Bring on the Night

Recently, I've been playing Night in the Woods on Xbox Game Pass. It's exactly what I was expecting it to be from the descriptions... but it's also a lot more of what I was expecting than I was expecting. If that makes sense.

Mae's not known for her tact. Especially
after she's thrown back a few.

The game presents itself as a side-scrolling platformer, with lead Mae Borowski running through the town of Possum Springs and leaping onto anything that will hold her weight, but past the control scheme, it's a visual novel. The bulk of the game is spent talking to friends, family, and passersby, and anything offered beyond starting conversations is just there to frame the narrative. There's a rhythm mini-game, but it's offered to establish that Mae had a garage band in high school. There's a simple action RPG, but it's just there to forge a bond between Mae and one of her friends. And so forth.

Plot progression is extremely rigid and paths are frequently closed off to the player, making the game feel stifling even in comparison to point and click adventures like the ancient King's Quest series. There is not an abundance of things to do in Night in the Woods; just a lot of conversations to read. If you're not interested in who these characters are and what they have to say, this game has nothing to offer you.

And this really speaks to me. Nobody would
ever drink alcohol if it was just for the taste.

Fortunately, I'm very interested in what this game has to say, and it's not just
because of the impeccable writing. Visual novels have long been the domain of the Japanese, and while their courtroom dramas and outlandish murder mysteries have plenty of fans, I personally have never had much interest in them. The more grounded and relevant narrative of Night in the Woods, on the other hand... now that speaks to me. 

There are severed arms and strange things happening in the shadows and oh yes, all of the characters are cartoon animals, but above all else, Night in the Woods is  a story about disillusioned youth in a once proud Midwestern town, caught in the grip of economic decay. I can relate to this. As a former Michigan resident, I've lived it. I've seen once self-sufficient villages like Sunfield and Mulliken reduced to skeletons by big box stores and online commerce. Banks and grocery stores close, small businesses struggle to survive... these communities have become unsustainable, but people still have to live there, because they don't have the means to live anywhere else. 

Beyond all of her other "charms," Mae
has a bit of a mean streak.

Night in the Woods explores the decline of the Midwest, and the people it affects, in quiet but unflinching detail. You see the lead character return home from college and embrace mediocrity, because it's the only thing she knows. You meet her friends, who work dead end jobs to pay the rent, or manage hardware stores to keep the dying light of their parents' business from flickering out. You accidentally discover that Mae's father, an outwardly friendly man who's always armed with a corny joke, has a secret past as a violent drunk. Night in the Woods is honest without succumbing to melodrama, so things get real in a hurry. Real quirky, real philosophical, real heavy. Real necessary to discuss.

Video games have been around for a long time now, and this hobby has explored nearly every idea and subject imaginable. However, Night in the Woods is the first game I've played that shines a light on the rot that's consumed small towns in America over the last twenty years. The fact that it's the only media of any kind which thinks it's important to discuss is a little upsetting, but if we have to have this conversation with abstractly drawn cats, bears, and crocodiles, so be it.