Not Tonight [Review]
By Thunderheavyarm
So far the last few games that I’ve been playing have been dystopian worlds where survival becomes difficult. Not wanting to change that, I came across Not Tonight. Similar to Papers please, you play the role Person of European Heritage #112, days away from being exported from your country and back to the country of your parent’s birth. How can you survive in a very tongue in cheek alternate reality where your birth means nothing and where your parents came from means everything? Developed by PanicBarn and published by No More Robots, can you survive in a xenophobic world where last time you checked you belonged to the country trying to kick you out?
Gameplay
The game takes placein an alternate history where an incredibly xenophobic party takescontrol of the UK and begins to expel anyone who doesn’t have twogenerations of history in England. Unfortunately for you, though youwere born here that doesn’t grant you citizenship. To make endsmeet and to pay the ludicrous renewal fee on your visa you areassigned the role of a freelance bar bouncer.
Check IDs, ticketsand names on guest lists are just a few of the challenges that awaitthe player, as well as a minimum attendance quota into the bar.Unlike in Paper’s please where just having someone walk into thecountry counted towards your pay, in Not Tonight if you make amistake the count is removed and you’re potentially fined for theerror or fired if you make too many. Starting simple and growing incomplexity, the game demands the utmost in attention of the player tokeep their job and remain a temporary citizen.
There is also asecond option for the player to take money that brings up the ethicalquestion that everyone has, how far do you go to ensure yourlifestyle? At first you’re presented with people bribing you to letthem into the club. Of course, I turned these down as I’m aperfectionist and your performance is directly tied to how fast youupgrade and get better equipment to increase your job efficiency.
But it wasn’tuntil the game introduced drugs into the equation that things stoppedbeing so black and white for me. When the game presented it to me, itwas just a one time thing the character told me, people coming in fora festival. I scoffed, I was here to make an honest living notpeddling and pushing onto people, regardless of the fact the drugswere comical in nature and had no relationship with real life drugsas far as I knew. Until, I accidentally dropped it onto a patron whenI was trying to give their ID back. Suddenly 40 pounds showed up inmy hand instantly. I did a strangely real life thing and moved themoney so it couldn’t be easily seen and continued with my job,fearing what would happen afterwards. And then it happened,absolutely nothing. Aside from a drop in my social score there was nonegative. And the score impact would recover in a day. So I went backto that same job, with even more drugs. One job later, I had an extra200 pounds and the moral feelings I had, instantly evaporated. Whenit came time for “heavier drugs” to appear in the game, I didn’tbat an eye as I bought a decent stock and made a massive killing atthe next event.
It actually wasn’tuntil I started to write this when I realized how easily I had let goof my moral ethics. Granted, I’ve played games like this beforewhere you can kill or spare an opponent for a move resource orsomething of that nature. But that was always off from the start, asif I had no choice but one or the other and I just looked up whichwould let me win the game. This time around, by the time I started, Ihad more than enough money to pay for everything with no worries orregrets. But the thrill of making so much money, so easily, with nodirect lose to me...still has me chilled how easily I just let myselffall into it. In a way, I can definitely understand now how someonein a much harder situation than myself could easily see this and beswept up even faster than I did. What’s worse is that in a recentjob, I forgot to stock up and I was actually upset at the end howmuch money passed through me that I wasn’t able to collect, I haveliterally gone Broke Bad. I don’t know whether to applaud thedevelopers now or be disgusted by what they showed in myself...atleast the money is good.
Review
I honestly can’twalk away from this game with the same opinions that I had before.I’ve only been playing this game for a day and it’s alreadymanaged to make me not only doubt myself but turn on my convictions.Papers, Please had a similar moral track that you had to follow forcertain endings, but Not Tonight has this system in place where youjust do things because you want to do them. If you played Papers,Please or even Need to Know then I can’t recommend this gameenough. Hell, just in general I recommend this game as a great way toexperience yourself if you were put anywhere near this situation.It’s on Steam right now for a very decent price and there’s a newDLC coming out for it very soon. Until next time.