Afterparty

 PC
User Score
7.1

Mixed or average reviews- based on 28 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 28
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 28
  3. Negative: 5 out of 28

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  1. hello_world
    Oct 29, 2019
    6
    Afterparty's gameplay would be familiar to those who played Night School's previous outing "oxenfree". For the uninitiated, it is a narrative based adventure where dialogue options are the main point of interaction. There are a few mini games sprinkled out the adventure, but for the most part you will be walking to places and choosing what to say to NPCs.

    The new mechanic of    Afterparty's gameplay would be familiar to those who played Night School's previous outing "oxenfree". For the uninitiated, it is a narrative based adventure where dialogue options are the main point of interaction. There are a few mini games sprinkled out the adventure, but for the most part you will be walking to places and choosing what to say to NPCs.

    The new mechanic of Afterparty is that you can purchase different alcoholic drinks at certain locations, which will give you an extra dialogue option depending on what drink you chose. The effects can be increasing your character's confidence, making them flirty or making them speak like a pirate. These options are generally more fun options to choose, though they don't really feel like they are meaningful choices in terms of the narrative or character relationships.

    Narrative wise, the game aims for a more comedic approach to its script. While the premise is amusing, as is the aforementioned drinking mechanics, the comedy generally fell flat for me. The attempts at humour never had me laughing, though to its credit it never became grating either and did make the characters more enduring. It should be noted that humour is subjective and I find that I can be hard to please when it comes to comedy. The narrative does have its dramatic beats and they do flesh out the characters. However, the narrative doesn't feel as tightly written as Oxenfree. Simply put the ending of the game didn't have a impactful narrative payoff, as much of it relies on a twist that your characters don't have anything to do with.    … Expand
  2. Lindley
    Nov 11, 2019
    7
    I loved Oxenfree and was so excited for this game and wanted to love it. Unfortunately the story fell a bit flat for me. The pace of the story never seemed to get going, and I felt like I was still just getting into the story and the world when suddenly the game just finished. I didn't feel like there was get a good narrative payoff with the ending, I felt a bit robbed tbh.

    I love the    I loved Oxenfree and was so excited for this game and wanted to love it. Unfortunately the story fell a bit flat for me. The pace of the story never seemed to get going, and I felt like I was still just getting into the story and the world when suddenly the game just finished. I didn't feel like there was get a good narrative payoff with the ending, I felt a bit robbed tbh.

    I love the developers and I do think they write dialogue well - though at times with Afterparty it felt like they would just go on and on, not really talking about anything. I found I couldn't engage with it in the same way I did with Oxenfree. It was a real shame tbh.

    That said the world and the art is lovely. The characters are cool and interesting, but switching back and forth between Lola and Milo felt clunky and as a result I didn't feel like I could relate to either of them. I enjoyed the music, though found it didn't really go with the voice acting? I found myself constantly messing with the settings as I couldn't get a good VO to Music ratio, which broke the immersion for me and was a bit frustrating.

    There were also a few bugs here and there, such as crashes, and weird glitches.

    There seemed to be talk that this game was a much bigger project to Oxenfree, but I think this may have just been referencing the amount of voice actors and their art budget, as the story was about the same size, and didn't seem as ambitious. I didn't feel my choices really had much of an impact on the story or my relationships. The cool drinking/dialogue mechanic felt purely novelty as well and I think it's a shame they didn't push this further. It seemed pretty much just decorative. Which is a real shame. The mini games you have to complete as well could have been utilized better and I was expecting them to happen much more before the end of the game. The two mini games you have to do to beat Satan you only experience at one other moment in the entire story. With one of these mini games I was still unsure as to how exactly to play by the time I got to Satan as there's no real introduction to them before suddenly, bam, it's the end.

    Overall, the world was cool, but felt empty at the same time. It was filled with people that you couldn't talk to and the drinking mechanic only worked when you spoke to people in bars but I felt like I didn't actually get many opportunities to do this. I thought they could have done a lot more with the dialogue and drinking mechanic, creating unique experiences for each player based on who they chose to speak to and the repercussions of the dialogue choices the player chose. Nothing hugely story impacting, just maybe small little details to make the player feel like they're impacting the world.

    I would recommend this game, but I was also quite disappointed.    … Expand

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
76

Generally favorable reviews - based on 20 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 20
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 20
  3. Negative: 0 out of 20
  1. Gameblog.fr
    Nov 11, 2019
    60
    Afterparty begins as a very joyful festivity in which you encounter a lot of great and eloquent people in a very charming place. But it continues as a very passive, clumsy experience and ends as a forgettable game from which you retain mostly technical issues, lack of impactful and pleasant interactions, instead of its strong writing and amazing vocal performances. Too bad, this Hell was surely paved with good intentions.
    Read full review
  2. Edge Magazine
    Nov 10, 2019
    50
    As for a return trip to hell to see how alternative choices might have played out? It would have to freeze over first. [Issue#139, p.116]
  3. GameCrate
    Nov 4, 2019
    75
    Afterparty is a fantastic story about booze, buds, and the nature of good and evil. It’s just not much else.
    Read full review
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