Hello and welcome again to Discussion: [indie game] (spoilers!), a semi-regular series with a title so ingenious it needs absolutely no further explanation.

Today’s game is Afterparty, an adventure game developed by Night School Studio and released in 2019. Our protagonists are Milo and Lola, two recent college graduates who unexpectedly find themselves detained in Hell, and set about trying to return to the land of the living by challenging Satan to a drinking contest.

Here’s a trailer:

Normally at this point we like to make broadly positive but non-committal noises about the game in question and encourage you to play before reading on. However, as you’ll soon see, we were more than a little disappointed by this one, having already played and enjoyed Night School’s previous effort, Oxenfree.

Afterparty has had some good reviews, however, and the forthcoming discussion will spoil the story for anyone who hasn’t played it, so the usual caveats apply – if you plan on picking it up in the future, you should probably avoid reading further.

Ok? Here’s our ***FINAL SPOILER WARNING*** for this discussion!
 

Speaking of drinking…

[Following a brief pep talk about not being too negative…]

Jo: I kind of feel like our self-imposed diplomacy rule will go much the same way as our PC Zone night out ‘2 drink maximum’ rule.

Rik: What, completely evaporate in about 20 minutes?

Jo: Yup!

Rik: Well, let’s get on with it, and find out, I guess…

Jo: Yes, let’s!

Rik: Afterparty was my choice, so I’d better explain myself. I thought it looked cool, it was from the makers of Oxenfree…

Jo: I put it on my wishlist shortly after playing Oxenfree.

Rik: We generally quite like to discuss stuff from the same series here. Or with some links, at least. In a break with the FFG tradition of veering about wildly in gaming history, prompting labyrinthine introductions wherein we re-explain why we looked at the third game first and then went to number 5, then back to the first one…

Jo: Haha!

Rik: This really didn’t feel like much of a punt. I was really looking forward to it, in fact. Although I hadn’t watched the trailer or anything.

Jo: Same here. It seemed like a good premise.

Rik: Yeah: escape hell by going on a pub crawl with Satan (which you don’t actually do, but we’ll get to that).

Jo: I wasn’t expecting it to be like Oxenfree, per se, but I did have fairly high hopes there would be some similarities, in a ‘kids experiencing something a bit other-worldly’ type way.

Rik: Right. But this time, it’s just two kids – Milo and Lola – and we’re dealing with a slightly older age group, as they’ve just finished college. Where they begin the game, at a leaving party, having made no friends apart from each other. Except it isn’t a leaving party, they’re dead, and they’re in Hell.

Jo: I have to say, I was quite disoriented at the start.

Rik: By the fake party?

Jo: Yeah.

Rik: You’re sort of thrown in a little bit. Maybe it’s to kind of make you feel what the characters are feeling. Although for the player, I think the graduation banner saying ‘Class of whatever-year-this-is’ instead of an actual year was a bit of a clue.

Jo: The two characters didn’t seem to actually get on with anyone there. I got the impression it was a ‘we have to go because it’s the end of college party’ type situation.

Rik: Although is that a thing? I guess I kept forgetting that they were college leavers, not school leavers. Because I feel like it’s a bit weird to have left college with only one friend. The awkwardness, the exclusion, the bullying… it all seems more like a high school vibe?

Jo: Agree. The whole ‘we’ll go ‘cos everyone is going’ is definitely more of a high school thing. I reckon by college people don’t really care – they’ve already split off into smaller groups and there generally isn’t a main collective of people.

Rik: You kind of get a taste of what’s to come in that intro bit. The early conversations give you an insight into the two main characters (and the likely dynamic/tone of future interactions) and you get introduced to the drinking gameplay mechanic, which is basically that you get an extra (usually rude/bold) dialogue option when you drink. And the screen goes blurry for a bit.

Jo: Yep.

Rik: There aren’t any long lasting effects of drinking too much, it seems. You just cane it briefly, get an extra option, which you can choose or not, and that’s it.

Jo: You at least get the idea that Lola and Milo aren’t big drinkers, or generally into the party scene particularly.

Rik: Yes. I think they’re meant to be sympathetic characters – at this point, anyway – but I’m not sure that I felt that way about them.

Jo: I had the same feeling. But at the start, I figured it was too early to call, and there was still time to warm up to them.

Rik: He’s whiny, she’s sarky, they maybe don’t really like each other…

Jo: That’s something that threw me quite a lot. Like – are they friends?

Rik: Obviously that’s something that’s important later on. But I feel like it shouldn’t be so clear at this point. They’re meant to be inseparable… and people always wonder why they aren’t going out with each other.

Jo: But you’d assume actually getting along would be a prerequisite of such a relationship. I dunno, I sort of hoped they’d be a bit like Michael Cera and Jonah Hill’s characters in Superbad. Like, they’re not cool, kinda nerdy outsiders, but they have this really close bond with one another.

Rik: Yeah, I know what you mean. I also figured they’d lean into the drinking a bit more, too, early on. You have the preamble, the stuff about new arrivals having to be processed by 6pm (you know, there’s admin in Hell, too, guys!), which is all the setup for the characters having the chance to explore, get a drink, and uncover the possibility of escape. But then I got a bit lost with it.

Jo: It’s not clear why they’re dead or how they ended up in Hell, either, and that sort of never really gets much focus throughout the game.

 

Leicester on a Tuesday night

Rik: I have to say, I quickly found myself getting irritated by the setup and script.

Jo: Me too. Although, on a positive note, I did quite like the ‘Hell is just a day-job’ thing – it was overdone, but I liked that the demons actually weren’t that invested in terrifying people.

Rik: I think my problem was whether Hell was meant to be awful in a light-hearted way, like in a sort of bad Radio 4 comedy programme: oh, demons are fine, really, and they have to do admin too, while making sarcastic quips about everything…

Jo: Oh, 100% agree.

Rik: But then you have people hanging from nooses, and murderers as characters.

Jo: It was hard to get a handle on what Hell was supposed to be like.

Rik: Is Hell horrible or not? I mean, obviously it is…

Jo: Yeah, I was gonna say, it’s definitely horrible!

Rik: But then the supposed ‘dark’ elements seemed too dark, and a bit jarring with the comedy elements.

Jo: I’m being careful not to sound like a total prudish buzzkill here, but quite early on, I had iffy feelings about the humour. I was hoping I would warm up to it, and that maybe it was just the odd bit that was quite off tonally, but it got worse as the game went on.

Rik: At first, I thought that maybe it was all supposed to emphasise that Milo and Lola are definitely in the wrong place. But I agree, I think there’s a problem with tone that’s obvious early on and doesn’t get any better.

Jo: I think the celebration of the ‘Death Day’ anniversary of the serial killer was the first big red flag for me. Well, maybe not the first. But likely the point at which I thought things weren’t going to improve.

Rik: Yeah, it’s odd. Like, there’s a bit where you meet Sam, your friendly cab driver, who speaks like a sassy podcaster…

Jo: And is voiced by the wonderful Ashly Burch!

Rik: Then you go somewhere and wander past some people hanging from a tree by their necks, to a bar where you meet a murderer who, we learn, liked to charm young men before killing them (!) Eventually you find out that you can get out of hell by outdrinking Satan, but first you have to get an invitation to his party, and then he has some more challenges for you, before a big showdown.

Jo: I feel like it took a fair while to get to the actual quest part of the game.

Rik: It takes a long time to get going. And I never quite got the vibe of what would actually be involved. It’s different from Oxenfree, in that wandering around a largely deserted place was an opportunity for the characters to talk and flesh things out a bit.

Jo: Yes, exactly.

Rik: This is more like your traditional adventure. Except you still have to go down a set route rather than exploring anywhere, or talking to people, or doing stuff, like you would in a point and clicker.

Jo: It just felt like a lot of wandering around while the dialogue rumbled on. Once you get to where you were going, there’s more dialogue, which results in having to go somewhere else (for more dialogue) and then there’s dialogue on the way, too, with nothing else to break it up. All that would be fine if any of it were in some way engaging, or funny, or progressing the story. But I just felt like I was traipsing from place to place enduring these sprawling monologues.

Rik: You see a fair few locations, but seemingly can’t do very much in each one. I’ll put it this way, I wasn’t that bothered about missing anything in this game.

Jo: No, me neither.

Rik: There may well be interesting things at Satan’s house, for example…

Jo: Where you have to take 4 elevators up to the top floor, for no apparent reason.

Rik: I always went straight to the top and the bottom when I could.

Jo: Me too. I did not want to hear one more single word from any other character if I didn’t have to.

Rik: I really thought it would be more of a party-type atmosphere. Like, Satan would be a party animal and you’d be forced to drink a lot more than you wanted throughout a chaotic night of antics. Then there’d be arguments, revelations, regrets etc. at various points.

Jo: Yes, same.

Rik: This is more like trudging round Leicester on a Tuesday night.

Jo: Maybe that’s what they were going for.

 

Your own personal negging device

Rik: I also thought that your choices around drinking would be more relevant. You definitely need to have a drink to get some more assertive options, and which drink you choose allows you to express your drunkenness in different ways, but I don’t think it affects anything else. For example, I was wondering if you had to pick a particular drink for the situation, but I don’t think that’s the case.

Jo: There wasn’t any kind of explanation or intro into the drinking mini-games, which would be fine if it was more immediately obvious. I thought maybe each drink might draw out a particular trait and, like you said, you’d then have to pick one for the situation. All the cocktails just sounded equally horrible and obscure.

Rik: I honestly wouldn’t have had a problem if the mini-games had been more of a thing: the beer pong, the dancing, the stacking… I wouldn’t even have minded a Street Fighter II style thing, where you have to beat harder and harder drinking demons, interspersed with some adventure stuff.

Jo: There were a lot of missed opportunities with the mini-games, I feel.

Rik: Instead of taking on demons at drinking, you get told to go somewhere and talk to someone. First, you have to blag an invite to Satan’s party, which means you either help a demon or a human, in exchange for a spare invitation. Who did you help?

Jo: What are the options? Remind me…

Rik: There’s a rock singer who wants someone to get her a drink, or a demon who has an errand (which turns out to be about finding a human interloper who gets punished horribly).

Jo: The demon, I think.

Rik: I did demon on my first playthrough, then human second time around. On the basis that the demons are presented as comedy characters, while the humans are all awful.

Jo: Yeah, that was pretty much my rationale.

Rik: To be honest, I figured you’d have to do both eventually, but you don’t. And then the personal demon character – Sister Mary Wormhorn – turns up to berate you for your choices. Do we, er, want to talk about that character at all?

Jo: It’s unclear what purpose this character serves, other than being your own personal negging device.

Rik: Even as she was summarising your characters’ choices, and criticising them, I figured she’d be doing the same whatever you did. If you help the human, she says you helped a bad person; if you help the demon, she’s like, why would you help a demon.

Jo: It’s pretty clear neither choice is a good one, and seeing as you know that going in, you’re left wondering what the point is. Pick a bad choice or a bad choice, then get told you made a bad choice.

Rik: Ironically, out of all the games we’ve played where we’ve agonised over choices, in this one I didn’t really care.

Jo: Exactly, me neither.

Rik: Even though it actively tries to make you feel bad.

Jo: I was like ‘I will pick whatever choice gets me to the end of this game quicker’. It did make me feel bad, but not in the way it intended.

Rik: You literally have no prior information upon which to base your decision.

Jo: Yeah, exactly. There’s just endless dialogue, mostly about nothing, with some really juvenile humour thrown in, then it’s like NOW YOU NEED TO DO SOMETHING! But there’s no context for the decision you’re about to make, so you just pick one at random. And then it turns out it doesn’t really matter anyway.

 

The funniest game I’ve ever played

Rik: I think there’s a general problem with knowing whether you’re meant to like the demons or not. Are we supposed to want these creatures, who apparently torture people, to be happy, because they crack some jokes and talk like they’re in a sitcom? For example, after you make it to Satan’s, he says you have to beat two other demons to get to challenge him. So then you have that bit where you either have to get a demon back with his ex-wife, or beat him in a dance-off…

Jo: But also before you start the mini-game, he’s then like ‘please don’t beat me!’

Rik: Yeah, so are you meant to want to help this guy or not? First time, I tried the wife route, then he asked me to throw the contest, which I didn’t, then he gave me what I wanted anyway. Second time, I just went, wham – let’s dance!

Jo: It doesn’t matter what you do. And sorry to sound so sulky but I didn’t enjoy the mini-game either. There’s no lead up to it – it’s just happening suddenly – almost like someone said ‘maybe we should have a mini-game here to break up all this monotonous dialogue’.

Rik: Well, if you help the human in the first section, you do get to practice the dancing. But it does feel really lame to flop at a really easy mini-game, regardless of what you want to happen in the story. I just couldn’t do it.

Jo: I think I felt excited to be actually doing something, other than listening to people talk. To be clear, I’m not against dialogue at all given I play (almost exclusively) story-driven, dialogue heavy games.

Rik: Well, I think this whole discussion series does make that clear…

Jo: Ok, phew, maybe I’m overthinking it.

Rik: I like there to be words in films, but it does depend what those words are, and how they’re delivered. I mean, the best that can be said for Afterparty is that obviously some people did enjoy it and find it funny. Maybe it just didn’t land with us, for whatever reason.

Jo: A lot of the reviews on Steam were very positive – ‘the funniest game I’ve ever played’ type stuff. Maybe I’m just old and out of touch, but I found it really juvenile.

Rik: For me it was a horrible combination of someone doing comedy while trying to let you know how clever they are (the Radio 4 element), a social media profile with a bio that includes the phrase ‘snark merchant’ or ‘disappointmentalist’, and then the kind of person who thinks that swearing and distasteful content are just funny regardless of the circumstances.

Jo: There’s a bit where you’re supposed to teleport to another location, and arrive some place where someone is humping a tree, when you port back one of the characters is like ‘whoops sorry, wrong place!’ I was like, is that the big funny haha moment?

Rik: Like you, I kept wondering whether it was an age thing, but a lot of the references are 80s and 90s adjacent.

Jo: Don’t get me wrong, very few games I’ve played have me really howling with laughter – they can be funny without even prompting an actual laugh – but this just made me want to burn my PC down. It really irritated me.

Rik: I did try to think about whether I was missing something. But ironically there’s a bit towards the end where Wormhorn says: ‘This isn’t a David Lynch movie! There’s nothing more going on!’ I was like, no kidding!

Jo: Admittedly, I did play it during the post Christmas/pre-NYE time period where everything’s a bit wobbly mood-wise. We were also having some plumbing issues and toilet water started spurting out of the downstairs light switches, so I thought, maybe I’m just in a bad place mentally. But even after having a break and a quiet word with myself, I felt exactly the same when I came back to it.

Rik: It’s strange, we might have a bit of a nod and a wink about a game when we’re playing it for this series, but never really talk about anything before we actually get to the discussion itself. I remember asking you about this, and your face just fell… And [Mr Jo] said, ‘don’t get into it now, let him play it first!’

Jo: Hahahaha! I did rant to him quite a lot about it. In his usual diplomatic way, he was just like ‘Maybe it’s just not your cuppa tea’ – and it’s not. But I am genuinely curious as to how this game got the positive reviews that it did – I want to know what it is that I’m missing.

Rik: It’s not just that the humour doesn’t land, but it doesn’t seem well constructed in terms of what you’re meant to be doing. I think I was most baffled about not really getting a handle on Milo and Lola’s relationship, considering how well-judged and well-observed Oxenfree is.

Jo: Yeah, completely agree. It’s hard to believe it’s made by the same studio.

Rik: In Oxenfree, the characters get on, they don’t get on, they bicker, there are big fights… it’s all believable. Here, when Milo and Lola have a big fight, you think, ok, why is this happening, again?

Jo: It felt like something a comedy bro and his mate threw together. I read a review that said it attempts to be funny, but the main reason it doesn’t work is because you can’t see the characters’ facial expressions… But we played Monkey Island back in the 90s – there was no voice acting and the graphics weren’t advanced enough for facial expressions, and that was comedy that really landed.

Rik: Also, books can be funny.

 

An intervention for Satan

Rik: So, in the interests of balance, I should probably say that I read a couple of pieces on Eurogamer [Malindy Hetfield’s positive review here, and a follow-up that discusses how the game explores the difficulties caused by low self-esteem] which kind of helped me understand a bit more what the game was going for. Lola and Milo don’t really like each other anymore, but they needed each other, for a while at least.

Jo: I guess part of the problem is that you don’t really like those characters either.

Rik: Yeah, when Milo and Lola fall out, I wasn’t really sure what to feel. Nor when they make up afterwards.

Jo: It’s surprising that in such a dialogue heavy game, you still have no real idea who the characters are, or what their back story is.

Rik: There is some background but, for example, I don’t think the big revelations about their families feel like big revelations. And when they finally do fall out and say, maybe we don’t like each other, I thought: no, that much has been obvious from the start. Considering what happens in the game, it doesn’t seem very surprising that Milo sabotaged an opportunity for Lola, and she slagged him off behind his back at a party. Which is the big reveal that causes their fight. And then! You have an ending during which you suddenly have to decide whether staging an intervention for Satan’s alcoholism is something you’re meant to do or not.

Jo: Yeah, how did you feel about that?

Rik: I think all the general confusion makes the ending even more confusing. 1) Right, so Satan has a drinking problem. He seems like a nice guy, but it’s Satan, so…? 2) Also, do my characters deserve to be in Hell or escape it?

Jo: Yeah. It’s a mess.

Rik: Am I supposed to encourage Satan to seek help so he can run Hell more efficiently? Or am I supposed to just beat him so I can get out of Hell? At this point, I thought, well, none of this has worked.

Jo: Very little of this game actually makes sense. I was really thrown by the ending.

Rik: Oh, and there’s that bit beforehand with ‘Roberto Spaghetti’, a man who might also be in Hell by accident, and you’re supposed to keep him there, because he’s experienced in staging interventions and can help the Fallen Prince of Darkness confront his underlying issues… anyway, which ending did you get?

Jo: I didn’t join Satan in his drinking game. I just refused. And then I think I ended up starting a new life in hell, ‘cuz it’s quite nice here actually!’

Rik: Milo and Lola stay in Hell, and they hang out with demons and life in Hell isn’t so bad after all.

Jo: But they’re also still trying to escape.

Rik: Yeah, Sam bursts in and says, oh maybe there’s another way…

Jo: I was rubbish at the beer pong, so I just thought, maybe don’t engage, and see where that goes.

Rik: I got out first time. Even if Satan beats you, he keeps giving you another go.

Jo: So if you enable Satan’s drinking problem, it rewards you with getting out of Hell? After the quite heavy handed ‘you’ve got a problem, Satan’ intervention from the other characters?

Rik: Yes, also whoever else is on your drinking team gets to go with you. I had Sam and a random drunk demon join us in the mortal realm.

Jo: Do you find out why you died? And indeed what you did to end up in Hell?

Rik: There was a car accident. Lola was driving, but it wasn’t her fault. I would say no to the second question, although that article in Eurogamer says, ‘Afterparty suggests [Milo and Lola] landed in Hell simply because they didn’t live their lives to the best of their ability, and over time just let resentment and fear get the best of themselves.’

Jo: So they deserve to reside with the serial killers and murderers? Or is the message that we’re all going to Hell?

Rik: It was interesting to read that Eurogamer piece, even though I don’t necessarily agree with it.

Jo: For me, it’s not enough to throw in some half-baked sentiment at the end to make it meaningful – you need to have some buy-in from the off.

 

I have met every dumbass I want to

Jo: I really am struggling to find Afterparty‘s redeeming qualities, beyond the visuals, voice acting, and music.

Rik: It is very cool to look at. And I also liked the music, too.

Jo: I quite liked that there was a special place in hell for people who worked in marketing…

Rik: There’s a bit about chewing ice towards the end which did really make me laugh.

Jo: Where was that? (In case it’s not already obvious, I didn’t play it a second time).

Rik: It’s when Wormhorn’s getting carried away with her slideshows. There’s a slide about people chewing ice and the accompanying cartoon really tickled me – it sort of had a Ren and Stimpy vibe where they’d do static close-ups on something gross.

Jo: Aw, I don’t remember that! Probably couldn’t make it out through my scowling.

Rik: I’ve got a screenie, I think. [Edit: No, I don’t, but I checked: I didn’t make it up…]

Jo: Anyway, I wanted to like it a lot more than I did.

Rik: Me, too. I even wondered if it was all deliberately very annoying, and I just didn’t get it. I already mentioned Wormhorn’s comment about it ‘not being a David Lynch movie!’ but there’s another bit where you go into Satan’s house for the final time and it’s your last chance to do anything else before the endgame. If you choose to go into the house, Lola says something like, ‘let’s just get it over with, I’ve already met every asshole I wanted to’ [Edit: the line is actually, ‘Let’s just get on with it. I have met every dumbass I want to, tonight.’] – which is very similar to a comment you made earlier in this discussion, and my own feelings about the whole game.

Jo: Having got generally positive reviews, I’m still scratching around for what it is that I’m missing.

Rik: For what it’s worth, the second time it didn’t annoy me as much, because I had more of a neutral head on. With this series, they’re not reviews, and we kind of go for things we think we’ll like and hopefully have fun discussing the story. But for the second playthrough I already knew I didn’t like it, so sort of put a different head on to look at things a bit more dispassionately. As if I was reviewing a bad cricket game from 2005 or something: I know what I’m going to get, so let’s try and see what they were going for.

Jo: I was disappointed. I can’t say I had super high/unreasonable expectations or anything, but I really enjoyed Oxenfree and was excited to see what else they made.

Rik: Yeah, I had been looking forward to it for a long time, before we played Oxenfree, even.

Jo: I think there was a lot of potential: opportunities to make the mini-games a bit more fun and impactful, for example. Or they could even have scrapped them altogether if the story had been a bit more engaging.

Rik: If you hadn’t given me a brief non-verbal warning in advance of what it might be like, I would probably have been even more disappointed. Maybe you felt the full force of the disappointment for the two of us!

Jo: I don’t know whether to accept the humour is just not my thing, but I did find some of it actually quite insulting.

Rik: I mean ‘just not my thing’ is a nice way of saying, I thought it wasn’t funny and that it was bad. It ticked all my boxes of things I don’t like.

Jo: You said to me before, ‘it’s like the voiceover from Drawful made a game’…

Rik: Yes. Although I should say that I do like Drawful, and a lot of the Jackbox Party Pack games. But this is like an occasional between-round slightly grating snarky comment being spread across a whole adventure game.

Jo: I want to say the dialogue needed editing, but it needed more than that.

Rik: It needed rewriting.

 

Having a funderful time

Rik: Anything else you want to say, in summing up?

Jo: I’m sorry I’ve been so negative. The Suicide of Rachel Foster is the only other game we’ve played in this series that we’ve had pretty scathing opinions of.

Rik: Although we’d heard bad things about Rachel Foster in advance, but good things about this.

Jo: Thinking about it, I actually enjoyed the process of playing through Rachel Foster more – it wasn’t until the endgame that I was struck by the clanging realisation that it was complete bollocks and none of it made sense.

Rik: In Rachel Foster, there at least seemed a small chance that it would all come together…

Jo: My sense of hope was retained for most of my playthrough.

Rik: Although, to re-iterate: Rachel Foster has one of the worst endings of all time.

Jo: Yeah, I was going to say, a good chunk of Rachel Foster was intriguing for the most part, but the sides came shearing off pretty quickly towards the end. With Afterparty, I found it jarring from the off, and it never really got going after that.

Rik: I’d agree that this made a bad first impression with me and didn’t get much better.

Jo: I’m still pretty surprised by the positive reviews on Steam if I’m honest.

Rik: Well, look on GOG if you want to see some bad ones!

Jo: One negative review said ‘Good if you like narrative games…’ but it bothers me that this is what people think narrative games are.

Rik: I think it’s fair to say, anyone who enjoyed Oxenfree and had high hopes for this might be disappointed.

Jo: Oxenfree is very popular in certain gaming circles; I did wonder why in all the hype and anticipation of Oxenfree 2, this game was rarely mentioned.

Rik: Perhaps because it uses the word ‘funderful’ in a non-ironic way within the first 10 minutes.

Jo: Heh! Ah well, it’s a shame, but never mind.

Rik: Better to have played it and found out what it was like than have it unplayed in our backlogs forever.

Jo: Yeah, exactly. And it was fun discussing it.

Rik: Yes, thanks again, I enjoyed this, as always. Your choice next!

—
Afterparty is available from Steam and GOG for around £15.