Review: Long Night – Episode 1

Set in a camp in the 1990s, Long Night follows a teenage clique known as D4. Four teens, each having a name that starts with a D (Dean, Diana, Dewey, and David), with David as the protagonist. One night the group decides to perform a strange incantation (as kids do), which thrusts them into a nightmare world where they’re pursued by a monstrous witch.

The storytelling in Long Night is strictly told through hand-drawn cutscenes and subtitles. There’s little exposition when the game starts, and players are quickly put into control of David when things begin to go wrong. One thing that I noticed, and I’m sure many will, is that the cutscenes move far too fast. As soon as the game begins there’s dialogue exchanged between characters and the subtitles move too quickly to be read comfortably. It’s a strange oversight on the part of the developers, and one I hope to see fixed in the follow up chapters.

Visually, Long Night evokes thoughts of a PlayStation 2 horror title the likes of Obscure. It’s vibrant, simple, and somewhat stylized. If I had any major complaints, it would have to be David’s character model. He looks less like a teen and more like a 30 year old man with a few issues. Now, this isn’t to knock the game down a peg, but the character design could use some work.

As David, players need to navigate the nightmarish version of his camp, where everyone but he and his friends seems to have disappeared. Navigating the camp plays out much like a survival horror game of the past, where players will sometimes be given places of interest on their map, or be left to their own devices and explore until the right place is found.

Within the camp there’s a recurring enemy: the witch. Long Night has no combat, so the only course of action to take when the witch emerges is to run away and seek out one of the several hiding zones. Running is a limited action as David appears to suffer from asthma and can only run for a certain amount of time. In order to escape the instant-death that the witch’s touch brings, one must run in short bursts, watching the witch’s own running pattern so that David’s stamina doesn’t deplete too quickly.

While the witch’s pursuit brings about a few panic inducing moments, her chases began to feel a bit too tedious as I expected her to appear every time I stepped outside and started exploring. Running away as a mechanic in Long Night works for this type of game and is functional and mostly effective, but there will be a few instances where David will get stuck to an object in the environment that he makes contact with.

Outside of the frantic moments in the game, Long Night plays much like you’d expect a classic survival horror game to, from its method of puzzle solving to its little guidance to what to do next. Of the several interiors that you will explore, there are many notes, clues, and stories that provide some interesting backstory to the camp’s residents and the Native American tribe that once owned the land. As far as writing goes, the game’s documents are pretty well done and I felt driven to read them all.

Clues will be found in some documents that help players understand how to engage a puzzle, but prepare for some thinking as there’s very little hand-holding (compared to most games released these days).

Taking place in the 90s, Long Night‘s developers really wanted to drive that point home. Among the game’s notes, levels, and backgrounds, there are a lot – and I mean A LOT – of references to 90s pop culture – perhaps too much. From character art clearly inspired by actors from popular shows, and even the episode’s title, “Alone I Break”, the 90s references are a bit heavy handed and detract from the game’s tone and will assuredly break immersion for some people.

Near the end of the episode’s two hour playtime, there are some pretty cool scenes that remind of the Silent Hill series in terms of aesthetics, but also a few frustrating design choices that require players to perform a series of trial and error sequences. In what should have been an exciting climax, I was just glad to have been lucky enough to get through without too much frustration and resentment towards the developer’s choices.

Long Night is the kind of game that’s heavily inspired by the PlayStation era of survival horror games, which is both admirable and appreciated, but it is ultimately an experience marred by a few annoyances that keep it from being great. But despite its flaws, it has a certain charm about it that has me anxiously awaiting its follow up episodes. And for $5, you can’t go wrong giving the first episode a shot.

I only hope that the development team takes the available constructive criticism and use it to improve this neat little series they’ve started.