Don't look too closely to avoid any potential spoilers (but I tried to choose one that was quite neutral).īroadly, the story follows two families who collide in a motel in small-town - tiny-town - Arizona. Also, a look at the flow of possible choices and consequences. After all, if we don't care about them, why should we care what happens on screen? An example of the quick-time events, which involve moving sliding your thumb or thumbstick in various directions, depending on the input method, and pressing the screen/a button in various ways. There's also a sense that by dodging the heavy cinematic workload, Interior/Night has saved more time and energy to focus on the things that really matter in a game like this: story and characters.
#AS DUSK FALLS SERIES#
It means the game is easier on hardware, too, running fine in 4K on Xbox Series S for me.
There's no need to lip-sync, which has the happy side-effect of making the game very easy to localise in other languages (and there are many different language voice-overs included). What's so clever about this is it does away with all of the laborious, time-consuming and expensive animation work usually involved in making a game like this. Layer the audio and generally impressive voice work over the top and, once you stop looking for the lips to move, you forget there's anything missing. They are the kind of images you can only create from close observation, and I had to dig into Ed's interview with Interior/Night boss Caroline Marchal (former lead designer of Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls) to discover that that's exactly what happened here: the images were taken from live, captured performances and then painted over. It might be a head thrown back over a shoulder to produce a loving look, or a distant stare as a character lapses into melancholy - whatever it is, you can clearly see it and understand it. A key part of this is how well characters' expressions are captured. It's remarkable how only relying on a few key frames per scene manages to convey the same sense of drama and emotion as fully animating them. I like that he's not a typically chiselled male lead. This is Vince, one of the main characters. It takes a while to settle into but when you do, it's actually very effective. It's unusual - it reminds me of photoreal comic strips from years ago that I always found too much like real-life to be excited by - and it's not fully animated, meaning, among other things, that characters' lips don't move when they talk. There's a real understanding here from developer Interior/Night about what makes games like these work. What makes it good is how it delivers it.
The app turns the phone into a giant touchpad, effectively.īut none of that is what makes As Dusk Falls good - it just makes it a certain type of game. I didn't get a chance to test the game with friends but I did play it via the companion app and it controlled fine. There's even Twitch support allowing viewers to do similar. It really goes places.Īs Dusk Falls takes this a step further by letting onlookers directly join the game with a controller or, via a companion app, with phones/tablets, and selecting what they think characters should do. Watch on YouTube This gives a good overview of what you can expect in As Dusk Falls. The games are almost as fun to watch as they are to play. People will shout things like, "No, don't do that!" And, "Run away!" and that kind of thing, unwittingly investing themselves in what's going on. The magic of this formula is its ability to engage bystanders like movies do. Those are the big moments but there are smaller decisions too, building to them, and there are quick-time events to plug the gaps and keep you engaged along the way. It's no exaggeration to say characters will live and die based on the choices you make. Your input comes at major decision points when you're asked to make choices that dramatically change the story.
#AS DUSK FALLS MOVIE#
Just in case you don't know, interactive movie games are largely how they sound: the action mostly plays without you.
#AS DUSK FALLS PC#
Availability: Releases 19th July (tomorrow) on Xbox Series S/X and PC for £25.And OK granted, this is not a massive sub-genre, but clearly more studios are getting involved and, as far as I'm concerned, that's a very good thing. I'd even go as far as to say it's the best interactive movie game I've played, and in that breath I'm considering all of Supermassive's output (the Dark Pictures games, etc.), Flavourworks' Erica, Quantic Dream's stuff (there's a Quantic Dream link here by the way). An interactive movie that tells a memorable story of human choices.ĭon't be put off by the unusual art style: As Dusk Falls is good.
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