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Night in the Woods Discussion (Nintendo Switch) [game]
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02/03/18, 20:04 Edited: 02/03/18, 20:11
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Bought this yesterday and spent four or five hours playing it. I like it so far! My interest in the game had been going up and down quite a bit, and I didn't know what to expect. I feared it would be some overly self-indulgent furry fantasy, or some painful attempt at a modern day Fritz the Cat, but when someone mentioned that there would be mystery and weirdness in a dying little town I had to give it a look.
The story has really hit quite close to home for me, and I can relate way too much to some of the scenes in there. I even started getting a bit choked up in a couple of places because they made me remember how life was for me and some of my friends at one point. Not sure if it's just because of that or not, but the writing has impressed me overall.
I wish the gameplay would have more...gameplay, though. Playing the bass is fun, Witchdagger is a neat extra, and jumping around the rooftops is cool, but I feel a game like this would have been better with some actual puzzles or challenges in there. Like Another Code R for the Wii. That could have ended up being a visual novel, but the point-and-click elements turned it into a proper game in the end. Still, Night in the Woods has been sweet so far. Can't wait to get home and see what will come of the latest, mysterious events. |
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@ZeroYeah, this games fits a leftist like me like a hand in glove. It's got punk mentality, it's got social realism, it's anti-capitalism, it's pro-LGBTQ, and it's got a very compassionate way of telling peoples' respective life stories. I guess the latter could be said to be an aspect of the social realism, but they did such a good job of it that I want to mention it again anyway. Like you say, the homeless guy's story was so sad. Felt really bad about that, but it also felt real. Well, I guess that's what made it so tragic. The cultists in the cave (yay for Lovecraft references that aren't all 'hey, here's Cthulhu and his facial tentacles'!) and their fate didn't feel overly tragic to me though. Fuck the lot of them. But there is so much tragedy and death there that it's almost hard to sum it all up, and now the entire town is basically doomed again. But that's beautiful in a way, I think. So, who did you end up hanging out with more? |
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@r_hjort With the cultists I guess my thought wasn't about them, it was more along the lines of how flippantly the group made the decision to let trapped human beings slowly starve to death. Whether they deserve it or not, for these young adults to make such a dramatic decision that will stay with them for the rest of their lives is huge. How would that affect someone? Plus it barely feels like the decision was MADE, it was just kind of like someone offhandedly mentions that they might still be alive, someone says "shit!" or something like that, and then that fact just sort of gets ignored moving forward. It also means that no one in town gets any real closure. They even bring up whether they should tell Casey's parents the truth, and then decide against it because the truth is too unbelievable or something, but like... you literally have the proof of this evil conspiracy (trapped) in your hands now! Whether anyone would believe them enough to dig up a whole collapsed mine to find out is perhaps another story, but considering that it was like what 20 dudes or so from the town who would be missing overnight, it'd be a HUGE thing. It's a dying town, there can't even be THAT many old dudes left, a bunch vanishing at once... and these kids claiming they know where they are... could be enough to get closure to the whole situation.
For that matter, wouldn't there be a huge investigation and everything? And you could potentially get into a ton of trouble if it came out that you let all of these people die, even if they are terrible murderers and such. Aunt "mall cop" even references something huge going on near the end and seems to almost be suggesting *something* before she stops herself... was she going to suggest that she thinks Mae was involved?!BTW what is the deal with aunt "mall cop"? I feel like she tries to give some vague warnings but it's not totally clear to me where they are coming from. Is it just because she cares and is seeing some weird stuff in her line of work? Or is she more in on it?! I read somewhere that she never appeared after the cave collapse in the original version of the game, and was only added in with an update. Probably just an oversight but... WHO KNOWS?! Anyway. With all of that said I get that there is also this great evil hiding down there that could potentially seduce more people to its evilness if people went mucking around down there so there are definitely reasons to just leave the whole thing be. But like, it seems like people know about the cave collapse anyway, so maybe it'd be better to at least try to give a heads up on what really happened, even if no one believes you?I just wish there were more in-game conversation about it. For a game that more or less had great writing it sort of blew all of this off. Hmm, so the town being doomed now well... isn't that sort of the point? Yeah it's sad, BUT. I read this story as a sort of direct response to America electing a hateful / harmful person as president in part because a lot of poor whites were seeing their industrial towns slowly dying and looking for an answer. Our fearless leader specifically promised to bring back the coal industry and other dying industries in ways that well, I'm talking outside of my knowledge here a bit, but from most analysis I've seen it'd basically be impossible to bring those industries back to what they were. It's over. And instead of acknowledging that and accepting that some things end and other things take their place and you have to move on, we got... our dear friend in the White House.So yeah, knowing the town will be falling into decay again in the future is sad, but it's also sort of like maybe time to accept that? Or at least find alternatives to the shitty things people are doing to try to hold onto a past that is 90% in their head anyway.Anyway, who did I hang out with most? I think it was Bea, mostly because I hung out with her first and realized we used to be best friends or whatever so I had this strong feeling of wanting to make that all right again. Whereas I never had a clear sense about what my connection to the other two were. Especially Angus, mostly what I know about him is that he is Gregg's boyfriend. Maybe should have gotten to know him better but ah well, what can you do. |
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@ZeroI totally agree about the town dying. It's tragic that a community dies out, but a community that has to live on terms like that should probably die. Which I find to be quite beautiful, that it now gets to die with dignity, in a way. It's like the community where I come from, where the inbred asshats are doing their damndest to keep immigrants feeling less than welcome, and where the biggest problem is the fact that too few people move in. The community is dying right now, and I'm saddened by it, but I'd rather see it die than see it live on the terms of ignorant bigots. I'd like to know how much of the plot actually is a direct reference to Trump and his movement, 'cause this game was planned since back in 2013, wasn't it? I guess it doesn't matter, because I think the general message would work well even without a fascist ignoramous in the white house (even though it's obviously amazing what with the world being the way it is right now), but it would be cool to hear if they had other plans and then changed them to suit the contemporary situation a bit better. Would make the writing even more impressive.
About the cave and stuff: So yeah, there is an eldritch evil down there, that has had a tremendous impact on people for a long time, and has even crept into the mind of Mae, so they would definitely want to limit the number of people getting exposed to it to a minimum. People hearing/feeling or otherwise becoming aware of the cave collapsing would be likely to believe it to be the result of a regular cave in considering all the sink holes and stuff that's been emerging in town, so I don't think anyone would have to explain it to anyone if the goal is to keep people away from the black goat.
Exposing the conspiracy or using the trapped cultists as proof would be risky for that reason, but also because there is no real way of knowing how far that conspiracy went, and our heroes aren't exactly the kind of people to trust or respect authorities, so who would they even turn to? Aunt mall cop is being very ambiguous about the whole thing, 'cause she does seem to hint heavily at the existence of the cult, but it's hard to say if she's a part of it or not.
But anyway, about the gang leaving the cultists to die, I'm not sure I think it's all that strange. We're dealing with a group that - represents pretty much all the social/political values the gang hates - has admitted to killing people as a means of sacrifice to a nameless evil - has admitted to having killed one of the gang's best friends - has tried to kill you personally on two different occasions
With all that in mind I don't think letting them die should make for any big regrets amongst the gang. And like you say, the decision is barely made by anyone. The biggest part of the whole thing just happens, more or less, and then it would probably feel like a much smaller step to ask Germ to bomb the well opening. On my next playthrough I think I'm gonna hang out more with Bea. I did hang out with her a bit for the same reason as you, but I also missed out on a couple of big Bea events by hanging with Gregg instead. Don't regret that one bit, though, 'cause in one of those instances the goings on got me all teary eyed. Will try to hang more with Angus as well, but I feel that I managed to get a decent idea of who he is anyway. @GuillaumeSure is pretty. I've got a couple of gorgeous screenshots on my Switch, but I don't want to post them because spoilers. Music is really good too; I went and bought the soundtrack on Bandcamp earlier today, actually. Fine stuff. EDIT: I love Gregg. Everyone must love Gregg. How can you not love Gregg? Gregg rulz ok. |
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@Guillaume I, as I am sure many others have, took that exact same picture! @r_hjort Well I don't know how much the game is referencing Trump specifically but those type of sentiments didn't arise from nowhere, they have been around for years now. Still it feels like it wasn't a coincidence. I mean Trump was literally promising to bring back prosperity to dying coal towns! How much more on the nose can you can?! There is even a point where Mae refers to the cult as "Republican uncles", in case anyone somehow thought this was a totally fictional animal world that wasn't supposed to have any real connection to our real world, the game disabuses you of that notion pretty strongly.About the cave collapse, this is fiction so I guess we can leave it vague as to what may happen next, but in reality if a cave collapses mysteriously AND like 20 or so people go missing the same night AND there has been a string of mysterious disappearances up this this point... someone is going to piece it together and say let's get to the bottom of that cave. And probably the group could get busted for murder or at least some form of negligent homicide, especially by asking their friend to dynamite the only escape which is basically a strong piece of evidence that someone not only survived the cave collapse but. |
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@ZeroI think she'd want to cover it up to protect Mae and the rest of her family. She keeps dropping hints about the cult as a way to warn Mae throughout the game, including places where people tend to go missing, so I don't think it's out of the question that she knows why the cult exists, or what they worship. It's heavily implied that Mae's family used to work at the mine too, so that connection might mean that Molly has access to insight or info that others don't.
She also seems to have a pretty decent idea of where Mae is a lot of the time (even making sure to pick her up on the night she arrives), as if she's keeping an eye on her, either to protect her from getting abducted or to keep her away from the cult's business, depending on your interpretation. Couple that with Mae ending up getting hurt and ending up crawling back to town from out in the hills that Molly mentioned before I wouldn't rule out Molly putting two and two together and realizing that the cult's after Mae, if she hadn't realized that before. My bet is that she became aware of Mae having become a problem to the cult when Mae saw one of the abductions and made a fuss over it.
If the people with missing family members were to connect it all to the mine collapsing I suppose that could be blown up to a proportion far too big for the local police, sure. I'm tired right now, so I'm forgetting, but: Do we know if anyone else actually knows that the mine has collapsed? Does anyone outside of the gang mention that in any way during the ending?
As for the arm, I have no clue. I just chalked that up to the guy responsible for that particular murder being even more psycho than the others. Figured that was another one of the reasons why he'd become a liability to the group and why they felt he had to be put down. |
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I finished the main story a couple days ago, and the supplements last night. The supplements were alright. A few quick impressions and remarks: @Zero The wording is "conservative uncles", not "republican". But while I think Trump does make the Republicans' racism and hatred of the poor more overt, it's not exactly a new direction for them. It's still mostly the same people in power pushing the same agenda to destroy wealth redistribution measures and punish the poor. Trump just makes it more blatant. As has been pointed out, they've been working on this game since 2013. It's not a direct reaction to just Trump.As for the game's late revelations and ending, I have no problem with the last-minute eldritch horror turn and the cult, but kind of feel like I either missed the clues, or they didn't build up to it sufficiently. Like, I didn't notice in the old newspaper articles at the library anything that would point to the development of some sort of conservative cult, in fact, most of the articles were about struggles between the union and the bosses.
There is no hint that a group of people hangs together to make sacrifices, is there? You only see a few people hanging out together: the two Go Smelters guys, the four town council people. And they're all accounted for after the mine collapse.
The existence of Bruce seems to contradict the twist of the story. They leave him alone for days and days, and there are no signs that he's being stalked or harassed. There are definitely signs that he's not welcome in town, but no violent action is directed towards him, and he's got an ally in the minister. And when he leaves, it's on his own terms. I dunno. Maybe Bruce's story doesn't run counter to the twist, but it also definitely doesn't support it either. And he's the only example of a homeless person this town has.
As for Aunt Mall Cop, I never got the feeling that she knew about any kind of cult. She knows about disappearances, but it's very possible she's treating them as isolated incidents or, if not isolated, hasn't tied them all back to the existence of a town cult. Because as I mentionned above, there's nothing pointing in that direction.Anyway, as I said, I really like the game and I kinda like the ending, but it seems a little bit unearned to me. It's almost as if they didn't want to commit to it, or it was a last-minute decision and they didn't do the work of going back and building up to it earlier in the game. As disappointing as Thimbleweed Park's late turn and ending may have been, they still did a better job foreshadowing it earlier in the game. |
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