Well, this was... uncomfortable. In its run-time of approximately 20 minutes, Oíche Mhaith (Irish for "good night" and pronounced [ee-ha why]) created an atmosphere of distress and anxiety with its skilled use of sound design, colour pallets, and dialogues that illustrate a situation that, to a certain extent, could be the reality of many families. Its theme, centred around Eimear [eh-mar] and her dysfunctional family, is not an easy one, and it gives a story that is scary, yes, but also invites some reflection.

Designer Terry Cavanagh doesn't reinvent the wheel neither does anything spectacular (the game, despite being called a RPG-style, barely has any agency; the "style" is restricted to the aesthetics), but it shows the power of design to immerse players into a world from the very first scene. As a writer who has difficulty writing short stories, cases like this are incredibly inspiring!

I recommend playing the game for yourself. It's quite short and and it can be played for free on NewGrounds.

Reviewed on Apr 21, 2022


2 Comments


1 year ago

Still don't understand why the father shoot everyone tbh... but it was an experience

1 year ago

That was one extremely dysfunctional family. The parents clearly didn't care about Eimear or about each other. The way I see it, there was many ways in which things could end tragically (and there was no way they wouldn't end tragically), so Terry chose one possibility by having the father shoot everyone.