![]() ![]() Possum Springs is a true small town and it feels very familiar to me specifically, because my town seems similar Soperton once had lots of jobs and a better economy, but all that was gone by the time I was born. They show Mae grace when she doesn’t have any to give in return. Yes, her friends call her on her crap-they don’t let her be a jerk-but they also show concern and love. Most importantly, the game doesn’t punish Mae for this, and neither do the other characters in the game. She focuses on and imagines wild scenarios. She can’t sleep normally (both because she has terrible, weird dreams and because she stays up at weird hours). Mostly, Mae strugglings with feeling empty. The game never specifically names what’s going on with Mae, but her symptoms line up with depression and anxiety. It’s possible that my reading of the game as the story of a young girl dealing with untreated mental disability isn’t the only way to view the game, but it is an important one. There are a lot of things that make this game great, but its deft handling of mental illness is what makes it truly shine. If you don’t want to be spoiled for the game, stop reading now. Mae also begins to uncover a malicious plot that threatens to young people of the town. Mae lives day to day in Possum Springs, hanging out with her old friends and talking to people in town. Mae-and others around town-also mention something that happened in high school, something that earned Mae the nickname “killer”- but that comes later as well. Some instigating event pushed Mae to quit school, but the details of that event aren’t fully revealed until much later in the game. Originally the product of a successful Kickstarter campaign, the game follows Mae Borowski, a recent college dropout, who returns to her small hometown of Possum Springs. Night in the Woods was released in early 2017, but it’s been in development for years. I recently replayed the game, along with a patch (the “Weird Autumn” expansion) that turns the game into a director’s cut of sorts, and knew that more attention needed to be paid to this charming game. I listed it as my absolute top thing of 2017 in our year in review episode, but I didn’t feel like I said enough about it. One of my favorite things of 2017 was Night in the Woods, a game developed by Infinite Fall and Secret Lab. ![]()
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