Thoughts on: The Midnight Walk

Every time I see a game with a unique visual style and lots of artistry behind its presentation, where gameplay is not immediately recognizable, I am wary. Too many indie developers, due to lack of experience and/or people on the team, have banked heavily into selling their titles based on looks while not having a solid gameplay (or story) foundation behind it. Which isn’t wrong or deceitful, but, in my opinion, usually misguided, because the end result usually feels extremely shallow and forgettable. A lot of developers, however, managed to avoid this issue and make something that is not just visually interesting, but also unforgettable. The Midnight Walk isn’t among those.

This is a simple atmospheric adventure game with the main selling point being that everything in the game has been made and at least partially animated from clay models created in real life. It does look cool, even if the stop motion look is used inconsistently and sparingly, and if you’re looking for a short moody adventure with some stealth sections and simple puzzles to spend a few hours with, this one will fit the bill. If you’re looking for something more interesting or more involved, however, you won’t find it here.

There’s a semblance of story and some recurring characters, but unless you’re 12 and haven’t read any books, I doubt anything you see in the game will sound interesting. Not helped by the fact that many story beats are additionally stretched with boring monologuing for no real reason. The problems/puzzles you encounter are rarely interesting, apart from precisely one cool puzzle idea closer to the end of the game that is used in only two rooms. A lot of the mechanics are inconsistent and odd, most obviously how most of the time game puts invisible walls all around level edges, but in a few spots you can fall and die for some reason. The game is also surprisingly buggy at times, especially when it comes to giving the commands to your little flaming companion. Sometimes he gets stuck, sometimes commands don’t come through, sometimes they do come through, but incorrectly… It’s very odd how something so contextually limited can be so poorly designed.

But at the end of the day, it’s just an alright and pretty looking but forgettable title. And the only reason I am leaning towards recommending it is because of how inoffensive it is. Even if it also makes it bland. But at least, it’s not actively frustrating to play most of the time, like some other similarly “visuals first” projects. Though, do be warned that the PC controls are poorly thought out (for the first person adventure game, you know, the genre that thrives on keyboard and mouse) and the FOV is quite claustrophobic with no way to change it. I didn’t mind going through the game, but I’m already forgetting it exists.