{"id":19885,"date":"2018-04-20T10:00:54","date_gmt":"2018-04-20T15:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=19885"},"modified":"2018-04-23T16:02:59","modified_gmt":"2018-04-23T21:02:59","slug":"erikas-enthusiast-expo-night-in-the-woods-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2018\/04\/20\/erikas-enthusiast-expo-night-in-the-woods-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Erika’s Enthusiast Expo: Night in the Woods Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cNight in the Woods\u201d is an indie game from 2017 that stole my heart within minutes of watching gameplay. From the score to the design of the game and the dialogue, there\u2019s so much to this game that it\u2019s difficult for me to put it into proper words.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0To be honest, I didn\u2019t expect to be so enamored by it: usually I can\u2019t sit down and watch games like this without getting hardcore distracted and flipping tabs and missing everything. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Fortunately, the atmosphere and general aesthetic of the game kept me grounded to the screen. Witnessing the protagonist Mae Borowski arrive home to Possum Springs and the journey back home was an adventure in itself; even as a tutorial for the controls, it wasn\u2019t <\/span>boring<\/span><\/i>, far from it. Witty one-liners from Mae along the way and a quick task to complete keep it fresh and fun, something that never feels like it\u2019s possible in games from my perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0While the main storyline is all kinds of fun, this is also the type of game that pays for you to pay attention. For me, I found secrets I didn\u2019t see any YouTubers that were playing it at the time find. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"screenshot7\"\u00a0 \u00a0There was a parade duck hidden away in an apartment building, an adventure to an old field with Mae\u2019s mother, a walk with a friend named Angus and much more. Truly discovering the game in one run is difficult, which makes the whole setup even better: there are dialogue choices and the player has the opportunity to choose which of Mae\u2019s other two friends, an over-enthusiastic fox named Gregg (who is dating Angus) and a smoking alligator named Bea. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Depending on who Mae spends more of her time with, different minigames and scenes will open up. The replayability for this game is amazing and has kept me in a vice grip when it comes to replaying it whenever I\u2019m not getting dragged along emotionally by Nier: Automata (but that\u2019s for another article). <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0For me, \u201cNight in the Woods\u201d is an unforgettable experience. The narrative is beautiful and the characters and world feel realistic with the depictions of mental illness (such as dissociation and depression) and how a small town is slowly collapsing on itself due to outside factors. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The realism in a game where all the characters are anthropomorphic animals is a feat in itself as, while still comedic at times, the character designs aren\u2019t used for joke fodder. Relationships feel organic and well done and all the emotions that come with the journey of Mae trying to readjust back at Possum Springs after leaving college hit all the nails on the head.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cNight in the Woods\u201d holds the crown for my favorite indie title of 2017. All the tears I shed over it were not wasted and the enjoyment along with the pain that came from finishing it several times still sticks with me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Even now, the words of the tagline still resonate: \u201cAt the end of everything, hold onto anything.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Erika Brandenburg<\/strong>
\nStaff Writer<\/p>\n

\"night-in-the-woods-2\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cNight in the Woods\u201d is an indie game from 2017 that stole my heart within minutes of watching gameplay. From the score to the design of the game and the dialogue, there\u2019s so much to this game that it\u2019s difficult for me to put it into proper words. \u00a0 \u00a0To be honest, I didn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":19886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2104,2113,3],"tags":[2100,2448,1861,2568,2567,2141,323],"class_list":["post-19885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-video-games","category-tartan-news","tag-erika-brandenburg","tag-erikas-enthusiast-expo","tag-games","tag-indie-games","tag-night-in-the-woods","tag-online-exclusive","tag-video-games"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-5aJ","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/1fc11595b6587bcbad9fb9c9fce8053d76bef8cd.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19891,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19885\/revisions\/19891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}