The interactive drama genre has added surprising depth over the past few years.
Seeing the explosion of Tell Tale’s The Walking Dead may have left the gaming industry scrambling to mimic it, but, instead, its predecessors managed to take many forms.
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As Dusk Falls is the latest interactive drama, this time from Interior Night, a dev team founded by ex-Quantic Dream employee Caroline Marchal.
The game hopes to bring the qualities of TV shows into the gaming realm, but does it succeed?
A Blazing Start
As Dusk Falls sets itself up in a very particular way almost instantly. You are thrown forward and back through different eyes, allowing you to get snippets of a story – before you get to something much bigger.
It takes after the like of Tarantino, wrapping a handful of central stories around each other.
In doing so, it talks about generational trauma, class divide, and a handful of other struggles dominating the lives of an American in the late 90s. First, you see a family of four on the way to a new town for a new job.
After this, you witness a family down on their luck, trying to steal a wad of cash to get a better life. These two stories become entangled when the robbery goes wrong, and a hostage situation is sprung at a nearby motel.
As you may tell from this description, the story goes quite quickly initially. There’s a lot to catch, but it keeps you up to speed with relative ease. This need for exposition can leave some of the dialogue feeling a little clumsy, but it works for the most part.
From here, you finally get to properly take control of the story.
The gameplay is rather simple, being almost closer to a visual novel than the prototype set by Life is Strange and Heavy Rain. You can’t walk around your surroundings, but you choose what you do next in various ways.
Sometimes, you are left with a picture of your environment where you can pick one of a handful of things to try out. This almost feels like a point-and-click game with a timer, forcing you to pick something.
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
Sometimes, if decisions have more of an effect on the story, it will lay out your choices and let you pick. It is good to have a handful of ways to make decisions, allowing it to cut into the story at the right time.
Some decisions will give you a little more time, and that limit makes agonizing about it a little more fun.
Luckily, As Dusk Falls’ multiplayer component is great. For the less important decisions, you and a handful of your friends have to pick an option, and the choice with the most votes is picked.
If you come up with a draw, the game picks between them for you. With my partner, I often picked the opposite option just to add a layer of spontaneity to our decisions.
When you have to make one of those story-altering decisions, your vote has to be unanimous. This means you really have to argue for your point to get your way.
Every player has a handful of “overrides” assigned to their profile, which allows them to change a decision and force it to go their way, but this became a bit of a Mutually Assured Destruction with my partner.
No one wanted to use it first because it meant all decisions were on the table now. We somehow went the whole game without using a single one.
As Dusk Falls manages to make the results of your decisions interesting enough to continue on. Sometimes, failing a mission can lead to a better than you had planned.
These little decision mechanics made us feel invested in where the story was going – a great sign. Sometimes transitions from one scene to the other can feel a little stale, but it manages to make up for it rather quickly.
Outside of decisions, you also have to hit QTEs as you play. If you fail them, you have to live with it. They are simple but effective, having you mash buttons or swipe in the right direction to get what you want.
As Dusk Falls comes with a host of accessibility options to make your way through some of these QTEs – a nice addition.
Early on, you have to open a safe by remembering a code. This minor puzzle set me up for a game that wasn’t quite what I expected. Outside of this, almost all interactivity followed the same rules and parameters.
A few more puzzles or unique ways to control would have gone a long way here.
Artistic Intent
For what it lacks in gameplay, it makes up for in its art style. As Dusk Falls doesn’t tend to catch the movement of the mouth or the flickering of eyes, instead opting for more of a paper doll look.
Each screenshot almost feels like cutouts on screen, with text underneath them. This is a very striking look that works well after you get accustomed. It’s unintentionally quite funny at the start, but you start to get invested quite quickly – likely a testament to the characters.
As Dusk Falls isn’t so interesting due to its story but its characters. I drew likeness to Tarantino earlier, but I think this comparison shines through in a few places. As Dusk Falls often feels like you have thrown three-dimensional characters into a two-dimensional space.
The story keeps moving along, but the way characters interact with it makes them interesting. Some parts of the story don’t feel fully developed, but this feels like it has been done with some intent. We simply can’t know everything.
The music is rather similar to this in tone. It is full and warm but also a little mysterious. It is anthemic at points but also tense and weary. There’s much inspiration from country, blues, and even some modern rock, but it’s there to serve the game. It rarely feels needless, but it’s almost always there.
The branching paths and narratives work well in the game. Each chapter lets you explore your options and even lets you play off one of the main decisions, letting you play out new stories easily. This great function makes As Dusk Falls a very replayable game.
Unfortunately, that art style doesn’t always live up to its best moments. It typically doesn’t operate in motion, but we do occasionally see characters fight, run, and generally get around.
It can look pretty rough when dropping from a height or moving over things. This can be almost immersion-destroying at points. It could work really well with a little more polish, but sometimes it just doesn’t.
As Dusk Falls Review – Conclusion
As Dusk Falls does quite a lot with a limited control scheme. It manages to tell multiple tales sets over years with an interesting cast of characters. They are varied and filled with secrets, making a subsequent playthrough just as interesting.
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Its art style can occasionally let down its presentation and some of the game’s pacing is a little off, but it makes up for that in some major ways.
