October Night Games Review (PC)

very good
key review info
  • Game: October Night Games
  • Platform: PC
  • Show system requirements
  • Gamepad support: No
  • Reviewed on:
October Night Games artwork

As I gather mandrake root, a skull, and wormwood from a hollow in the woods I wonder: will I be able to gather all the objects required for my ritual tomorrow? Or do I have to try a little alchemy to see if I can supplement what I pick-up? After all, there’s about a week before the potential end of the world but still, I wonder who my allies are and what they might do during the final showdown.

October Night Games is a digital board game build around ancient horrors, opening gates to the netherworld, and finding out who your friends are. There’s some roughness around the edges but the core ideas of the game are good. There’s a lot of replayability to the concept.

The player first has to pick from a cast of seven characters ranging from an aristocratic vampire to a polite witch or a crazed monk. There are also six familiars to mix and match. Each couple gets a few items, a special ability, and a certain amount of health, sanity, and social standing. Players also have to pick between the Changers, who want to bring about an apocalyptic ritual on Halloween, and the Keepers, who want to keep the world safe from that.

October Night Games
October Night Games
October Night Games
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The game space is relatively small, with three locations that can be explored for ingredients and one store that opens up relatively quickly. Ingredients are required for rituals, which provide bonuses, and can be used for alchemy, to get that one tricky missing element. But picking up an item from the world can trigger a negative reaction or even an attack from the resident monster. If any of the three core stats drop to zero the character can do little to influence the world.

Combat is built around dice and re-roll management. Items and character abilities can also help overcome some enemies or mitigate damage. It’s tense and I quickly learned to pick up only what I needed, especially when I had no items to mitigate a potential decrease in core stats.

It’s crucial to complete as many rituals as possible to get bonuses and potentially new powers while also trying to find out who the enemy characters are, to make their in-game lives as miserable as possible. Once Halloween rolls around a final dice-powered encounter takes place to determine the fate of the world.

The biggest issue with October Night Games is that many of the gameplay ideas need to be discovered via trial and error, which makes the first campaign a little frustrating. Alchemy is mainly a mystery, it’s unclear what a sacrifice adds to a ritual, and other characters barely communicate how they are doing. A little more detail, some pop-ups, and some lore encyclopedia would go a long way to making the experience more welcoming.

The smaller problem is that it is hard to impossible to find multiplayer matches. The experience is fun when playing against computer opponents, although real humans with secret agendas and a Discord channel would make it even better. October Night Games is not splashy when it comes to the presentation but the developers have delivered a retro board game look using limited resources. The title also has very appropriate spooky music with a whimsical twist. Unfortunately, it becomes repetitive relatively quickly. A playlist that includes some progressive metal, maybe some weird cabaret, and some period tunes is more suited to longer playthroughs.

October Night Games
October Night Games
October Night Games
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The Good

  • Ritual and alchemy ideas
  • Varied characters
  • Deduction game

The Bad

  • Limited information on some mechanics
  • Hard to find multiplayer matches
  • Limited communication

Conclusion

October Night Games has a cool premise but suffers a bit when it comes to executions. The mix of Lovecraftian horrors, rituals, alchemy, and spooky characters works well in the context. But the game needs to have more information available to players, especially when they play against the A.I., to allow them to make clear decisions and reach their goals.

The team at Octobear Knight Games is promising tutorials and manuals are coming, which is great. In the meantime, gamers need to be armed with quite a bit of patience to navigate the world and learn all the mechanics. Make sure to play the tutorial campaign at least once.

The deduction, dice-based combat, horror powered rituals, and weirdness at the core of October Night Games work well in single player and would be even more engaging with friends.

story 7
gameplay 8
concept 9
graphics 8
audio 7
multiplayer 7
final rating 8
Editor's review
very good
 

October Night Games screenshots (31 Images)

October Night Games artwork
October Night GamesOctober Night GamesOctober Night GamesOctober Night Games
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