PEGBRJE: One Night Stand and LAZA KNITEZ!!
Today is a day of opposites.
One Night Stand is a visual novel narrative by Kinmoku, a solo indie dev that gives players a setting somewhat unfamiliar to the norm of visual novel-land — the morning after. The protagonist is tasked with piecing together a night that they cannot remember, and the only time they have to learn is while the mystery girl is out of the room. It’s up to you to choose what is searched and what is ignored, what boundaries are set and which are crossed, until she returns moments later. What you have learned effects how you interact with her and determines how she reacts to you. Do you bolt immediately, attempting to escape? Or do you attempt to learn and understand?
Personally, while I had never heard of the dev or the game before, the biggest hurdle for me was getting over the amount of anxiety I felt at just the opening alone. Most of this can be attributed to my complete real life inexperience with the source topic as the innocent flower that I am, but I cannot undermine just how real everything felt.
Holy hell is it awkward.
One Night Stand does the impossible by making small talk seem so real yet engaging. So many instances of silence just hung in the air as I scrambled to think of what to say next. Conversations trail off as neither party knows what to say next. Actions taken are sporadic and try their best to help piece together what’s going on, and directly effect what you can ask and say but don’t give the entire picture. The mystery girl reacts sincerely to inquiries, pushing the plot forward, yet at times I could’ve swore she was replaced with another player across from me, also trying to piece together the events. Nothing in One Night Stand tries to glorify or shame the events that happened prior to the start of the game, rather deal with the uncomfortable question that comes afterwards: “So, uh, now what?”
I’d also like to mention that the animations are a mesmerizing display in rotoscoping. At first I was taken aback, confused as to the style being crafted once she moved and interacted with me for the first time. It becomes quite clear after some time that the entirety of her actions were rotoscoped, but then drawn in a more flat style. The shading on her body along with the room is softer than I was expecting, which may have explained my initial confusion. Ultimately, it gives her expressions a sense of authenticity so to speak, with her laugh and rage truly feeling lifted from another person’s face.
One Night Stand does exactly what it sets out to do, creating a real scenario that many people have faced and giving raw emotional weight to both parties. No matter the outcome, it was your choices as a player that determined the final relationship of the protagonist and the mystery girl. With 12 possible endings there’s enough nuance to go around in such a small timeframe, with my first playthrough — which went horribly I might add — only taking 30 minutes. While my recommendation might not hold much weight (again, whole unfamiliar territory thing going on), I do hope you try it out. If only to learn how you might react in a situation. You’ll never know until you’re already there.
For something less serious, LAZA KNITEZ.
LAZA KNITEZ!! is an arena shooter where you play as knights with lasers. Created by Glitchnap (who is currently on indefinite hiatus), it features exactly what it advertises: chaotic, colourful fun. Playing similarly to the Starwhal-esque game titles, the objective is to murder your opponents with either your lance (you are a knight is space after all) or with the guns that are somehow attached to your lance.
This is usually where I will go on lengths about how it does something unique and different and that’s why you should give it a try (see above), but LAZA KNITEZ!! isn’t really about that sort of thing. It isn’t trying to push past boundaries, explore new alternatives or express some profound meaning. It’s just trying to be fun, and that’s all it really needs to be. I could see myself playing this game in an arcade, because that’s the feeling it gave me — a quick 5–10 minute fiesta of lasers, space and lances. Credit to where it is due, projectiles do not pass through the outer reaches of the map as the player does, with players returning on the opposite side. That would’ve made a chaotic game more of a mess than anything, so I appreciate that they decided against that.
LAZA KNITEZ!! is for multiplayer fun, a party game to challenge your friends to on a Friday night to see who can joust the best in a hypothetical space knight situation. The single player does exist, but is just multiplayer with AI and is only suited for those trying to brush up on their skills with the most unpredictable opponents, or for those writing game overviews with nobody to play with on such short notice. Give it a whirl if you need a different game to beat your friends at.
