So I had neither played a visual novel before, nor did the term pop up despite my interest in story driven point'n'click. But I had the spare 99 points for the game being on sale at the Nintendo eStore and One Night Stand somehow caught my attention. A sex game on family friendly Nintendo?! Not quite.
According to Wikipedia Lucy Blundell got the idea for her game debut One Night Stand while watching a miserable looking man on public transportation. She then rotoscoped footage shot of herself via mobile and used a free visual novel software called Ren'Py. The rather visual short story turns out as a chamber play assuming the protagonist woke up hungover next to a naked woman. The being dizzy feels real.
So One Night Stand let's the player try to find out how he ended up in the situation as well as offering plenty of interactions to influence the outcome, i.e. how much of a walk of shame it's going to be. The interesting aspect here is no matter how cool you both try to handle it, it's at least a little awkward.
I was surprised One Night Stand was first released on Windows PC rather than a mobile device as your first intuitive playthrough will last a few minutes, but for me, there was a huge motivation to find out what would happen if I didn't try to act as myself.
So One Night Stand appeared to be the ideal game to return to every once in a while to try and see all the twelve ways to complete. On the other hand, I was curious enough to master that within two sessions. That could also have something to do with the game mechanics being close to what I know as point'n'click, something you can't take for granted in a visual novel as Our Worlds Is Ended just taught me more recently.
The Switch version of One Night Stand not only offers to actually play it on a portable device. You can also pick if you'd like to control it via touchscreen, pro controller or with motion control support using joy cons. As much as I like my pro controller, using touchscreen turned out to be most convenient to me, even though I prefer not having to clean the screen from my prints all the time.
From my perspective One Night Stand was a great introduction to the format that way, as interaction still felt something like a puzzle whilst it was actually a maze of morality to a rather elaborate story told from a mid to end twenties point of view. Though that still is quite young to me, grown out of the demand for party nights let alone sexual adventures on that level, it's on the other hand a lot less juvenile than games I'm aware of to handle sexually related topics.
That still doesn't exclude the opportunity to put on her panties and try to get away with it, but details like this are rather a refreshing humorous turn of events to expand the variety of behaving like a jerk than an actual puberty joke.
I liked that about One Night Stand a lot. There are certain limits of exploration when it comes to details like the woman's dissimilar id's, but it doesn't seem to be the point to find out the exact story why she might have or use these. Most of us can imagine that and an ellipsis in these cases is probably more exciting than the plain explanation. It's more about how good of an idea it is to search her wallet while she's in the bathroom in the first place.
I guess if you didn't bring up the empathy before you played One Night Stand, there's an actual chance for you to learn your date is a human being with emotions, too. And that's quite reasonable as legitimation for whatever you're bold enough to try in this game.
So you ended up in bed together after having too many drinks. Shit happens. People of all genders do that. Doesn't matter. Is that a reason to take a snap of her sleeping naked to show your friend? You'll eventually find out. And then you hopefully learn through communication that this woman is actually nice and you don't really want to do anything like walking out while she's throwing up in the toilet.
One Night Stand is a beautifully realistic take on virtue and temptation of quite regular people, who got into a situation they can't even remember. It's up to the player to decide what's best to handle while having the freedom to experiment. I think though most of us wish in the end to have met under other circumstances. At least I was able to get to know an interesting person I would like to spend more time with if I was the protagonist.
That's quite an achievement for a program some people see as just a short game. In fact, I even saw it as a goal to try and make it last as long as I could, depending on behaviour. I'd say One Night Stand is one of those indies to profit from not having to match any standards, being good at being what they are and eventually finding their audience. If there's more like this, I'd love to play it.
According to Wikipedia Lucy Blundell got the idea for her game debut One Night Stand while watching a miserable looking man on public transportation. She then rotoscoped footage shot of herself via mobile and used a free visual novel software called Ren'Py. The rather visual short story turns out as a chamber play assuming the protagonist woke up hungover next to a naked woman. The being dizzy feels real.
So One Night Stand let's the player try to find out how he ended up in the situation as well as offering plenty of interactions to influence the outcome, i.e. how much of a walk of shame it's going to be. The interesting aspect here is no matter how cool you both try to handle it, it's at least a little awkward.
I was surprised One Night Stand was first released on Windows PC rather than a mobile device as your first intuitive playthrough will last a few minutes, but for me, there was a huge motivation to find out what would happen if I didn't try to act as myself.
So One Night Stand appeared to be the ideal game to return to every once in a while to try and see all the twelve ways to complete. On the other hand, I was curious enough to master that within two sessions. That could also have something to do with the game mechanics being close to what I know as point'n'click, something you can't take for granted in a visual novel as Our Worlds Is Ended just taught me more recently.
The Switch version of One Night Stand not only offers to actually play it on a portable device. You can also pick if you'd like to control it via touchscreen, pro controller or with motion control support using joy cons. As much as I like my pro controller, using touchscreen turned out to be most convenient to me, even though I prefer not having to clean the screen from my prints all the time.
From my perspective One Night Stand was a great introduction to the format that way, as interaction still felt something like a puzzle whilst it was actually a maze of morality to a rather elaborate story told from a mid to end twenties point of view. Though that still is quite young to me, grown out of the demand for party nights let alone sexual adventures on that level, it's on the other hand a lot less juvenile than games I'm aware of to handle sexually related topics.
That still doesn't exclude the opportunity to put on her panties and try to get away with it, but details like this are rather a refreshing humorous turn of events to expand the variety of behaving like a jerk than an actual puberty joke.
I liked that about One Night Stand a lot. There are certain limits of exploration when it comes to details like the woman's dissimilar id's, but it doesn't seem to be the point to find out the exact story why she might have or use these. Most of us can imagine that and an ellipsis in these cases is probably more exciting than the plain explanation. It's more about how good of an idea it is to search her wallet while she's in the bathroom in the first place.
I guess if you didn't bring up the empathy before you played One Night Stand, there's an actual chance for you to learn your date is a human being with emotions, too. And that's quite reasonable as legitimation for whatever you're bold enough to try in this game.
So you ended up in bed together after having too many drinks. Shit happens. People of all genders do that. Doesn't matter. Is that a reason to take a snap of her sleeping naked to show your friend? You'll eventually find out. And then you hopefully learn through communication that this woman is actually nice and you don't really want to do anything like walking out while she's throwing up in the toilet.
One Night Stand is a beautifully realistic take on virtue and temptation of quite regular people, who got into a situation they can't even remember. It's up to the player to decide what's best to handle while having the freedom to experiment. I think though most of us wish in the end to have met under other circumstances. At least I was able to get to know an interesting person I would like to spend more time with if I was the protagonist.
That's quite an achievement for a program some people see as just a short game. In fact, I even saw it as a goal to try and make it last as long as I could, depending on behaviour. I'd say One Night Stand is one of those indies to profit from not having to match any standards, being good at being what they are and eventually finding their audience. If there's more like this, I'd love to play it.
2 Comments
@Higloman
Cheers, mate. I think one basic problem of visual novels is, they seem to be almost all focused on Manga topics. Whilst that doesn't have to be bad, I think it's hard to determine if a novel is connected to a universe you'd have to be familiar with and how much kinky fan service they are aiming for. Especially spending over 30 hours with one of plenty outcomes, I'd like to have a little substance.
Rummaging through sales on the hunt for hidden gems is a thing I grew up on, wether it's music, books, comics, movies or games. The rise of an independent gaming market us something that totally matches my decades long history of supporting underground artists.
In case of the Nintendo eShop, the majority of games doesn't interest me at all, or they catch my attention with a nice picture or cool title and just having a closer look helps identifying them as potential rubbish. You're absolutely right, I often have no idea, who in his right mind would bother to buy that.
From my experience though it's crucial to have an open eye for games, that could be a positive surprise. You probably pay rather a tenner for one of those as well, accounting the other games that passed the test to draw from your wallet and then turn out to stink, but I feel it as quite rewarding once I found something satisfying that's not in any questionable top list video on YouTube. Plus I got to check out more games.
The thing with those treasures to find though is, despite they might not have had the advertising budget, that they might also not try to please everybody. Those games need to find their audience bringing the required package of experiences, knowledge, humor and preferences with them to create a subjective form of pleasure.
That's an issue with today's typical suggestions purporting this or that is great. Unless I know the person behind those references close enough to classify, I would need further review to understand what the person likes something for.
Hopefully my typical rambling was sufficiently presenting the different aspects of One Night Stand, so you're going to have a good time, should you decide to play the game.
Cheers, mate. I think one basic problem of visual novels is, they seem to be almost all focused on Manga topics. Whilst that doesn't have to be bad, I think it's hard to determine if a novel is connected to a universe you'd have to be familiar with and how much kinky fan service they are aiming for. Especially spending over 30 hours with one of plenty outcomes, I'd like to have a little substance.
Rummaging through sales on the hunt for hidden gems is a thing I grew up on, wether it's music, books, comics, movies or games. The rise of an independent gaming market us something that totally matches my decades long history of supporting underground artists.
In case of the Nintendo eShop, the majority of games doesn't interest me at all, or they catch my attention with a nice picture or cool title and just having a closer look helps identifying them as potential rubbish. You're absolutely right, I often have no idea, who in his right mind would bother to buy that.
From my experience though it's crucial to have an open eye for games, that could be a positive surprise. You probably pay rather a tenner for one of those as well, accounting the other games that passed the test to draw from your wallet and then turn out to stink, but I feel it as quite rewarding once I found something satisfying that's not in any questionable top list video on YouTube. Plus I got to check out more games.
The thing with those treasures to find though is, despite they might not have had the advertising budget, that they might also not try to please everybody. Those games need to find their audience bringing the required package of experiences, knowledge, humor and preferences with them to create a subjective form of pleasure.
That's an issue with today's typical suggestions purporting this or that is great. Unless I know the person behind those references close enough to classify, I would need further review to understand what the person likes something for.
Hopefully my typical rambling was sufficiently presenting the different aspects of One Night Stand, so you're going to have a good time, should you decide to play the game.
Higloman
1 year ago
This is a really cool suggestion, thank you for sharing your perspective. Sometimes I see 99-cent games and incorrectly assume it's shovelware, good for you for taking the leap!