While there may be many people who don’t find “interactive stories” particularly exciting, the genre actively and deliberately strips the game of the key mechanical interactions that are considered necessary for immersive reading, but in the There has been success in this regard over the past decade.
Telltale in particular has had success with their interactive narratives, The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us and Tales from the Borderlands have huge and broad fan bases who didn’t miss out on more mechanical interactions but actually enjoyed such a one The fact that, as a player, you’re in the back seat, makes the decisions that shape the game’s central plot crucially, leaving control and positioning to good… destiny. Even Supermassive has to say that it has established itself as a studio with an equally passionate following with games like Until Dawn and now The Quarry.
Xbox bet that studio Inside/Night could find its way with the game As Dusk Falls, which uses a visual style that’s original to say the least, rendered almost through a series of static watercolors, and has a slightly more down-to-earth story, I Already played the first two chapters.
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In May 1998, on Arizona Route 66, Zoe, father Vince, mother Michelle and grandfather Jim all passed through the state, seemingly starting a new chapter. They are about to collide with a pickup truck and end up having to go to the Twin Rocks Motel. From there, a heist begins, a bond of many characters that will forever shape them and seem to mark everyone involved in it for years to come.
That’s the core premise of Twilight Falls, so it doesn’t fail. The individual performances or the voice actors behind them also don’t step back enough to distract the narrative, and it’s easy to think that when interactive narratives tell a compelling story, in a way, that’s enough.
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But the problem with Twilight Falls is that, based on just the first two chapters, it isn’t. It’s not enough to tell an exciting story. For one, other innovative visual styles don’t always hit the spot. Of course, there’s a radiance to the scenes that come with these moving paintings, an artistic dimension that sometimes lends a different visual style to The Walking Dead. But honestly? This seems more like a way to preserve 3D modeling, physics engines, and all the other aspects associated with modern game design. Also, especially in conversation, it can almost break the hallucination, with characters going from big smiles to angry grimace, it’s unnatural to the eyes when you don’t see the gradual transition directly.
Also, although some objects in a given scene use this style of painting/painting (eg characters), these objects are placed in the 3D rendered frame. This can create some really uneven sequences, as simple as opening a door, or a car being thrown off the road.
While we’re on a technical topic, the lack of responsiveness to the controls is pretty serious. You might be thinking; “What control?”, but like the inspiration mentioned earlier, you make the decision by moving the analog stick to one of the dialogue options on the screen, let’s say the journey there is unsatisfactory , slow and imprecise – not 60fps at all. The analog stick takes half a second to register that you want to use it.
Lack of technology, a unique visual style often falls short of the mark. But, again, it’s worth stating that I’ve only played the first two chapters, or “books” if you will, and the game isn’t out yet. In particular, these controls may need tweaking and fine-tuning before July 19th.
Meanwhile, it’s worth pointing out that As Dusk Falls offers a rather innovative multiplayer feature where up to eight players can make decisions together via a smartphone app. I haven’t had a chance to test this in the indicated time frame, but it sounds like a really excellent addition.
I’ll be keeping a close eye on As Dusk Falls ahead of its release, because while the controls in particular, and perhaps part of the visual style, make me doubt Inside/Night’s ability to bring the game to fruition, the premise, storytelling and will behind it is worth your while focus on. Let’s hope the game gets where it needs to go.