Episode 134 - Brain Money - Night in the Woods

I believe in a universe that doesn’t care, and a podcast that does. Welcome back! Today, we’re going to talk about Night in the Woods, and we’re not going to apologize for how late we are covering this. We are late to this, though. Night in the Woods is an indie adventure game with other interactive elements coming in the form of light platforming mechanics and minigames ranging from Guitar Hero style rhythm sections to top down hack-n-slash games. And if you go back through our catalogue, you’ll notice that this is right up our alley. Possibly too far up our alley, because while this is a standout example of the genre, we can’t help but compare it to a half dozen other games we played and talked about on this podcast, some of which came out well after this game and were probably inspired by it. What makes it stand out from the crowd, though? The game’s subject matter focuses squarely on the personal lives of people who are a part of the younger millennial generation living in a world that is explicitly based on our own. They just happen to be like cats and bears and stuff. The way this game faces the struggles of young people attempting to cobble together a life while dealing with economic realities, personal relationships and their own mental health is unique in its bleakness and how closely that bleakness mirrors our own reality. This grounds the characters, with the help of some very strong writing, and makes them relatable to a wide swath of people in their core audience. Oh, and there’s a storyline about a ghost in here as well. We’re going to be talking about how the game handles personal struggle and makes it a main part of its theme, how its mechanics help and hinder the overall experience, and we creatively rename one of the characters in the game and just keep calling them that and don’t look it up. Thank you for joining us this week! We’re probably going to take some time off from this genre of game because we had a bit of an existential crisis in the middle of this episode because we felt like we might be deeply pigeon-holed. That said, this is still a unique entry in the adventure game genre and one we felt like we needed to cover eventually. Did you play this game when it came out? Maybe even backed it when it was being crowdfunded? Do you feel as strongly about its characters as we do? Did you find a reason to play Demon Tower? Let us know over on our Discord or in the comment section! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Xenoblade Chronicles 3, the recent sequel that supposedly ends the story arc that series has had for almost a decade. And if you need a refresher on how the plot has gone thus far, we intended to do an episode on the second game until the third one got released early, so we’re going to supplement that episode with a bonus on Chronicles 2 that should come out in the next couple weeks, so keep your eyes open for that.