SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
Afterparty’s truly wicked sense of humour shines thanks to a sharp script and pitch-perfect voice acting, but is slightly undercut by fiddly controls.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. Or, if you happen to be standing at the gates of Night School Studio’s depiction of Hell, stop for a drink first. The realm of fire and brimstone is a favourite setting for many a game developer, but usually, it’s all about violence and eternal torment. For Afterparty’s characters however, a journey through Hell is more like an unplanned vacation in a place that’s actually far more chill than its name would suggest. To make comedy out of eternal damnation, which many people fear a great deal, is definitely audacious. In fact, taking a shot at a faith so widely held is downright ballsy. But thanks to a razor-sharp script and excellent voice acting, Afterparty succeeds at making Hell seem deeply, deeply funny. It’s fresh, original and quite frankly, it also happens to be a damn good video game.
After dying unexpectedly, college graduates and best friends Lola (Janina Gavenkar) and Milo (Khoi Dao) wind up in Hell. Facing damnation for all eternity, the pair quickly decide to take advantage of a little-known loophole: if they can beat Satan, the Prince of Darkness, in an epic drinking contest, the likes of which only the Buddha and a velociraptor (yes I know) have won, he’ll return them to the mortal coil and allow them to carry on with their lives.
When it comes to humour, Afterparty is an absolute riot. From beginning to end, it delivers a near-endless supply of irreverent jokes and wisecracks. As a narrative game that mostly relies on dialogue options for momentum, much of the humour is verbal, whether it’s a gag about the popular nice guy at the bar actually being a hugely successful “never-caught” serial killer, or characters making hilarious fourth-wall breaks about saving information “for your second playthrough” or riffing about there being “no need to reload your saves”. But there’s also plenty of visual humour as well. Seeking an invite for Satan’s house party, I went searching for an invite from a dead rock star (apparently those Christians who denounce rock as the devil’s music are right after all) in a sleazy nightclub where musicians who look suspiciously like Elvis and Michael Jackson are sealed for eternity inside display cases on the walls. It’s consistently and often morbidly funny, and effortlessly delivers several laughs per minute.
But the script is also razor-sharp for other reasons. Afterparty feels like an adult cartoon; its writers revel in telling an irreverent, darkly funny tale of two barely functional adults sightseeing in Hell’s neon-lit waiting room, with drunks roaming the streets, chatty cab drivers and way too many nightclubs. The cast is stellar. Janina Gavenkar and Khoi Dao make Lola and Milo an immensely fun pair to be with. They’re quite different people; Milo has devastating insecurities and a whole host of bad ideas, while Lola is more assertive and sarcastic. Gavenkar and Dao bring to life the real drama here: about life after college dragging apart two previously inseparable people and about how they both struggle to come to terms with that.
Their struggle is mirrored in many of Nowhere’s inhabitants, many of whom have family feuds, break-ups, and even daddy problems. Ashly Burch delights as the demon cab driver Sam, casually chatting about how Hell’s in a bit of a shabby state these days and gossiping about the locals while ferrying them around. Erin Yvette is another standout as Wormhorn, Lola and Milo’s overly enthusiastic personal demon who dogs them, and by extension the player, from place to place, appearing to mock the pair for their apparently poor decision-making. And because it’s adult, there are alcoholic cocktails in endless supply, which, if drunk at the right moments, give Milo and Lola new dialogue options, which only serve to underline the strength of the script and widen your encounters.
As a narrative game, there’s a lot to appreciate from the script to the performances, and even the wacky neon-lit visual design. Beer pong, dancing to intense EDM, and stacking shots all serve as hilarious “I can’t quite believe I’m doing this” moments, but there’s an underlying problem: the controls are a little clunky and aren’t explained well. As a result, they can often be a little fiddly, but it helps that they aren’t especially tough regardless. Afterparty makes playing beer pong against a demon with a Scottish accent such a novelty that the clunky controls for actually playing beer pong aren’t always at the forefront of your mind.
It’s often asserted that games need to have strong core mechanics to succeed; a good script and a capable voice cast isn’t enough. Afterparty disproves that notion. In fact, its script and performances are so good, it’s more than enough. It’s wicked, wicked fun, and an experience I definitely recommend.
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