Afterparty Game Review – A hellish good time
Afterparty is an adventure game developed and published by Night School Studio.
I was a bit unsure about Afterparty before I’d played it. The “multiple choice” gameplay is something that generally gets very boring very quickly. At least, for me it does. I’m so happy to be able to be sitting here typing the words “I was so wrong.”
Plot
You play as both Milo and Lola, who’ve been best friends for as long as they can remember. They end up in hell with no recollection of how they got there or why. Their only way to get back to living is to challenge Satan himself to a drinking contest and beat him. He grants life again to anyone who can.
Gameplay
The unique mechanics and what really set this apart from every other multiple choice type game is the drinking element. When you get to hell, it’s free drinks for all. Each drink has a different effect on you as you drink them, and with each effect different choices show up when you decide to interact with people.
Some drinks make you overly flirty, some massively brave and some comically rude. The drink choice is important as you want to get on the right side of people when you do interact with them. An example of this would be one of the earliest challenges where you need to charm an extra VIP ticket to Satan’s party from a famous singer. Agonising over which choice of drink would give me the best results was harder than I thought, I was determined not to get on the wrong side of her. It was comical how invested I became in what this NPC thought of my characters.
Review
This game shocked me by how addictive it was. I’ll be honest, it was a slow burner at the beginning and if it weren’t for the dark humour and fascinating characters I probably would’ve found it too boring to continue. As the pace picks up however (about 40 minutes into gameplay) it becomes addictive as all hell. The obsession over which drink to have to get the best results, the temptation to choose the one you know will probably get you in trouble just for the fun of annoying the other characters can have you chipping away hours on this game without you ever even noticing it.
The setting of Hell itself is just brilliant. Almost everyone is a complete dick and you can be too if you choose. There’s an air of absolute freedom that you don’t usually get with choice based games like this one and I find that genius.
The concept is simple, the gameplay is simple, and the humour is dark and tongue in cheek. Often making references to popular culture. But all of that works in favour of the game as it appeals to it’s adventurous charm. I can see myself playing this game over and over again as I just love it. I want to play through just picking choices I know will make everyone hate me, let the hilarity ensue!
