In a game where the main focus is player choice, it seems like a strange choice to at least relieve some of the tension in making those choices knowing that, no matter what, Zoe will survive the situation. The story slacks in the second half of the game, however, in part because of a forward leap in time that finds Zoe alive and well as a young woman. Heavy-handed dialogue notwithstanding, I didn’t feel like I had any trouble making the decisions that I thought Vince and Jay would make, or at least the decisions that I wanted to make as them. On the one hand, this dual narrative adds necessary context for Jay and his descent into criminality, but it also weirdly might inform the decisions you make as Vince as you become privy to information that he might not otherwise have. Throughout the first half of the game, which covers the hostage situation and the events preceding it, players will experience the story from the perspective of both Vince and Jay. Meanwhile, in their attempt to get out of a gambling debt with some unsavory characters, the Holts-oldest brother Tyler, middle brother Dale, and youngest brother Jay-botch a burglary and end up at the same motel as the Walkers when the cops show up.Īs Dusk Falls’ story benefits from seeing both sides of the events that unfold at the Desert Dream Motel. Traveling with them are their six-year-old daughter Zoe and Vince’s estranged father Jim, as well as a heap of physical and emotional baggage. Vince and Michelle Walker have recently decided to relocate from California to St. But As Dusk Falls turned out to be the exact opposite because it forced me to dust off my imagination and actually use it for once.Ĭentered around a hostage situation in 1998 and its fallout, As Dusk Falls tells the story of two families-the Walkers and the Holts-on a collision course. Traditional video game knowledge would indicate that a painted, motion-comic presentation style and zero gameplay mechanics other than dialogue choices and the occasional quick time event should result in the least immersive experience possible. I would like to think that my imagination is better honed than the average adult’s, but decades of images from movies, TV, and yes, our beloved video games assaulting my brain, in collusion with the natural atrophying of its gray matter, have really done a number on my ability to bring a fictional world to rip-roaring life in my mind’s eye.Īs I was playing through INTERIOR/NIGHT’s As Dusk Falls, I kept asking myself why I was finding it so immersive. I don’t care how many pixels or polygons developers use to make their video games-nothing can compare to the vivid detail of a child’s imagination. There’s one thing that Choose Your Own Adventure books do better than (most) video games, and it’s how they rely on their young readers’ imaginations to fully bring their stories to life. I was a voracious reader and I loved my Nintendo, so the idea that books could be interactive like a video game blew my tiny mind. When I was a kid, I was mildly obsessed with the Choose Your Own Adventure book series.
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