Afterparty Review
Given that Christianity has been around for millennia and people tend to like the bad guys more than the heroes, it wouldn’t surprise me if Satan is the most referenced, parodied, and scrutinized character in all of human history. Whether he’s a pathetic swindler who needs to challenge random Georgians to fiddle contests, a depressed king who abandons Hell to run a piano bar, or a master of deception and contract law, Satan has had more reboots than all the comics, movies, and computers in the world. Most recently, he’s envisioned as a rocking party-dude who runs the coolest party in Hell in the game Afterparty.
Afterparty is the latest game from Night School Studios, the company behind the horror-mystery game Oxenfree. In Afterparty, the player takes control of Milo and Lola, two college students who are annoying and also dead. Though they can’t remember how they died, they very quickly learn they’ve been sent to Hell for their sins. Fortunately, only a few minutes later, a gruff cab-driving demon informs them that not all hope should be abandoned. It turns out there’s a loophole in the gates of Hell: Any damned soul can challenge Satan himself to a drinking contest and, if they win, they are allowed to return to life above-ground. However, Satan is a busy demon planning his nightly parties and dodging his siblings, the monarchs of Hell, who insist he stop avoiding the administrative duties inherent to being the Lord of the Damned. So players must help Lola and Milo out-party the other monarchs of Hell to earn their seals of approval, proving themselves worthy of Satan’s contest and a chance to return to the land of the living.
The way players get anything done in Afterparty is mostly through conversation options, though there are a handful of dexterous tasks scattered throughout the game including dance-offs and shot glass stacking. During conversations, players will have two conversation options to choose from to try and accomplish their objective, but can unlock a third option by drinking. This is where the “party” in “Afterparty” comes in. By drinking different drinks, players can unlock more dialogue options unique to the drinks they imbibe. For example, drinking the nautical Bluebeard’s Wife cocktail will allow the player to speak like a pirate. Because Hell is a party town, every area where players will have important conversations also have a bar, so players will never be short of a drink. On top of that, each venue has a unique menu of three to four drinks. Typically, half of these will give players the generic “Liquid Courage” bonus dialogue options, but the others will give options that can be found nowhere else in the entire game, meaning that only the most boring players will be able to develop a set way of getting through challenges. If all of this is sounding good, allow me to apply some metaphorical breaks. While the drinks are creative and the dialogue, whether intoxicated or not, is entertaining, the entire drinks system feels pointless. During my time with Afterparty, I was never once stopped from progressing or given a game over screen. This either means that by some cosmically good luck I never once picked a bad option in conversation or it doesn’t actually matter what you drink and say. I started suspecting this about halfway through the game, and it was later confirmed when I lost a drinking contest against a monarch of Hell and was still given their seal of approval. I know that this won’t bother some people, but personally I got disheartened by this. I get that most video games are going to follow the developer’s story, but if I wanted to experience a story that doesn’t require my input, I’d just read a book.
Because the gameplay of Afterlife is more or less the story, I think I would’ve been less displeased if the story had been great. Unfortunately it’s not and a good portion of the blame can be placed on the shoulders of the two protagonists. As I said earlier, I found both Milo and Lola to be annoying, each in their own way. Milo is the stereotypical “shy kid,” constantly fretting about how he’s perceived and how things could go wrong, and is more likely to sprout a second head than get into a confrontation. Lola, on the other hand, is the distilled essence of a cynical, know-it-all college student, the kind of person who feels it’s their duty to bring up starving children or abused animals while you and your friends are trying to have a relaxed conversation. But even though both of the main characters are irritating, they do create something enjoyable: Sister Mary Wormhorn. Wormhorn is the personal demon assigned to the duo upon entering hell, born from their shortcomings, and she is a blast. It’s Wormhorn’s job to antagonize Milo and Lola and she does a great job exposing their flaws and calling them on their bad choices. Even better, every so often in the story she will pull the protagonists aside and review the choices the player has made through them so far, showing where they went wrong and making fun of them for it. Anytime Wormhorn was on screen, I was happy because she was well-written and well voiced, and her personal story was one of the best in the game. Then there’s Sam, the cab driver who informs Milo and Lola about the drinking contest and ferries them around Hell. Sam doesn’t so much have a personality as much as she has a bunch of exposition to deliver. The writers try to take her story to a meaningful place, but she’s so two-dimensional it didn’t land for me. Satan and the monarchs of Hell start out similarly flat but rapidly become fascinating, on both a personal and theological level, in the final 90 minutes of the game.
I feel like it’s always an emotional risk for video game developers to put the stories they’ve created out into the world to be judged by the anonymous masses. This has to be doubled when the game’s focus is on story rather than gameplay, because it leaves the story open to so much critique. While I do think most of Afterparty is lacking, I admire Night School Studio for putting it out and for the final chapter of the game. If you want to spend five to seven hours hanging out with demons and listen to some funny drunks, I’d say pick up Afterparty, just not for $20.
Buy this game on sale
It’s worth playing, just not at the price they’re asking
