A Hangover from Hell

After the success of Night School Studio’s debut release, Oxenfree, Afterparty had big boots to fill, like any band rebounding off the meteoric success of a first album, stakes were high and the world was watching with baited breath, praying you’re not a one trick pony.

Well the bell for last orders is ringing ominously, rush to the bar, grab yourself some liquid courage and read on to find out if what they deliver will be everyone’s sarcasm laced cup of proverbial tea.

Afterparty has much of the charm that fans of Oxenfree so much enjoyed, the macabre cartoonish graphics return (perhaps even more apt given the new setting) and lighting is used as effectively as ever. Street lights throb, gaudy neon signs beckon punters in to clubs and bars, the fiery pits of hell imbue the backdrop with a ubiquitously menacing glow , the whole game oozes with vivid purples, reds, greens and blues, whether cast through the windows of the local watering holes or from the bowls of an overly inebriated reveller. But what helps Night School Studio truly stand out, as a unique, independent Developer, is it’s attention to shockingly intelligent and witty dialogue, which is essentially the driving force behind Afterparty.

Afterparty sees players assume the roles of our unlikely protagonists, Milo and Lola, freshly graduated, socially awkward best friends who unwittingly find themselves dead and doomed to the eternal depths of hell. Luckily for these two unfortunate souls, they quickly learn that there is a loop hole in this otherwise totalitarian regime, out drink Satan and you get two first class tickets back to Earth. Thus commences your journey through the various locales or “circles” of hell, seeing you crawl through a variety of bars and nightclubs, in an effort to gain seals from Satans siblings and ultimately take on the big cheese himself.

Naturally the road isn’t smooth and you come across your fair share of road blocks, namely bouncers who won’t let you in to clubs or VIP areas and other occupants of hell who won’t play ball until you do them a favour first. This is an immediately observable trope of Afterparty’s that really hinders the experience, despite the setting and the story, it somehow still finds a way to be boring and repetitive.

There is no mistaking that Afterparty is anything else but a narrative driven experience, 90% of the players time will be spent listening to witty, razor sharp banter and occasionally choosing an equally humorous retort, the other 10% is spent in what are severely underwhelming “mini-games”. During your quest you will find yourself having a dance off with Asmodeus, playing Beer Pong with Satan himself or racing to stack shot towers against Apollyon, on paper this sounds like fun, in execution it feels incredibly mundane. Dance off’s are reduced to listening to a series of beeps, represented by colours, then repeating them. There is no real challenge at hand and it feels like an afterthought from the developer.

If one was to focus on Afterpartys dialogue alone, as the sole measure of a games value, it would be an undeniable 10, there isn’t enough praise to heap on writers Adam Hines, Adam Esquenazi Douglas and Michael Choung. Of course a good script is nothing without a good actor and performances from the likes of Dave Fennoy (Satan), Erin Yvette (Sister Mary Wormhorn) and Janina Gavankar and Khoi Dao (Lola and Milo respectively) are amongst innumerous stand out performances. The dialogue swings perfectly from high brow, in the know, to low down gutter crass, never failing to be amusing, but never quite reaching laugh out loud funny. Lines like “Shitlips, I mean Milo... who cares, man, seriously, they're just being dickbags” and “Like, have you ever thought that what you consider your personality is just the dream your unconscious body is having? Cause I have... and all my teachers said I was very smart” perfectly surmise this harmony.

However, we aren’t solely evaluating Afterparty on it’s script, we are rating it as an overall experience, a game, as the name suggest, needs to be played, not just listened to. So the defining moments in, the game, should be in it’s inter-activeness, we have been lucky to see excellent story and narrative driven games in recent times, think Detroit: Become Human or any of Telltale Games endeavours. The reason these games leave lasting impressions is the tension they generate, when the times against you and you have to make a dialogue choice that could dramatically impact not only the trajectory of the story but the very longevity of your protagonist! There are no such impactful moments in Afterparty, whilst dialogue is sharp, smart and witty, it never truly drives the story, it’s benign banter that encourages you to endure more of the gameplay in the hopes of another chuckle.

Imagine if Quentin Tarantino said “fuck it, I want them to talk about the tipping culture in America and question the morality of obligatory tips for minimum wage workers in certain industries, but I don’t want a shoot out after, the audience should be satisfied with this witty anecdote alone”, Reservoir Dogs surely wouldn’t be the movie we all so fondly remember.

What’s more is simply getting through the game itself feels laborious, ordering a drink at a bar takes a long time as you have to wait for the bartender to individually shake and present both Milo and Lola with their weird and wonderful concoctions, you have to choose from a selection of “puninspiring” drinks like “Literally Acid” or “Bloody Stool”, the idea being that each drink offers you new dialogue options in conversations, which could, in theory, lead to new outcomes. However it rarely feels as though it does and the whole mechanism feels more like a gimmick than a novel way to introduce gameplay to conversations. Most drinks will lead to a 3rd option, usually being the correct option, but some will let you talk like a pirate, which is never a bad thing. There is no adverse affect to drinking too much, this statement was well tested and drinking “literally Acid” did nothing other than blur the screen, as every less terrifying drink did before.

During your quest you are, regrettably, interrupted by Sister Mary Wormhorn on numerous occasions, your personal demon, assigned to you on your first day in hell and essentially the hellish embodiment of your deepest self doubts and fears. Wormhorn provides some of the more comedic moments in Afterparty, but at times it feels as though she is exclusively there as a recap mechanic, after completing a “mission” as she dutifully runs you through the “options” you took, not so subtly reminding our protagonists that they could have made other choices (or perhaps trying to reinforce to the player that what they chose did matter).

It’s a real shame, that Afterparty is such a muted and dull experience. For a game that offers you an opportunity to partake in an intervention with Satan, due to his rampant alcoholism, you would hope to be left with a long lasting impression. Afterparty touts multiple endings depending on your playthrough, though most players would surely be happy to see the credits roll once. Ultimately Afterparty is much like the club you go to when all the other clubs are shut, because it’s 4 in the morning and you should probably just go home.

5.5/10