White Night

A cliche story with a deranged atmosphere, detailed environments, and in-depth collectibles. I suffered through horrible transitional camera switch ups and a poor camera perspective that makes navigating areas with certain dangers very difficult just to be let down by the ending. Due to its downsides, saving is crucial whenever possible. However, it's worth trying out just for the journey.

Did you know Activision originally published this game? It was so strange to see at the time among their usual catalogue - and in fact they "remedied" that by eventually stopping being the publisher (the game was delisted for a while until being picked back up). Publishing history aside, [b]White Night[/b] still stands as one of the closest games to the original [b]Alone in the Dark[/b], if not the closest - it's even set in the same era and made by a French developer. Unique to itself, however, it has fantastic monochrome graphics that haven't aged a day. No regular graphics with a filter applied later, but assets clearly conceived to be in black and white only, with the exception of a few dashes of orange. They perfectly serve the stark contrast between the darkness constantly threatening to engulf you and the light, which is always a precarious protection, given how few matches last. The game oozes with atmosphere, further enhanced by the piano music and the noir-style monologues. It, however, also takes the flaws of the classic inspirator, like the fixed cameras, which easily confuse an already difficult navigation between locations, and puzzles that can get really obscure, if not obtuse. Add few and far between save spots, and constantly dealing with the scarcity of resources, and you get a high risk of dying and having to redo long stretches of the game because the camera contributed to a cheap death. In wanting to increase tension, the developers made it so there's only more frustration. Those issues prevent [b]White Night[/b] from reaching the greatness it could have aspired to, yet at the low prices you can find it nowadays - at the time of this writing it's getting a 90% discount - you won't lose much by trying an old-school survival horror game with a strong personality and visual style. Shame that the developers have done nothing else like this.

Great game. The twist in the story is sheer brilliance. 10/10

I am only 30 minutes in and . . . frustrated with the game mechanics. I find the artwork aesthetically interesting. I don't mind a narrative rich gameplay. But the moving around...is tedious. You start off injured and slloooow. There's stumbling around and the movement doesn't always match what I do with the arrow keys. The perspective changes, sometimes in ways that aid, other times in ways that frustrate progress. And I can see the constant need to relight a match getting old very, very soon. So, I'm walking away for now. I am slightly intrigued, however, so perhaps I'll do a little spoil sleuthing to see if I can move things along a bit. Eventually. Again, only 30 minutes. Take my review with a hundred grains of salt.

As nice as an idea of noir minimalistic design looks in static, as frustrating it is to play when you can barely tell the protagonist from the scene. Match lighting mechanic adds to the noir mood of the game but puts even more pressure on the player. And the limited amount of those matches tipped the scales for me into more stress than enjoyment so I never even finished it. Maybe I just don't like noir that much. I still think the idea of this game is very cool but the mechanics didn't work for me.

Необычный геймплей, местами даже сложный, потому что источник света не бесконечный. А еще куча приведений которые рады тебя придушить. Сюжет отличный, вначале вообще ничего не понимаешь, а под конец весь пазл складывается и такой "аааа ничего себе". Однозначно рекомендую к прохождению.

Film Noir Style! Can be quite creepy. Can be a little frustrating at times but overall it's a pretty good puzzle solving game with Resident Evil style fixed camera angles.

The artist part of my brain loves the visual style. Use of jazz and noir story telling of this game. The gamer part of my brain is frustrated as hell. Problem number one with white night is the placement of enemies. There was a lot of times in the later half of the game where enemies would be in multiple parts of the room that you can sometimes barely see because they are colored in grey tones that blend in with the unlit spaces. Problem two would be the main gameplay mechanic of using matches. You only get to carry 12 and at certain times one or more may not even light properly. This intentional designed feature makes things really not fun. Not only can you not kill the enemy that you have a hard time seeing, but you also have to worry about your only means of progression randomly turning on you. Problem three is the story. Anyone who's consumed a lot of media could put the ending together pretty fast. However a great chunk of the plot is kept in letters/journals throughout the game. This content is unfortunately missable depending on how many matches you have at your disposal and access to save points. Save points which btw are sparse throughout the game. So once you die and reload you have to do everything all over again. I would recommend you get it on a deep sale if interested.

I'd say this game is definitely worth the discounted price of 1,24€. The art style is cool and in terms of mood, the game often outdoes the most obvious inspiration - the original Alone In The Dark. Unlike most Alone In The Dark-inspired games (Resident Evil, Silent hill and even the actual Alone In The Dark sequels), it completely removes combat, opting instead for puzzles where you defeat ghosts by turning on the lights (which is often not an option, requiring you to simply run away or avoid going near them). This feels refreshing when compared to the modern survival horror genre, which often revolves around not running out of bullets. The noir style narration adds character and actually makes the story work despite the clichés. And speaking of clichés, some people have called the ending predictable but I didn't find anything that even remotely hinted at it (some things even pointed to the exact opposite) and I wasn't very fond of it for that exact reason but the journey itself makes it worth it. The game has some gameplay flaws, like the fixed camera angles forcing you to run right into an enemy you can't possibly see, which instantly kills you. Also, the main character sometimes wastes a match when trying to light it. I'm not sure if this is a bug or a conscious design choice but either way, it's mildly frustrating since matches can be scarce and running out causes you to die very quickly. There are also some puzzles that are confusing and hard for the wrong reasons (you assume you're supposed to decode symbols and turn a wheel, only to realize you can just keep on turning it and the game will tell when you've found the right position). Also, there's A LOT pixel hunting...in a black and white game...not gray scale, just completely black shadows and completely white light. Still, at such a ridiculously low price, the good parts outdo the bad ones.