Games Review: Night Book (PS4 & PC)

Synopsis: In Night Book an online interpreter is tricked into reading an ancient book that summons a demon into her home.

The Story

This game is a narrative-driven story in which you decide the fate that befalls the main character. You control the actions of Loralyn who works the night shift as an interpreter. Loralyn is heavily pregnant and working hard to keep her family together. But when she is tricked into translating a passage from an ancient text. Her mentally ill father starts acting out and all hell breaks loose as an ancient demon is released.

Gameplay

Released by Wales Interactive. Night Book is very much an FMV narrative-driven game, which doesn’t really require too much from the user. In short, you basically watch the movie and at certain points in the narrative, you are asked to choose between two options. Of course, whatever you choose has an effect on where the story goes.

The options can be as straightforward as telling the truth to your father or lying to him. So, depending on where you are at in the game. Whatever you choose can have a small or big effect on where the action goes. While you are somewhat passive as the person watching. This doesn’t mean that you are not invested in the action. I found myself getting quite involved to the point of shouting at the TV. In fact, I may play through again to see the different endings.

The Acting

The actors do some solid work here. Colin Salmon is remarkably cool and a little shady as the dealer that is selling the book. While Mark Wingett steals the show somewhat as Loralyn’s mentally ill father who plays a quite prominent role in the overall narrative.

Overall. The actors do a brilliant job of selling the story. Julie Dray is particularly good as Loralyn and does a great job of conveying the terror of her situation. This is particularly impressive given that the entire film was shot during the lockdown.

Overall

Night Book delivers a satisfying horror narrative that will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout. I particularly enjoyed the fact that the story has a bit of an environmental spin to it. You become surprisingly invested in the story despite you not really needing to do more than click between a few choices throughout the game. And it is surprising how little or big a difference these choices make.

As far as repeat plays go. I think that once you have seen the 5 different endings. You’ll probably not revisit the game all that often. So it does have its limitations.

The game will be is available to buy now on both Steam and Playstation Store. And is well worth a look if you like horror narratives.