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.