Night in the Woods: Eschatological Millennials! Demiboy vs. Backlog, Game #11

If you keep an eye out for the term "millennial" in news and blogs, you'll catch sight of two narratives. One paints the children of the 80s and 90s as contemptible freeloaders, refusing to work for benefits to which they feel they are entitled. Another depicts the same group as a demographic of despair, staring down insurmountable walls of debt and inheriting a world irreparably damaged by the excesses of prior generations. In Night in the Woods, you get both. NitW's distinctly millennial crew knows the world is soon coming to an end, and in the meantime, they figure the best they can do is have fun.

All millennials are also queer furries. True story. (Also: gorrammit, not another game that calls itself out as "just pixels")

 
Protagonist Mae Borowski most represents the "freeloader" end of the spectrum. She drops out of college, moves back in with her parents, and refuses to get a job, preferring instead to spend her time romping around town committing petty crimes and hanging out with anyone who'll tolerate her presence. And yet she's also the most acutely aware of the end times at hand, plagued by visions of meaninglessness and devastation. Her friends are more responsible, to varying degrees, most of them at least holding down jobs. But they too party like the apocalypse is at hand, defying the unjust powers that be through acts of political subversion and destructive vandalism.

Such juxtapositions run throughout NitW's gameplay. You'll goof off with a variety of minigames, from Um Jammer Lammy style guitar rhythm action to a complete playable arcade game, Demontower, in between stretches of exploring a town teetering on the brink of economic collapse. Dialogue scenes run the gamut of emotion from laugh-out-loud wit to brutal fights over lost dreams and broken hearts. All challenge is optional; your task as a player is not to overcome obstacles with your skill, but to navigate this emotional landscape however your thoughts and whims guide you.

The Party Barn is just one example of Possum Springs in decay. As the game progresses, you'll see businesses shuttered, edifices ruined under graffiti, and characters move on for good.

 
It's hard not to see the metaphors at work here. Ours is a world hurtling toward its end, whether slowly via climate change or swiftly via all-consuming war. Grand dreams and aspirations for the future are a luxury at best, in most cases mere flights of fancy in the face of a work-until-death reality. We survive as long as we can, keeping our psychic balance with frivolous pursuits like, well, video games and cryptocurrency blogging. So when some incomprehensible cosmic being shows up in Mae's dreams and says there is no God, there is no meaning in life, and you'll all soon be swallowed by the hole at the center of everything? We know that feel.

In this nihilistic way, Night in the Woods resembles Doki Doki Literature Club! or Oxenfree. There are so many unexplained elements and unresolved threads by the end of the game that some players asked creator Scott Benson if he intended to "fix the ending" in a recent patch. But if nothing else, NitW comes out the opposite side of disaster with a stoic cheerfulness: we may all be doomed, but for now, life goes on. Until the blackness swallows us up, there will be band practice, and video games, and pizza.

Pizza good.

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I was on inadvertent hiatus for a bit there, but "Demiboy vs. Backlog" is back! Next in the play queue is Hand of Fate. I've also added a "Wishlist" category to the doc, consisting of games that readers have recommended but which I don't yet own: currently Gorogoa, Owlboy, Subnautica, Tacoma, and Persona 5. Support my games blogging habit by grabbing one of these titles for me on Steam!

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