The Stuff That Dreams Could Be Made Of
Guest review for Total Gaming Network by "Links".

White Night is a game that piqued my interest when I first saw it. It came across as a stylized noir game with horror elements that utilized light as a key puzzle component. It tries to combine the slow burn of a noir’s mysterious reveal with the tension of a supernatural thriller. Though White Night creates an aesthetically pleasing game, it sadly creates a blend of gameplay elements that aren’t entirely appropriate for either of its attempted genres.

The story begins, as you would expect from a spooky noir story, with a late night drive, a ghost dame in distress, a mystery that leaves you in over your head, and the push forward to the resolution despite all reason. After being injured in a supernaturally induced car crash, you find refuge in an abandoned mansion. As with all good supernatural stories, this mansion holds some secrets. As you progress through both the mansion plot points and other characters of interest are slowly revealed. These little nuggets of story are presented to the player through the examination of pictures, photos, books, journals, and various forms of written media scattered around. More often than not, there will be a number of these clues within five feet of each other.

I’m serious, these books are absolutely everywhere. A library early on holds nowhere near the amount of books left lying around the rest of this dilapidated home. It really seems to suggest the books are the main focus of the game despite feeling like filler between what I feel should be the main focus: Being scared by ghosts. The story conveyed in these documents seem to be a standard blend of what I’d expect from a noir story and a supernatural horror story. That is to say, the plot felt formulaic and I already began to see the big twists and turns coming at me long before they were oh so dramatically revealed to me.

In terms of gameplay, your access to the rest of the mansion is unlocked through various puzzles located in each room. These rooms are typically pitch black with your only light source often being a handy matchbox. It just so happens that these matches are also quite effective at hunting ghosts. You have a limited number of matches that you are able to carry on your person at all times. Just be careful about using these matches because once you pick them up, that's it. They are gone for good from the environment. There are no miracle item respawning mechanics at work here, just as you would expect from a survival horror game. This could cause problems where you might be slightly confused on where to go or what to do next and you’re burning through matches. There were a couple of times I found myself burning through these precious resources as I wandered aimlessly in search of the next potential objective.

Finally, the save system is unforgiving in this day and age of taking automatic saves for granted. The only way to save is to sit in an illuminated armchair and revel in its sweet embrace. While they appear to be plentiful, it is easy to slip your mind from time to time. Naturally, this also meant that I ended up having to do repeat a few gameplay segments if I had forgotten to save and succumbed to a ghost shortly after.

I have held off on talking about the visuals because everything about the game compliments the style they aimed for. It offers a monochromatic look where light is white and darkness is black. Your end goal for many of these rooms draped in darkness is to make areas where ghosts can’t reach you. Typically, this simply means lighting up the environment, and performing a certain action to move on. Rinse. Repeat. If left in the darkness for too long, the game makes is abundantly clear through its visuals and sound effects that your character is going to have a bad time. The ghosts, including their spooky reveals and sound design, are genuinely surprising and frightening. As such, I was always a bit tense wondering when the next encounter was going to happen.



Locked camera angles also help to enhance the drama and visual styles in White Night. While I appreciate what they were going for in terms of the noir aesthetic, I felt restrained in the environment because of it. I felt as though I was automatically focused on what I needed to use or examine instead of being allowed to discover it for myself. The tank controls also made the game slightly difficult to navigate, creating a struggle against my character and the ghosts who had no issues tailgating me on my retreat. This made such encounters scarier, but for the wrong reasons. The controls coupled with the save system created more frustration than fear during my time with the game.

White Night is a curious game, even if it's a bit predictable. With its references to two distinct genres, where unexpected twists and turns are welcome and interesting, it instead plays it safe. The game's big redeeming qualities are its style and presentation but without much in the way of story and gameplay to complete the package. If nothing else, your morbid curiosity may help you to see this one through to the end. Some people will be more than happy to dive into such intrigue, but I can see where others would close the door on this dame solely because she's mostly brawn and not much brain.

Positives
+ Noir Atmosphere and Art Design
+ Clever Puzzles
+ Effective Scares
Negatives
- Save System
- Puzzles Difficulty widely varies
- Limited Resource issues
- Tank Controls
- Locked Camera Angles
Related Information
Title: White Night
Platforms: PC (Windows, OS X, Linux), Xbox One, and PS4 (Reviewed on PC)
Website: http://osome-studio.com/en/whitenight/
ESRB Rating: Rate Mature 17+ for violence, blood, sexual themes, partial nudity, and language.

White Night was provided to Total Gaming Network for review purposes from OSome Studio and Activision.