so, night in the woods (spoilers)

[Bigdog]

There was a thread for this on the forums of before, but I never really read it too intently as I didn't want to risk spoiling myself for when I finally got to play the game.

Well, finally got to play the game is now (just finished). I'm glad I waited, since I think it added something to literally be playing it in early november.

In general, I loved it, though I'm not sure that the two great tastes of small-town YA drama (with furries!) and cosmic horror taste as great together as they could. I think I would have preferred a more prosaic threat in this game, which is a sentence I don't get to write very often.

Anything you think I should know? I just did the one playthrough and I don't really want to do another one. It feels like one of those games that I'd be disrespecting if I tried to do different paths just to do them. I sure as heck would be interested to hear about them though.

[Weird Autumn]

I've definitely heard the "I feel like the cosmic horror shouldn't have been so literal" argument before, but I can't really agree, mostly because the cosmic horror is the most explicit in-your-face unambiguous metaphor it could possibly be and focusing on the "literal cosmic entity" part of the text over the "supernatural expression of post-capitalist malaise" part that the game is so clearly more interested in feels like it's missing the point. Plus, I think making it not a literal thing that is real in the world kind of undercuts a lot of Mae's character arc and the empathy the game is building for her. Lovecraftian space gods aren't a thing in real life (probably) (I hope) but the things it represents, the mental breakdowns Mae is struggling to overcome, that experience of derealization, the economic depression that is inevitably and ever more quickly draining the life out of Possum Springs, those are all very real things that real people struggle with and if it was just some kind of "Mae's breaking down and this is in her head" thing I think that would be kinda cheap and lame.

Also Aria's playing through the game now and a lot of this stuff is best left as a bit of a surprise so while I don't mind jumping into untagged spoilers right away given the game's been out for a while and we were well past that point in the old thread, it's probably a good idea to put "(hey spoilers)" in the title just so people know what they're getting into.

[Bigdog]

I mean, I obviously did recognize the heavy sociopolitical subtext present in the whole plot, but I feel like needing to inject the cosmic horror into it at all sort of... itself undercuts the topical horror of the cabal of laid-off miners abducting/murdering "outsiders" whilst bitching about the government and immigrants? By which I mean, it's sort of saying those forces can't be an evil enough antagonist without their evil being embodied as some sort of Lovecraftian god. Ditto its mental influence on Mae, for pretty much the same reason: I think RL mental illness can be as crushing (and as good at bringing out the best in friendships) as it needs to be for a plot like this.

To be clear, I am not saying I'd keep all the allusion to gods, holes in the world, etc. while making them merely an artifact of Mae's psychotic break. I am saying that I don't feel there should be any cosmic horror entities, even figurative or illusory ones. I feel like you could keep 99% of Mae's mental fuckedupness as far as it relates to her character interactions. Even things like the disassociative episodes surrounding the baseball game and her dropout from college needn't have any sort of supernatural reference.

I think making it not a literal thing that is real in the world kind of undercuts a lot of Mae's character arc and the empathy the game is building for her.

I think this is something that reasonable people can have different feelings on, at least as it relates to their subjective experience of the story, but I disagree. I don't feel like my sympathy or empathy for someone with mental illness are degraded if there isn't a literal alien malevolence touching their dreams. If anything it's the opposite.

[Bigdog]

shit, the more i think about it the more i think I'd love this game even further to pieces if it were just a slice-of-life story about cultivating friendships and navigating mental illness with no secret society, supernatural or otherwise

[Aramek]

Even I liked it.

Even I.

Even if I didn't really relate to any of the characters, themes, or general ennui it espouses.

[Weird Autumn]

I mean, I obviously did recognize the heavy sociopolitical subtext present in the whole plot, but I feel like needing to inject the cosmic horror into it at all sort of... itself undercuts the topical horror of the cabal of laid-off miners abducting/murdering "outsiders" whilst bitching about the government and immigrants? By which I mean, it's sort of saying those forces can't be an evil enough antagonist without their evil being embodied as some sort of Lovecraftian god. Ditto its mental influence on Mae, for pretty much the same reason: I think RL mental illness can be as crushing (and as good at bringing out the best in friendships) as it needs to be for a plot like this.

To be clear, I am not saying I'd keep all the allusion to gods, holes in the world, etc. while making them merely an artifact of Mae's psychotic break. I am saying that I don't feel there should be any cosmic horror entities, even figurative or illusory ones. I feel like you could keep 99% of Mae's mental fuckedupness as far as it relates to her character interactions. Even things like the disassociative episodes surrounding the baseball game and her dropout from college needn't have any sort of supernatural reference.

I think the game is pretty clear that the cosmic horror is not actually the cause of any of the problems that Mae or the town are struggling with. If you take away the cosmic entity in the pit and the cult in the woods nothing really changes about the characters' lives or their situation (except maybe that Casey would still be around), and I think that's very much the point. The cosmic horror exacerbates some of big picture problems at play in the story, but it's not the cause of any of them, nor is it the solution. Possum Springs would still be dying if there was no bottomless pit in the mine. Mae would still be a dissociative trainwreck trying desperately to hold some semblance of a life together even if there wasn't a malevolent entity worming its way in through those cracks in her mind. Mae and her friends confront this cult and this ancient evil, and the resolution of that conflict changes... nothing, really. Nothing material, anyway. Because the real problems here aren't a function of hateful space gods, they're a function of something just as vast and incomprehensible and Lovecraftian in nature, something that can't be resolved over the course of a single night in the woods. The only thing that can resolve them is... work. Taking things one step, one day at a time, getting by as best you can, and trying to build something better along the way, whenever you have the spoons for it.

The entire arc of the game is about getting Mae to a place where she's ready to start moving forward and putting in that work, and the cult is just a way of externalizing these big picture cat vs. self/cat vs. society conflicts into something she can confront on her journey there. It ties together a bunch of the game's themes, not just the obvious capitalism/mental health stuff but also matters of faith and nostalgia and the spooky melancholy lurking around the edges of town, and it helps the story function as a story by creating a sort of antagonist that you can confront at the end without pretending that doing so actually solves these massive unsolvable problems. It works for me, and I'm not sure how you give this game a finale that feels satisfying without it, especially because the atmosphere and tone the game derives from those gothic and cosmic horror influences is so strong and effective across the entire work.

Personally, I was kind of happy when it turned out there really was something sinister going on in the woods. I liked seeing Mae... vindicated. I think everybody who's struggled with some kind of mental illness or executive dysfunction or whatever has that experience of being told it's all just in their head, and I think the fact that in NitW it very much is real and not just in Mae's head is sort of reassuring, in a weird way. Because the things you're struggling with in real life, they're not literal cosmic horrors or evil dad cults, but they are real, and there's something cathartic about a game that makes them external in order to underline the point that "you're not crazy and there is something very wrong here." There are a bunch of other ways the game's plot could have gone with that, but I wound up being happy that they chose the angle they did.

[Weird Autumn]

also



we'll never forget you mallard

[Gloomy Rube]

Even I liked it.

Even I.

Even if I didn't really relate to any of the characters, themes, or general ennui it espouses.

yeah but you're the furry king

[Gloomy Rube]

you're the only poster that's voiced furries in commerical products

[Pocket]

Hey speaking of which whatever happened with True Tail or whatever it was called

[The Ghost of Ember]

I have no opinion on whether or not the supernatural stuff is good or bad and I feel like its kind of a displacement of a bigger problem with Night of the Woods in that there's really no catharsis in the last act. The tension keeps on ramping up until in the last minute the bottom falls out of the story both literally in the game and metaphorically in terms of story structure and we get an insufficiently epic monologue as a denouement to whatever malevolence, be it physical, metaphysical, sociopolitical, or merely a pun, that has be dogging us the entire story. I enjoyed Night in the Woods greatly, but the climax was a low point for the game. The epilogue helps to soothe the burn of unrealized expectations, and the rest of the game is a ride, nothing is ever 100% perfect, but it still doesn't change my feeling that the end of the game was missing something.

Maybe the Weird Autumn edition will fix it.

[Aramek]

Hey speaking of which whatever happened with True Tail or whatever it was called

Still going! They changed a shitload of stuff from the original recording, I, and my character is one of, IIRC, 3 characters who didn't change in some way. As such, I didn't have to re-audition for the newer pitch.

[Princess Flufflebutt]

I have no opinion on whether or not the supernatural stuff is good or bad and I feel like its kind of a displacement of a bigger problem with Night of the Woods in that there's really no catharsis in the last act. The tension keeps on ramping up until in the last minute the bottom falls out of the story both literally in the game and metaphorically in terms of story structure and we get an insufficiently epic monologue as a denouement to whatever malevolence, be it physical, metaphysical, sociopolitical, or merely a pun, that has be dogging us the entire story. I enjoyed Night in the Woods greatly, but the climax was a low point for the game. The epilogue helps to soothe the burn of unrealized expectations, and the rest of the game is a ride, nothing is ever 100% perfect, but it still doesn't change my feeling that the end of the game was missing something.

Maybe the Weird Autumn edition will fix it.

just like real life!!!

[The Ghost of Ember]

just like real life!!!

I'm afraid that doesn't really fly with me, betrayal of expectation is still catharsis. Its entirely possible to write a story that is true to life, has the bottom fall out of the anticipated version of events and still feels like a complete exercise in storytelling. Bojack Horseman does that pretty well and doesn't have to fall back on 'its just like life' to explain failure of craft.

In life, sometimes people don't finish their sentences, but it doesn't

[Weird Autumn]

I feel like NITW's ending mirrors pretty well my own experience with the kind of vague, creeping dread that slowly ramps up through the game, which is that it culminates in a brief period of frenzied, delerious, terrible existence and then goes away, at least for now. In my case the looming dread was school deadlines and the frenzied climax was spending several days straight holed up in the computer lab writing every single paper that I had due earlier in the semester, but that feeling of dread was a defining feature of pretty much my entire college experience and most of high school too so it was kind of my immediate reference point for a lot of the game's emotional arc. Maybe that's why NITW's ending felt honest and true to the story for me rather than incomplete and lacking catharsis.

This isn't an argument from realism, mind, but it is my own subjective experience of the story, which is the only thing I really can argue from. I didn't feel unsatisfied with the ending, so all I can really say to "the ending was unsatisfying" is "I didn't think so."

[Bigdog]

I think the game is pretty clear that the cosmic horror is not actually the cause of any of the problems that Mae or the town are struggling with. If you take away the cosmic entity in the pit and the cult in the woods nothing really changes about the characters' lives or their situation (except maybe that Casey would still be around), and I think that's very much the point. The cosmic horror exacerbates some of big picture problems at play in the story, but it's not the cause of any of them, nor is it the solution. Possum Springs would still be dying if there was no bottomless pit in the mine. Mae would still be a dissociative trainwreck trying desperately to hold some semblance of a life together even if there wasn't a malevolent entity worming its way in through those cracks in her mind. Mae and her friends confront this cult and this ancient evil, and the resolution of that conflict changes... nothing, really. Nothing material, anyway. Because the real problems here aren't a function of hateful space gods, they're a function of something just as vast and incomprehensible and Lovecraftian in nature, something that can't be resolved over the course of a single night in the woods. The only thing that can resolve them is... work. Taking things one step, one day at a time, getting by as best you can, and trying to build something better along the way, whenever you have the spoons for it.

I actually agree with pretty much all of this, but my takeaway is 'so we don't actually need the hateful space gods'

Personally, I was kind of happy when it turned out there really was something sinister going on in the woods. I liked seeing Mae... vindicated. I think everybody who's struggled with some kind of mental illness or executive dysfunction or whatever has that experience of being told it's all just in their head, and I think the fact that in NitW it very much is real and not just in Mae's head is sort of reassuring, in a weird way. Because the things you're struggling with in real life, they're not literal cosmic horrors or evil dad cults, but they are real, and there's something cathartic about a game that makes them external in order to underline the point that "you're not crazy and there is something very wrong here." There are a bunch of other ways the game's plot could have gone with that, but I wound up being happy that they chose the angle they did.

See, but it is ultimately all just in your head (unless you are, say, suffering from abuse and being gaslighted into thinking you aren't, but that's thankfully not a problem Mae has to deal with. Maybe young Angus).

To me, this is just another reason why crossing these two wires doesn't work out very well. In a horror or detective story (and indeed in the cosmic horror portions of this story) the protagonist being initially disbelieved and finally vindicated is a good and functional, if somewhat well-worn, story beat. But I think when you cross it with actual, clinical mental illness and social anxiety, it undermines the whole message about getting better and finding one's way back to oneself and to a healthy relationship with the world. A lot of the social aspects of this game are about that latter, personal/emotional sort of journey, and beautifully so, but then there's like this other thing happening that feels like it should be a different game.

One of the best moments of the game for me was in the scene with Mae and Bea going to sleep on the couch (I ended up taking the Bea path so I don't know if there's a similar scene with Gregg) where they finally discussed the issue in the context of clinical mental illness, and specifically effective vs. ineffective treatments for it.

[Bigdog]

just like real life!!!

man I wish the weird autumn edition would fix my real life

[The Ghost of Ember]

One of the best moments of the game for me was in the scene with Mae and Bea going to sleep on the couch (I ended up taking the Bea path so I don't know if there's a similar scene with Gregg) where they finally discussed the issue in the context of clinical mental illness, and specifically effective vs. ineffective treatments for it.

Gregg has a version of it but I think the Bea version is superior (but I'm biased)

For the record, I don't think Night in the Woods is bad... It is at worst amateur. If it were a movie or a book it'd be the kind where it comes off as a new creator whose a little awkward but you keep their name in mind for what amazing things they're going to do when they refine their craft a bit more.

[Bigdog]

Oh no. (Oh no no no no.) I would never call it bad.

The two halves of the game are... un-synergistic? (Antagonistic?) But they don't ruin the game or anything.

[Bigdog]

In a horror or detective story (and indeed in the cosmic horror portions of this story) the protagonist being initially disbelieved and finally vindicated is a good and functional, if somewhat well-worn, story beat. But I think when you cross it with actual, clinical mental illness and social anxiety, it undermines the whole message about getting better and finding one's way back to oneself and to a healthy relationship with the world.

To expand on this previous post a little bit:

I am obviously talking about "disbelieved and finally vindicated" in the context of the cosmic horror. I think you can have a sort of parallel journey within a prosaic narrative about mental illness and have it be completely excellent and appropriate. And in fact I would say there's already a version of that here, as Bea (possibly other characters?) and the player progress from "Holy shit, Mae, you're a violent asshole" to "Holy shit, Mae, you're literally experiencing clinical derealization, but there's help for that."

So again

my takeaway is 'so we don't actually need the hateful space gods'

And I should note, just for the record, that in its own time and place I am the biggest fan of cosmic horror, knockoff Azathoths, etc. you will ever find. So it's not genre bias that's going on here. There's a reason that in my original post I called this the two great tastes that don't taste great together. Like peanut butter and mustard.

[Aria Genisi]

I beat this last night, playing through Bea's hangouts, and god, I love this game. I love the music, the graphics, and, god, the writing and the characters especially.

I've got words i wanna say but I've spent all day just writing and deleting everything because what i wrote sucks, and what Autumn said generally matches how i felt about the game, so i'll just leave it here and maybe write a bit eventually :V