When I was a kid, I was mildly obsessed with the Choose Your Own Adventure book series. I had been a voracious reader and that i loved my Nintendo, so the concept that books might be interactive just like a gaming blew my tiny mind.
There's something that Choose Your personal Adventure books do better than (most) game titles, and it is how they depend on their young readers' imaginations to completely bring their stories to life. I don't care the number of pixels or polygons developers use to create their video games-nothing can compare to the vivid detail of a child's imagination. I must think that my imagination is much better honed compared to average adult's, but decades of images from movies, TV, company, our beloved game titles assaulting my brain, in collusion with the natural atrophying of their gray matter, have really done several on my ability to bring an imagined world to rip-roaring life in my mind's eye.
As I had been playing through INTERIOR/NIGHT's As Dusk Falls, I kept asking myself why I was finding it so immersive. Traditional gaming knowledge would indicate that the painted, motion-comic presentation style and zero gameplay mechanics other than dialogue choices and the occasional quick time event should result in the least immersive experience possible. But As Dusk Falls ended up being the exact opposite since it forced me to dust off my imagination and actually use it for once.
Centered around a hostage situation in 1998 and it is fallout, As Dusk Falls tells the storyline of two families-the Walkers and also the Holts-on a collision course. Vince and Michelle Walker recently decided to relocate from California to St. Louis. Going with options are their six-year-old daughter Zoe and Vince's estranged father Jim, as well as a heap of emotional and physical baggage. Meanwhile, in their make an effort to get free from a gambling debt with some unsavory characters, the Holts-oldest brother Tyler, middle brother Dale, and youngest brother Jay-botch a burglary and wind up in the same motel because the Walkers when the cops show up.
As Dusk Falls' story advantages of seeing both sides of the events that unfold at the Desert Dream Motel. Through the first 1 / 2 of the game, which provides coverage for the hostage situation and also the events preceding it, players will experience the story in the outlook during both Vince and Jay. On one side, this dual narrative adds necessary context for Jay and the descent into criminality, it weirdly might inform the decisions you are making as Vince as you become aware of information that he may not otherwise have. Heavy-handed dialogue notwithstanding, I didn't feel like I'd any trouble making the decisions that I thought Vince and Jay will make, or at best the choices that I wanted to make as them.
The story slacks within the other half of the game, however, in part because of a forward leap in time that finds Zoe alive and along with a young woman. In a game in which the main focus is player choice, it seems like a strange option to a minimum of relieve some of the tension for making those choices understanding that, no matter what, Zoe will survive the problem. In line with the sprawling narrative tree that's presented after every chapter, there appear to be a decent number of endings for the other characters, but many of the products that you use within the first half of the game do not have sufficient of the effect on the older Zoe to create this jump seem like a highly effective storytelling technique. In fact, at some point within my playthrough, she'd a memory of a scene that was impossible on her to possess based on the choices I'd made earlier.
Of course, you will not be considering a lot of this on your first playthrough. You will likely be too distracted by As Dusk Falls' immediately striking art style, which blends 3D backgrounds and props with 2D paintings from the characters acting the scene. Initially when i first saw trailers for that game, I was worried that it would be distracting, given the way the characters fade interior and exterior their poses and facial expressions. However the effect is pretty stunning. The paintings are evocatively rendered in broad strokes with just enough line try to lend some definition. What impressed me much more is how the rendering of the lighting around the characters perfectly suits whatever environment they're in.
While As Dusk Falls might not have gotten the full range of a mo-capped performance, additionally, it doesn't suffer from the usual issues that narrative-heavy game titles do, such as the curse of the uncanny valley or stiff animations. Instead, the characters' emotions are momentarily frozen and the popular features of the actors' mostly fantastic performances are distilled in tiny moments. It's in the gaps between these stills where players have to engage their imagination, giving players time to revel in the emotions on the watch's screen and complete the blanks. It does not hurt that, between your framing of every shot and also the pacing of the editing, As Dusk Falls has probably the most competently directed scenes That i have ever familiar with a game.
All of this praise for As Dusk Falls is coming from somebody that mostly experienced the sport alone, in single-player mode, having a controller. Based on the developers, As Dusk Falls is intended to be played as a multiplayer game, with as many as 8 players allowed to contribute to the decision-making with a Jackbox -style companion app. Unfortunately, as of writing this, the companion app wasn't available, however i was able to at least test the game with one other player (my non-gamer girlfriend), and that i can without danger say that As Dusk Falls is definitely an entirely different experience when more and more people join the party.
Solo, As Dusk Falls is a mostly gripping, occasionally tedious, but consistently immersive interactive film that actively engages your ethics and private values every time you need to make a decision. Having fun with someone else (or, I can only imagine, multiple people, especially in the streamer-friendly broadcast mode) turns As Dusk Falls into something similar to watching Rocky Horror Picture Show or The Room in a crowded theater, with the participants shouting out lines and cracking jokes, making what happens on the watch's screen ancillary to the remaining experience.
And you know what? Still it works. Will it somewhat trivialize the terribly serious stuff that happen in the sport? Yes, if that is the way you wish to view it. May be the pacing slow for a party game? Maybe. I, however, choose to take the viewpoint that As Dusk Falls' malleability is among its strengths. Besides, around I hate the concept, I can't deny that letting streamers involve their audiences with making in-game decisions is a great marketing move. It's nice to determine INTERIOR/NIGHT taking the long view here and considering their game all different angles, making it into not just an interactive story with beautiful art and compelling cinematography, but an event.
Another aspect of As Dusk Falls that I appreciated was how easy it makes returning to seeing how different choices might have panned out. When you finish the game, you are able to choose to explore the story's narrative tree on the same save file and restart from different points throughout the story. After that, you can decide to overwrite your save, not save whatsoever, or begin a totally new save file. Fundamental essentials types of options that I think every narrative game with branching paths should include. It's like keeping the thumb around the page of a Choose Your Own Adventure book so that you can go back if you do not such as the results of the choices that you made, but in gaming form.
Unfortunately, there's one significant problem with INTERIOR/NIGHT's long view, and it is in how the game ends. Without giving an excessive amount of away, I will say that if you are expecting every plot thread to be wrapped up after the game, you will be sadly disappointed. For the worst situation, the plot thread that's left dangling is one that's introduced inside the first Fifteen minutes from the game. It is something that's constantly mentioned and never developed, cheap it's used like a cliffhanger for any potential sequel (or future DLC) is infuriating, especially since there was plenty of room hanging around for that writers to fully develop it. Actually, I was so shocked that the game ended the actual way it did which i spent several minutes trying to figure out how to begin the following chapter, believing that no one within their right mind would end a story the way that INTERIOR/NIGHT decided to end theirs.
I'm not likely to say that the way As Dusk Falls ends ruined my experience with the game, but it certainly dampened my excitement enough which i could be suspicious of any sequel or DLC that INTERIOR/NIGHT might release. It doesn't erase the beautiful work and invigorating stylistic decisions made throughout the remaining game, however it does cause me to feel wonder if most likely the developers weren't a tad too trapped within the excitement of what they were making. It's bold, I will provide them with that. But sometimes using the more traditional route has its advantages.
