Naninights is one of those Indie jumpscare games. Like Five Nights at Freddie’s, which I’ve admittedly never played. It just doesn’t appeal to me. And based on the discussion of the game on Steam, that is what Naninights would very much like to be. And I have no way of judging if it was successful in that endeavor or not, but if it was, I’d argue I wouldn’t much like Five Nights at Freddie’s, either.
Graphically, the game seems to be very… mid-to-late 90’s CD Rom game. It’s not eye searing or anything, but it has very little… oomph. Point and click games stopped being the epitome of graphical wizardry around the time that they fell from favor. Naninights is very much a point and click game, though, and it really has no aesthetic other than being dark and, I don’t know, semi-whimsical? Colors are muted if they aren’t shiny, and it’s clear that Naninight himself got the most effort put into him of any part of the game. The graphics would be passable if there was enough substance to back it up. But there isn’t.
Gameplay is impenetrable. I gave this game several tries, and failed to figure out just what constituted an endgame situation. Following the tips in the how to play section accomplishes nothing. Other than the mirror, which only works for the hall, everything seems to use power. The door, which only works on the “door room” whatever that is, uses power. The cube light, which only works on the bedroom/nursery, uses power. Once you run out of power, Naninight raids your minifridge, then completely fails to jumpscare you by wiggling around in front of the camera, and you get a game over. This is exactly how all of my games ended, except for the time I did absolutely nothing, which made him get me sooner than usual. Moving between rooms also seems to use power, not like looking around those rooms helps much since you can’t use any of the countermeasures while outside the starting room. By the time you switch back, that sucker has moved. Did I mention there are only four rooms? At least as far as I could tell, there were.
Speaking of the miserable little gas mask kid himself, everything you know about him is an informed attribute. And most of that doesn’t even come from the game itself. Apparently, he’s “gifted”. You would not see that by watching him move jerkily through a room. You would see a dumpy little shit in a gas mask. The creepiness of the setting is played up as hard as possible, but it just doesn’t come through. You are just dropped into a series of rooms, you eventually fail to stop the little sucker, and that’s it. That’s the game.
This is supposed to be a horror game. It is entirely devoid of that quality. As a matter of fact, most things labeled as “Horror” tend to be that way. They engage the biological fight-or-flight mechanism, or they simply use the flavor of the genre to justify being called as such. Real horror is psychological, it speaks to a definite fear. Having something that simply goes through the motions isn’t horror. And that’s what Naninights tries, and fails to do, as it can’t even jumpscare you effectively. Maybe it’s just me, but I sat there with a stony nerd face every time I died. I wasn’t even invested enough to care. And this is a game, as per its trailer, that tries to play up its horror aspect! I felt more horror playing a game like Dungeon Souls, when I came to the realization that one more enemy might punch my card.
This game normally costs three dollars. It is currently on sale on Steam for two. I would argue that it isn’t a deal at any price. Mostly due to the fact that it isn’t fun. But also, due to the fact that there’s a superior product available free to play on Steam. Spooky’s House of Jumpscares, contrary to the name, actually delivers on the whole horror thing better than Naninights does.
I really hate to rag on indie devs like this. Especially since this looks to be the effort of one guy, and I can just imagine him working his ass off trying to get his concept done, or out there, or make a name for himself or whatever. But at the end of the day, Naninights is not scary. It is not fun. And outside of sales, you would be paying three dollars for a game that you will not have fun with. I even went back after I wrote most of this to give it another try, and I feel that statement still stands. And while I may have been a bad choice to review this one, I have been nothing but honest about my experiences with this game. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be agonizing about my decision for the next couple of days. Or not.
Title: Naninights
Developer: Maxim Moore
Publisher: Black Shell Media
Platform: PC
Price: $2.99
*A copy of this game was provided for review*
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