae's friend, becomes crystal clear. So does the abduction of that child. So does the disappearance of Bruce. All connected to a cult devoted to keeping this.... Thing fed. Mae's had the visions; she's heard the songs. The Black Goat requires nourishment, and the cult requires successors - successors in the form of the group, if they will allow it. The Goat let them live beyond their years, but they are all ancient now, and need new blood.
The group refuses, and the leader says he'll let them mill it over - it's not like they can escape if they try to flee, or get anyone in town to believe them if they tell.
Mae understands why they're doing this; in a way, her own mental illness gives her some insight into the fear they feel. It's existential dread.
Eide, the cultist Gregg winged earlier, tries to grab Mae and drag her back to be sacrificed. The group pulls for dear life while Mae kicks him in the face. Angus pulls the lever, and the elevator cuts loose, chopping the motherfucker in half and causing a cave-in that leaves the group trapped below.
Angus finds a passage and together, with teamwork, they pry open the way.
Mae faces the abomination in her mind, and realizes that yes, she is insignificant, but fuck that, she is going to live while she's alive. The horror responds, but Mae doesn't know what he says.
The group finds their way to a vent. Using her natural catness, Mae climbs up the shaft and to freedom.
She winds up in the woods near Germ's place. Germ finds her in short order and gets a rope, and the group successfully extracts from the mines.
Best little weird birdguy. Germ promises to seal the well, and the group travels home.
Up the path, Bea brings up that the group just killed like a dozen people. In self-defense, but still.
Angus says it best.
Mae heads home, and talks to the others via Chattrbox, explaining her thoughts on the night.
Mae's message is one of hope and friendship. She's glad she had so much help tonight. For the first time in.... Forever, Mae sleeps peacefully.
Only the Epilogue ahead.
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- Jun 15, 2014
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- Jun 27, 2014
The creepy "ghost" Mae kept seeing. It's heavily implied to be one of the townsfolk Mae is close to.
We'll know more in the Epilogue, I feel.
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- Feb 10, 2017
This latest bit of NitW didn't seem too bad. Admittedly, that might be due to my fascination with Lovecraftian creatures and themes.
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- Jun 27, 2014
Wow, so the Epilogue explained nothing, but is surprisingly heartfelt.
It starts with Mae making nice with her parents and promising to be home for dinner that night. Her dad is talking about unionizing and asks her if she'll help with the picket line if it comes to that.
Mae's grown up a bit.
All over town, you can find rats; Mae's feeding the Rat Family has led to the little bastards being all over the central town area making a nuisance of themselves.
They'll feed themselves now.
A new store moves in where Pastabilities was.
Mae approves.
Tom Kitten got a new job.
He doesn't hate it.
Mae befriends the old bird outside Miller's now that his friend has moved away (or was killed in the mine collapse, being one of the cultists). One may never know for sure, but friends are a cool thing.
Go Smelters.
At band practice, Mae and Gregg discuss recent events.
They talk about what happened, the cult, if they noticed anyone missing, that sort of shit, and try to piece it all together. Casey is dead and the group decides not to tell his parents. Nobody would believe them anyway.
Goddamnit, Mae.
The ending ends with all four friends talking about what they're gonna do, and deciding to just move on with their lives.
The game just sort of ends.
Rami Ismail, serial race-baiter and nuclear SJW (who also happens to be a competent if dickish game dev) gets a special thanks in the credits. So does Tim Schaefer.
You then get to see your completed sketchbook and the game presumably asks you to get the other ending to max it out. That shit isn't happening; once was enough.
Review of game to follow.
It starts with Mae making nice with her parents and promising to be home for dinner that night. Her dad is talking about unionizing and asks her if she'll help with the picket line if it comes to that.
Mae's grown up a bit.
All over town, you can find rats; Mae's feeding the Rat Family has led to the little bastards being all over the central town area making a nuisance of themselves.
They'll feed themselves now.
A new store moves in where Pastabilities was.
Mae approves.
Tom Kitten got a new job.
He doesn't hate it.
Mae befriends the old bird outside Miller's now that his friend has moved away (or was killed in the mine collapse, being one of the cultists). One may never know for sure, but friends are a cool thing.
Go Smelters.
At band practice, Mae and Gregg discuss recent events.
They talk about what happened, the cult, if they noticed anyone missing, that sort of shit, and try to piece it all together. Casey is dead and the group decides not to tell his parents. Nobody would believe them anyway.
Goddamnit, Mae.
The ending ends with all four friends talking about what they're gonna do, and deciding to just move on with their lives.
The game just sort of ends.
Rami Ismail, serial race-baiter and nuclear SJW (who also happens to be a competent if dickish game dev) gets a special thanks in the credits. So does Tim Schaefer.
You then get to see your completed sketchbook and the game presumably asks you to get the other ending to max it out. That shit isn't happening; once was enough.
Review of game to follow.
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2014
Night in the Woods isn't terrible. If we go strictly by the rules of JRATG thus far, it's easily the best game done for this segment, to the point where I had to make this a JRAMG game instead, because NITW isn't really that bad. But it's not exactly that good, either, and I'm entirely sure I am not this game's target audience.
So lemme go over the game's biggest strengths and flaws:
Final Verdict: This game isn't bad. It's not good either, and though it has good moments, I didn't really find it hugely enjoyable. I'm willing to accept that this may be because I'm not its intended audience, though this didn't stop me from enjoying other games in this genre. If nothing else, it can claim its laurels on making me laugh a few times, having some decent characterization here and there, and giving us the best Autistic fox I've seen in a game, who has a retarded arm flappy dance that never fails to get a laugh out of me.
And hey, Mae grew up by the end. If even one Tumblrette learns from that..? Maybe this thing was worth it.
So lemme go over the game's biggest strengths and flaws:
1. Great characterization, and avoids the pitfalls that normally come from SJW-made works. Mae is a little shit, but she's not done in a way that's outright insufferable, and she does get better as the game progresses. Gregg is a high-functioning Autistic treat, Angus is amazing, and Bea is well-rounded and down-to-earth. None of the characters are checkboxes, none of them are done to simply fill a diversity quota, and anything remotely "social justice" affiliated with them is indicated to be more due to their upbringings and backgrounds (Gregg clearly being into punk, for instance) than it is just taking a shot at "the man."
2. Respects the audience's intelligence. This game doesn't make excuses for Mae being a piece of shit. It doesn't go out of its way to cover up the characters' flaws or portray them in a positive light for the sake of making the player empathize with them. It also avoids that horse-shit done by Hackers vs Banksters where it tries to browbeat you into managing the characters' lives because they have no self-control or self-awareness. The characters are portrayed very human (surprising considering their animal appearances), and most people I know know someone who is like one of the main four characters, which I suspect does a lot to help the game along.
3. Some truly good moments. The entire last hour of gameplay for me was thoroughly enjoyable and definitely had me guessing. I was disappointed when I guessed 100% right, but that's the game's fault for wandering into my wheelhouse on the Lovecraft spectrum.
4. Charming art-style. I'll give the game its props, it looks nice. It's got a cutesy charm that can't be denied.
5. Decent Music. I'm not a fan of the band practice scenes but the environment music works beautifully.
6. It's better than Life is Strange. Fuck you, I'll say it because it's true.
2. Respects the audience's intelligence. This game doesn't make excuses for Mae being a piece of shit. It doesn't go out of its way to cover up the characters' flaws or portray them in a positive light for the sake of making the player empathize with them. It also avoids that horse-shit done by Hackers vs Banksters where it tries to browbeat you into managing the characters' lives because they have no self-control or self-awareness. The characters are portrayed very human (surprising considering their animal appearances), and most people I know know someone who is like one of the main four characters, which I suspect does a lot to help the game along.
3. Some truly good moments. The entire last hour of gameplay for me was thoroughly enjoyable and definitely had me guessing. I was disappointed when I guessed 100% right, but that's the game's fault for wandering into my wheelhouse on the Lovecraft spectrum.
4. Charming art-style. I'll give the game its props, it looks nice. It's got a cutesy charm that can't be denied.
5. Decent Music. I'm not a fan of the band practice scenes but the environment music works beautifully.
6. It's better than Life is Strange. Fuck you, I'll say it because it's true.
1. The plot fucking drags for most of the game. No nice way to put this. It was almost four hours before shit actually happened for me in this fucking game during Halloween. This game takes way too long getting anywhere and it's not to the game's benefit.
2. The minigames suck. None allow you to practice, especially not the band segments. All of them drop you into the deep end and expect you to pass or fail. Only one of these minigames gives you a tutorial (pilfering pretzels), and the game autosaves all the time preventing you from actually learning how to do them. Demon Tower is the lone exception because it's its own video game.
3. Story is bizarrely unfocused. The main "crux" of the story - the part that really sticks with the player isn't the actually interesting stuff going on - the Cult of Shub-Niggurath or anything like that - it's Mae's personal evolution and growth into an adult, which is admittedly less interesting. While there is a certain charm to seeing Mae better herself, that's not where the main plot of the game is and unfortunately that's not where the player's attentions are all game. The game tries to keep like 40 threads up in the air for most of the game, most of which go nowhere and which abruptly end like the game itself does. There is barely any closure and the game doesn't really do anything with the big "wham" moments in the story other than showing that they exist.
4. The multiple writers hurt this game. Some of this game's dialogue is great. Some of it is fucking awful, and some of the plot-elements were clearly spawned in Tumblr. Others are heartfelt and can give an honest-to-god gut-punch emotionally. There seems to be a great deal of cases where the writers couldn't decide if they wanted a serious coming-of-age story, a tale of intrigue and horror, or a period-piece on a town past its prime, so they just said "fuck it" and threw the whole thing into a blender set to "puree." The secene with Mae going to Donut Wolf with Angus and Gregg was fucking awful and felt like it belonged in the game like 3 in-game days previous. The entire thing is unfocused as hell. The segment with Mae hitting her head made an entire stretch of the narrative completely confusing for no benefit.
5. None of the game's mechanics are conveyed to the player well. The minigame issue from #2 is part of this, but this honestly goes beyond it. The triple-jump super jump is a fucking dumb mechanic that fucks up the jumping challenges something fierce and ensured I couldn't get to several areas until close to the end of the game when some of the bonus routes opened up. This could have been fixed if Mae had the ability to super-jump anywhere. When I had to spend 10 minutes getting through the tutorial area because the Super Jump mechanic was not sufficiently clear, you have officially fucked up at conveying things to the player.
6. Nothing is resolved. You get hints of a decent ending here and there, and evidence that shit's better now, but fucking nothing is explained, least of all how anyone intends to get on with a normal life after this (insofar of how "normal" has anything to do with this game).
2. The minigames suck. None allow you to practice, especially not the band segments. All of them drop you into the deep end and expect you to pass or fail. Only one of these minigames gives you a tutorial (pilfering pretzels), and the game autosaves all the time preventing you from actually learning how to do them. Demon Tower is the lone exception because it's its own video game.
3. Story is bizarrely unfocused. The main "crux" of the story - the part that really sticks with the player isn't the actually interesting stuff going on - the Cult of Shub-Niggurath or anything like that - it's Mae's personal evolution and growth into an adult, which is admittedly less interesting. While there is a certain charm to seeing Mae better herself, that's not where the main plot of the game is and unfortunately that's not where the player's attentions are all game. The game tries to keep like 40 threads up in the air for most of the game, most of which go nowhere and which abruptly end like the game itself does. There is barely any closure and the game doesn't really do anything with the big "wham" moments in the story other than showing that they exist.
4. The multiple writers hurt this game. Some of this game's dialogue is great. Some of it is fucking awful, and some of the plot-elements were clearly spawned in Tumblr. Others are heartfelt and can give an honest-to-god gut-punch emotionally. There seems to be a great deal of cases where the writers couldn't decide if they wanted a serious coming-of-age story, a tale of intrigue and horror, or a period-piece on a town past its prime, so they just said "fuck it" and threw the whole thing into a blender set to "puree." The secene with Mae going to Donut Wolf with Angus and Gregg was fucking awful and felt like it belonged in the game like 3 in-game days previous. The entire thing is unfocused as hell. The segment with Mae hitting her head made an entire stretch of the narrative completely confusing for no benefit.
5. None of the game's mechanics are conveyed to the player well. The minigame issue from #2 is part of this, but this honestly goes beyond it. The triple-jump super jump is a fucking dumb mechanic that fucks up the jumping challenges something fierce and ensured I couldn't get to several areas until close to the end of the game when some of the bonus routes opened up. This could have been fixed if Mae had the ability to super-jump anywhere. When I had to spend 10 minutes getting through the tutorial area because the Super Jump mechanic was not sufficiently clear, you have officially fucked up at conveying things to the player.
6. Nothing is resolved. You get hints of a decent ending here and there, and evidence that shit's better now, but fucking nothing is explained, least of all how anyone intends to get on with a normal life after this (insofar of how "normal" has anything to do with this game).
Final Verdict: This game isn't bad. It's not good either, and though it has good moments, I didn't really find it hugely enjoyable. I'm willing to accept that this may be because I'm not its intended audience, though this didn't stop me from enjoying other games in this genre. If nothing else, it can claim its laurels on making me laugh a few times, having some decent characterization here and there, and giving us the best Autistic fox I've seen in a game, who has a retarded arm flappy dance that never fails to get a laugh out of me.
And hey, Mae grew up by the end. If even one Tumblrette learns from that..? Maybe this thing was worth it.
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- Jan 18, 2016
Well, this was a bit of a wild ride. Thanks for sharing your playthrough! I was a bit surprised it turned out to not be a complete trainwreck.
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- Jun 15, 2014
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- Jun 27, 2014
No. The game does this thing where you have one less health each time you go up the tower, but one more dash. This makes the last two levels basically give you 2 health and one-hit deaths, respectively. Even the slightest fuck-up kills you, and I have no patience for that level of exprtise for a game I don't intend to go back to.
- Joined
- May 29, 2017
Great job on this thread, it was fun to see your take and you did great condensing it. While I went through Bea's path I pretty much came to the same conclusion, decent at times but god is the pacing can be so slow. Ruins replay for me as well.
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2016
wow how anticlimactic. I can only imagine it must have been worse for you, the actual player, but you're right, it sets up all these subplots, and just in the last five minutes of the game, starts throwing really unsatisfying explanations at you.
Also, what about the emotional ramifications Mae's group might have over literal murder? That could have made for interesting dialogue between themselves over the implications but seemed like it just ended up being...brushed off.
Also, what about the emotional ramifications Mae's group might have over literal murder? That could have made for interesting dialogue between themselves over the implications but seemed like it just ended up being...brushed off.
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2017
Sounds like they tried to imitate the classic games of the 80's and 90's (Atari, NES, etc..) those almost never had instructions.
And you had to advance by cheer effort and nonstop experimenting.
As for the rest. Good job on this guide.
By the way, a lot of the images seem to load with a big X. Where they deleted?
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2014
Nah, it's just the farms has problems handling image uploads en masse sometimes. Basically they'll work when the site feels like it.
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2016
What Jaimas said. My Final Fantasy threads tend to be hampered by similar issues.
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2017
Have you tried to mass upload to imgur?
I'm kinda new to this site so can't comment on its reliability.
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- Jul 18, 2016
I do use imgur. And to be fair, big red Xs straighten themselves out pretty quickly, it's usually just a minor temporary headache. Something I'll deal with because I know I'm willingly uploading what we used to call "bandwidth slayers" in the past, before we all got decent connections.
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2015
Maybe I'm unusual but I actually kind of like a slice of life kind of story and would of been perfectly happy with this game remaining mostly just that, where you choose how Mae deals with her situation without the whole Lovecraft stuff. Maybe it doesn't feel like it in-game, but from the thread it felt to me like someone lost faith in if they could carry the coming of age part on it's own - and then shoved a murder mystery in there.
I mean I like the historic aspect of it and how it links to that, just a bummer that the game seems to end with the stuff I want to know about mostly unresolved.
I mean I like the historic aspect of it and how it links to that, just a bummer that the game seems to end with the stuff I want to know about mostly unresolved.
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2018
I just read through this and I loved it. I also love the game and I wanted to add things (though you might have probably already learned of them by reading around since it's been two years, who knows?)
I played through the game in early 2017 when it was released and it marked me and also me feel bad because I saw myself in each of the main group (Like Mae I'm a dropout still halfway stuck in that teenage mindset because adulthood is depressing, I also have to deal with a mental disorder of my own (Generalized Anxiety Disorder, also Panic Disorder); Like Gregg I feel I'm a failure who screws up and who lets down his friends; like Angus I had a spectacularly abusive childhood and like Bae I feel I'm stuck in a shit situation no matter how hard I try. Also smoking.)
I loved the game overall. It does get tryhard at times and Mae's not the most well-written character but I still cared about her. Hell, I cared for so many characters in this game, they felt more human overall than in most big budget games. I even felt bad for Casey because the kid was barely an adult and he never got to live because of a bunch of superstitious old fucks. I didn't care much for the platforming though, that triple jump is ass.
I still hope that somehow, someday there's going to be a sequel because that ending is infuriatingly abrupt, plus I wanna keep hanging out with Gregg somehow, because he rulz ok
-Bruce isn't a victim of the cult, he left on his own and the dialogue hints that he committed suicide.
-Mae most likely has dissociative disorder and it was never treated properly because big surprise: doodling in a notepad isn't proper therapy for such a severe mental disorder. The statue in her first dream is also symbolic of the ones at her college that creeped her out so much.
-Germ almost became a victim of the cult but he spotted the dude stalking him and managed to escape.
-The goat girl at the party, Jackie, is transgender. She also has a raging hate boner for Mae because she thinks Mae's an asshole.
-I'm sad you didn't get to spend some time with Lori M and Mr. Chazokov; Lori M is an adorable mouse girl who's really into horror, and there's vague hints that she has the hots for mae which is a bit offputting since Lori is only 14 but were she of age I would have no problem shipping the two. Mr. Chazokov is a retired teacher at the school Mae went to in her childhood and he's a sweet old guy and he and mae look at star constelations through a telescope. It's pretty nice.
-Gregg didn't seem autistic to me, arm waving aside, but he probably has bipolar disorder.
-Bae mentions a coworker she is forced to work with (NOT Tom Kitten) who may or may not have rape her, but he's the most skilled employee of the shop so she's stuck having to work with him
-There's people who say that Eide is Casey who was somehow brainwashed into joining the cult instead of being sacrificed, and the whole meth lab thing was bullshit. Make of it what you will.
-Mae most likely has dissociative disorder and it was never treated properly because big surprise: doodling in a notepad isn't proper therapy for such a severe mental disorder. The statue in her first dream is also symbolic of the ones at her college that creeped her out so much.
-Germ almost became a victim of the cult but he spotted the dude stalking him and managed to escape.
-The goat girl at the party, Jackie, is transgender. She also has a raging hate boner for Mae because she thinks Mae's an asshole.
-I'm sad you didn't get to spend some time with Lori M and Mr. Chazokov; Lori M is an adorable mouse girl who's really into horror, and there's vague hints that she has the hots for mae which is a bit offputting since Lori is only 14 but were she of age I would have no problem shipping the two. Mr. Chazokov is a retired teacher at the school Mae went to in her childhood and he's a sweet old guy and he and mae look at star constelations through a telescope. It's pretty nice.
-Gregg didn't seem autistic to me, arm waving aside, but he probably has bipolar disorder.
-Bae mentions a coworker she is forced to work with (NOT Tom Kitten) who may or may not have rape her, but he's the most skilled employee of the shop so she's stuck having to work with him
-There's people who say that Eide is Casey who was somehow brainwashed into joining the cult instead of being sacrificed, and the whole meth lab thing was bullshit. Make of it what you will.
I played through the game in early 2017 when it was released and it marked me and also me feel bad because I saw myself in each of the main group (Like Mae I'm a dropout still halfway stuck in that teenage mindset because adulthood is depressing, I also have to deal with a mental disorder of my own (Generalized Anxiety Disorder, also Panic Disorder); Like Gregg I feel I'm a failure who screws up and who lets down his friends; like Angus I had a spectacularly abusive childhood and like Bae I feel I'm stuck in a shit situation no matter how hard I try. Also smoking.)
I loved the game overall. It does get tryhard at times and Mae's not the most well-written character but I still cared about her. Hell, I cared for so many characters in this game, they felt more human overall than in most big budget games. I even felt bad for Casey because the kid was barely an adult and he never got to live because of a bunch of superstitious old fucks. I didn't care much for the platforming though, that triple jump is ass.
I still hope that somehow, someday there's going to be a sequel because that ending is infuriatingly abrupt, plus I wanna keep hanging out with Gregg somehow, because he rulz ok
Zaryiu
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2017
By reading the thread about the fandom of this game I discovered something the sjw writer himself wrote: The Black Goat the cultists worshipped and committed awful shit in it's name? It was symbolic for capitalism, I wish I was kidding