A couple of minutes into my first take a look at The Midnight Stroll, I believed to myself, Wait, is that this really the sport? Not a cutscene? What I used to be watching seemed like a beautiful stop-motion animated quick movie, however I quickly realized the builders from MoonHood Studios had been displaying me real-time recreation footage.
The Midnight Stroll appears a lot like a stop-motion movie, a la Phil Tippett’s Mad God or outdated Device movies, partly as a result of the sport’s characters, monsters, and environments are composed of precise bodily supplies. Klaus Lyngeled of MoonHood says the studio sculpted some 700 objects, 3D-scanned them in, and turned them into polygonal fashions. Characters are animated with a stop-motion stutter and the digital camera has a shallow depth of discipline to finish the look.
Lyngeled and author Olov Redmalm describe their first-person, narrative-driven puzzle recreation as a “cozy horror journey” stuffed with eccentric weirdos and pleasant monsters. The story spans a number of chapters of fairy tales, however there’s a constant theme amongst them: heat, distinction, and bringing mild again right into a darkish world.
The Midnight Stroll begins with the sport’s important character, the Burnt One, digging themselves out of a grave and repairing their physique. As they take their journey by way of the titular freeway the Midnight Stroll, they’re joined by an enthralling and goofy little creature referred to as Potboy. This information and companion has a bit of brazier on its head; utilizing Potboy’s flame and a collection of matches, gamers mild torches to convey mild to the Midnight Stroll and battle enemies.
There’s some puzzle-solving and stealth all through the sport, and even a button devoted to closing your eyes to only… listening. (MoonHood guarantees binaural audio and means that gamers expertise The Midnight Stroll whereas sporting headphones.) There’s even some “gunplay” — the builders confirmed the Burnt One buying a weapon that shoots lit matches, giving the participant prolonged vary to battle monsters and remedy puzzles.
Whereas a lot of The Midnight Stroll lives as much as its “cozy” descriptor, largely because of Potboy, there’s some actual horrific-looking stuff in right here too. Each monster and boss is a few variation on a twisted freak: There are scurrying cyclopean mutants, large spider-like terrors, leathery weirdos with their eyes sewn shut, and angry-looking slug creatures with rage points.
The developer’s listed inspirations (Over the Backyard Wall, The Nightmare Earlier than Christmas, David Lynch, Half-Life 2) had been obvious all through my eyes-on preview, however the mixture of influences and craft on show makes The Midnight Stroll really feel distinct from the tasks that got here earlier than it. Suffice it to say, I’m wanting ahead to MoonHood’s new recreation, one thing that wasn’t actually on my radar till final week.
Luckily, the wait to play can be quick. The Midnight Stroll is coming to PlayStation 5 (with PlayStation VR2 assist) and Home windows PC by way of Steam on Might 8.
