A couple of minutes into my first have a look at The Midnight Stroll, I assumed to myself, Wait, is that this truly the sport? Not a cutscene? What I used to be watching regarded like a stunning stop-motion animated quick movie, however I quickly realized the builders from MoonHood Studios have been displaying me real-time sport footage.
The Midnight Stroll appears a lot like a stop-motion movie, a la Phil Tippett’s Mad God or previous Instrument 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 digicam has a shallow depth of subject to finish the look.
Lyngeled and author Olov Redmalm describe their first-person, narrative-driven puzzle sport 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 gentle again right into a darkish world.
The Midnight Stroll begins with the sport’s primary 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 a captivating and goofy little creature referred to as Potboy. This information and companion has just a little brazier on its head; utilizing Potboy’s flame and a sequence of matches, gamers gentle torches to convey gentle 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 simply… listening. (MoonHood guarantees binaural audio and means that gamers expertise The Midnight Stroll whereas carrying 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 clear up puzzles.
Whereas a lot of The Midnight Stroll lives as much as its “cozy” descriptor, largely due to 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, big 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) have 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 sport, one thing that wasn’t actually on my radar till final week.
Thankfully, the wait to play can be quick. The Midnight Stroll is coming to PlayStation 5 (with PlayStation VR2 help) and Home windows PC by way of Steam on Could 8.
