As Dusk Falls is the 16th selection of the UUGPGC. Completion date 9/5/22. Spoilers open!

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bigsocrates

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#1  Edited By bigsocrates

EDIT: Spoilers are now open!

PRIOR POST:

Welcome to the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club. Our 16th game is As Dusk Falls. The target completion date is September 5, 2022.

We ask that until that date you use the forum software to mark any spoilers, either story based or mechanical, in the discussion below. Ideally the bulk of the discussion will occur after September 5, but if you want to comment before then you are welcome to so long as the spoilers are marked. We ask that if you leave a comment before that date you also come back to the thread after it to read other people’s comments and respond to them, though of course we cannot force you to do so.

All are welcome to participate regardless of whether you have stated a preference to or not and there is absolutely no commitment. You do not have to finish the game to participate but please let us know if you have not.

You can find out more about the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club or suggest future games for it here.

What is As Dusk Falls?

A narrative fiction game where you make choices that affect the outcome, though with a more grounded story than many in the genre.

How long is As Dusk Falls?

How long to beat lists it as 6.5 hours long

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noboners

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Before I start playing, I gotta say my hesitance with this game stems from the art presentation. I love these dialogue focus narrative games, and was so happy to hear positive buzz around this, but the animation style just irks me for some reason after watching trailers.

I'm hoping that once I see it in the game, as opposed to being cut around with little flow in the trailers, it'll be less distracting.

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ZombiePie

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@noboners said:

Before I start playing, I gotta say my hesitance with this game stems from the art presentation. I love these dialogue focus narrative games, and was so happy to hear positive buzz around this, but the animation style just irks me for some reason after watching trailers.

I'm hoping that once I see it in the game, as opposed to being cut around with little flow in the trailers, it'll be less distracting.

I had a similar hesitation, but when the game was only available at its normal $30 asking price. As a Game Pass title, this makes far more sense as an experience. Through Game Pass I feel like I can stomach its stylistic choices, dialogue system, and story pivots and twists more easily.

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yyninja

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@noboners said:

Before I start playing, I gotta say my hesitance with this game stems from the art presentation. I love these dialogue focus narrative games, and was so happy to hear positive buzz around this, but the animation style just irks me for some reason after watching trailers.

I'm hoping that once I see it in the game, as opposed to being cut around with little flow in the trailers, it'll be less distracting.

Yeah... I think I was able to overlook the presentation due to how much I enjoyed the narrative. As Dusk Falls is basically a gussied up visual novel. I would say give it a shot at least until end of Chapter 2 to see if it hooks you in.

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bb4lake

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So I just reached the end of Chapter Two and I am enjoying it quite a bit so far. It isn’t quite up to the quality of an Until Dawn for example but it’s better than some of the other “choose your own adventures” like The Late Shift or Erica.

The biggest thing I want to mention at this point though is that I’m playing exclusively streaming on my phone. It is actually really impressive, and I’m only on an LTE connection so far. Most of the games I’ve tried to play with touch controls use a virtual control pad but this one has actual touch screen controls and swiping motions for all the inputs.

It actually makes me wonder how the inputs are on console. Pressing directions on the analog stick and button mashing I’m guessing?

Anyway, I plan to keep at it, especially since I’m roughly a third through it already. I’m really curious just how branching the paths are.

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AV_Gamer

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#10  Edited By AV_Gamer

Dusk Falls is a really good narrative driven game where you choices genuinely determined the direction the story will go, and there are a lot of them. And the storylines themselves are pretty good. It will be making my Top 10 GOTY, and so far has the best story I've played in 2022. This game could've easily been a television mini-series on Netflix or another popular streaming app and it would've been a big hit a lot of people would've happily binged.

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rorie

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bb4lake

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@av_gamer:

I think that’s an interesting idea. If they had made this into a Netflix thing like Bandersnatch it might have made a bigger impact. It is very long though.

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bigsocrates

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I played through this yesterday with my roommate (we did split control for the first three chapters and I played solo while he watched for the second half.)

My feelings are somewhat mixed. The writing is very good, the performances are mostly decent with some notable exceptions that took me out of the game, but I did not like the weird digital comic visual style (which was sometimes outright funny) and the gameplay was both very limited and kind of annoying. I don't hate QTEs but these were bad QTEs, especially on Xbox without a touch pad, and the picture search stuff was just annoying. Dialog selection was fine or what it is and I think I would have liked it more as just an interactive movie I could sit back and watch rather than having to worry about sudden QTEs. Part of this is because my friend is bad at QTEs and he made us fail some of them, but part of it is just that being constantly at a state of alertness in case I have to do a stupid QTE is not the ideal way to play this experience. I think that's why my roommate did not want to play the second half and just wanted to watch it.

Now to get into the story itself...it was pretty good and I really liked the chapter summary with story trees at the end. IT's clear that you can't even see half of the game's content in one playthrough and the trees are just much more complex and meaningful than in almost every game of this type. It sort of makes good on what the Telltale games promise. I did think the game was a bit too long with too many boring flashbacks ("Let's now pause this dramatic motel hostage situation for 20 minutes of domestic drama about whether this guy's wife is cheating on him. But first you get to play a dish washing minigame!")

Also the game suffers from the same issue that all these games seem to, which is that the emotional tone of the game is off considering what happens. In my playthrough Vince's wife was dead, but he was still cracking jokes and working earnestly for the dirty sheriff, and it just felt off. Especially in a game that is largely about trauma.

But again the story was engaging with some good twists and turns, and Jay and Vince were fine protagonists with mostly good supporting characters. My friend also sat and watched the whole thing, so it wasn't just me. On the base level of "does the game present a compelling story that makes the journey worthwhile" it was a complete success, and everything else kind of pales in comparison.

Interested to see what happened in other people's playthroughs and whether anyone actually liked the visual style or (for some reason) the QTEs.

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bb4lake

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So I did end up finishing it. I played the entire thing through XCloud which worked surprisingly well. I think playing on my phone made the visual style less distracting because I had no problems with it. I did often forget there was more to the game than dialog choices when starting back each day and was often caught off guard by the first QTE, lol. I agree it would have been better without them.

I agree with most reviews that say the story loses some steam once the motel sections are over. The final chapter also felt very rushed. But overall I really enjoyed the story and performances.

The only narrative aspect that didn’t really work for me was just how traumatized Zoe was. Her parents survived and stayed together after the motel, Jay was relatively nice to her IMO in the motel and yet she is tormented by the memories of that night. It didn’t really make much sense. But that’s how some of these stories just go. It had to end in the cabin in Canada.

Overall I enjoyed it. I wish more games had custom touch controls for XCloud because the virtual analog sticks most games do, I’m not a big fan of. I considered downloading it to my console to play at home but apparently it’s like 30-40 gigs and I didn’t feel like making the space when I was nearly done, haha.

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yyninja

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I like the game overall, it's a more serious take on the narrative choice adventure genre without the awkward writing of David Cage games. I also enjoyed how you play a range of characters instead of always being stuck playing teens or 20-somethings like in DONTNOD games.

Until Dawn and The Quarry are still probably my favorites in this genre, but Supermassive Games are kind of a one trick pony since they always do B-tier cheesy horror stories.

I actually thought the art direction was a brilliant idea. The limited number of animations means that dialog choices are more varied without the awkward pauses you see in Telltale Games. It also means faster development time since they don't need to adjust for lip syncing. I was surprised the numerous VO languages supported by the game.

I posted earlier how As Dusk Falls reminds me of a better looking Visual Novel, but it's an unfair comparison. There definitely are animations and moving elements in As Dusk Falls and it does a great job at telling the story without feeling like a PowerPoint presentation.

Story-wise I found Zoe's PTSD to be hit or miss. It depends on the choices made. I wish the game diverged where if you make the right choices, Zoe doesn't suffer from the nightmares or chronic anxiety, but I guess they had to give her a reason to be paranoid of the mysterious stranger following her.

Also I thought Vince's possible actions especially in Chapter 3 didn't really fit his character. He goes from middle-aged person with a dad-bod to action movie star climbing rooftops and fighting like he's Liam Neeson from Taken. On my second playthrough, I had him fail all possible actions which seem to better fit his character.

I wished the game did more with Joyce since she is never mentioned after the end of Book 1.

The multiplayer aspect is fun, but you really need to get a group of like-minded family/friends together. I tried to get a group of 5 friends to play but it was hard to sustain their interest for more than half an hour so we settled on playing Jackbox instead.

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styx971

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i played it when it first hit gamepass i really enjoyed it overall and even tho its not something i would have normally been interested in topic-wise. i liked how mine wrapped up even if there were bits in parts that i really didn't like any of the options in a branch. overall i thought the characters were well thought out , the art was pretty good too but i can understand it not being for everyone . i tried getting my fiancee to play it but sadly he wasn't into the idea which is a shame cause i wanted to see what choices he would have made . vince's character was something that as a factory worker/former inspector i found particularly hitting and then even moreso with the wife bits ... i myself am a divorcee thanks to my ex being a dog so hit choices were particularly hard in certain parts vs jay's i think were just a matter of he wanted to be a good dude and family held that back for him in how i played his choices anyway. zoe i didn't care for as much but i still fund her to be an understandable character given context.

all and all its a game i would recommend to a person even if they're not into gaming i think , it seems like the multiplayer stuff could be great too but i didn't touch that . so far its sitting at #5 on my goty list bumping down horizon on that slot. tho of the choice driven narrative games on my top 5 i still think citizen sleeper was better , tho even if they're similar they're very different games