The Night is Grey

It's so hard to give this game a negative review, because it's clear that a lot of thought and care was put into the story, the premise, the art, and the soundtrack. It's a game that feels wrong to thumbs down, because it really is a piece of art. But I can't look past the gameplay, which is simply... frustrating. The UX and controls are finnicky, your character walks and talks extremely slowly, and the puzzles are often tedious as a result. I can see an argument that this ties thematically into the game, but... no, that's a cop-out; the game simply has poor accessibility. No graphics/resolution options either. Regarding the puzzles, while I got through all of them without a walkthrough (with the help of a couple of in-game hints), many solutions felt unnatural, and I came across them essentially via trial and error. The puzzles feel shoehorned into a game that should be about the story and the adventure. It would have been better as a shorter walking simulator type thing instead of a much longer puzzle game.

Most depressing game I've ever played and annoying in way too many ways. You play an extremely unlikable guy who just keeps on whining all the time, about literally everything, while cleaning his glasses and then sighing every couple of minutes. Same for the other characters either: all very bland and forgettable, no depth to any of them whatsoever. Didn't care for the story either, which tries to be smart by playing in reverse while you can see what's coming from a mile away after some time. It's a cliché. Gameplay also sucked: animations take forever, puzzles were overly complicated and unclear at multiple times, quick time events in an adventure game (really?) which add nothing of value, possibility of death in an adventure game (really?) which adds nothing of value. Worst thing is the game doesn't respect your time, at all: it just keeps dragging on for no reasons at all, making you backtrack a dozen times in most situations. This could have been a two hour game and nothing of value would have been lost. Only things that were nice were the graphics and music. Hard pass.

Too many glitches for a game that has been out for more than a year already. And its in chapter 2, a very early game problem too. (Its the Jackets interraction in Chapter 2, doesn't work for some reason and locks me from progressing in the game) Other than that, puzzles genuinely do not makes sense and are not fun to solve. Especially the slow point and click way to travel and walk around when you have to constantly go back and forth in a big area.

Just finished this adventure game that the publisher was kind enough to make a giveaway on twitter, and boy, an adventure it was! Bleak atmosphere with glimmers of hope throughout just to make you carry on, nice puzzles (middle difficulty level), and an impactful story that truly deserves your attention to see where it's going. Add to that the excellent technical/production values and art direction: Lovely graphics, beautiful animations, extraordinarily crisp sound effects, and music that elevates the atmosphere to the t, and you have a game that is a blessing for adventure lovers! If you don't mind the bleak setting and themes (emotional and physical abuse), I strongly recommend this one.

An okay point and click adventure, ...if it wasn't for the incredibly annoying way the game feeds you text and without the ability to fast forward or skip. OMG.

I received a code for "The Night is Grey" when it first released after playing the demo, but I only just sat down and finished it yesterday. My only regret? [b]Not playing it sooner[/b]. This game completely gripped me both visually and story-wise until the very end. I absolutely loved the art direction and character designs, and knowing every frame and animation was hand-drawn honestly blows my mind. I want the firewatch building alone as a piece on my wall. And the music!? The soundtrack and overall audio experience perfectly build this constant feeling of unease, intrigue, and hope throughout the entire game. As I'm writing this review I'm listening to the soundtrack, and it's a cinematic experience in itself. When I say the ending caught me completely off guard, that would be an understatement. I streamed the game and spent the entire time discussing theories and possible endings with a friend who joined me for the entire playthrough, and somehow neither of us saw it coming. We just sat there in complete silence as the credits rolled. The puzzles were just the right balance of fun and challenging. I was also introduced to one of my new favorite puzzle types later in the game (No spoilers) but now I need an entire game built around those mechanics I officially finished this game a little over 12 hours ago, and I genuinely have not stopped thinking about it since. I don’t think I will for a very long time. You can tell this was a game made with time, care, and love, and I absolutely cannot wait to see what Whalestork creates in the future. Big suggestion: Show items to people whenever possible. You won't regret it.

i streamed this game and the devs came in and where super nice! love the art for both the characters and backgrounds, the puzzles had a good mix of difficulty and the music fit the scenes very well! definitely worth a play if you like silent hill or horror puzzle games!

Its good.....

I rarely leave negative reviews, as I'm a proponent of pointing out what worked instead of harping on what didn't but the visuals and trailer for this game made a lot of people assume it was about werewolves. Or some horrifying beast in the woods. It is neither. It is about an abused man who becomes abusive...unable to properly reconcile his misdeeds as he keeps losing his memory of it. The message of kindness in the credits is lost because of this. He wasn't healed, he didn't choose to do the right thing. He doesn't even know what he did, or if he does he won't say it, won't confess. Saccharine sentimentality does nothing without the hard choices, choices kept too vague to be meaningful. The heavy topics were also handled poorly, given so little detail it was more a game of wink and nudge and hope the message gets through, and the characterization was so heavy-handed it was irritating to be with this man so long. He wasn't interesting in his self-hatred as it didn't feel warranted, nor did anyone else's distaste of him. We saw a man struggling with demons we weren't allowed to know, everyone else treated him as an irritant without obvious cause. I adore insufferable main characters but they have to at least be interesting and Graham was anything but. He was a clueless lump led along by a narrative that outwardly hated him but wanted the player to see he could be good if he just tried...which he couldn't...because of the narrative taking his choices away. The gameplay was also mediocre, puzzles boring and convoluted even for an adventure game. It felt as though this wasn't meant to be interactive, as if it would have been better served as a short film.

This is a fantastic and well written game. The puzzles can be challenging but not unfair at all. Everything down from the music, the animation, the character writing is fantastic. Graham the Main character is very flawed and you'll likely disagree with him often but that's part of the narrative. It has very cute and humorous moments to very dark and frightening moments. The criticisms I would have are that some of the puzzles require specific recollections back to notes you previously have seen. This can make them a challenge. I had to keep track of these by screen shotting them, a way to reference notes while viewing puzzles might be a good idea. The other criticism would be on the interact/inspect sequence with left and right clicking. The inspect action is rarely needed, it serves more for background information/additional dialogue. But some things require you to inspect them and it can be difficult to tell without trying it on everything. Could possibly highlight this with a cursor switch or some kind of queue to the player, or remove the feature and have it operate as a single button? If you enjoy point and click games, or narrative puzzle games definitely give this one a try.