It’s onerous to not have blended emotions about Not Tonight. For starters, it’s good to see one other game so closely impressed by Papers, Please – we want extra darkly satirical paperwork sims. It additionally comprises phrases (apparently fairly humorous ones, at that) written by RPS pal and contributor Richard Cobbett, one other mark in its favour. It’s simply onerous to shake the horrible sense of all-too-real dread I get taking a look at its nightmarish imaginative and prescient of working as a bouncer in post-Brexit Britain. For those that can abdomen staring into this existential abyss, it’s out at this time, printed by No More Robots.
Putting gamers within the scuffed trainers of a delegated ‘Person of European Heritage’, your objective in Not Tonight is to keep away from getting deported by the more and more far-right wing authorities that took maintain of the nation after Brexit went haywire. From your house in Relocation Block B, you discover work by way of a smartphone app, and spend your nights ensuring solely the proper form of arsehole makes their manner into the UK’s many pubs, golf equipment and festivals. As with Papers, Please, this requires well timed evaluation of their ID and credentials towards ever-shifting, typically nonsensical standards.
Also as with Papers, Please, builders PanicBarn hold you in your toes with ethical selections to be made. Through your selections as to who enters, who leaves, and what choices you make in-between jobs, you possibly can alter the political scenario round you. While it’s attainable to play good and do precisely as your authorities and capitalist overlords want you to behave, I can’t see myself backing down from an opportunity to assist out any form of resistance, assuming I can drum up the braveness to attempt the game within the first place.
Not Tonight is out on Steam and GOG for £13.94/€15.11/$18.
Disclaimer: RPS regular Richard Cobbett did writing work for Not Tonight. Being an especially prolific freelancer, he will get round rather a lot, writing phrases for all method of periodicals and game studios. He’s additionally infuriatingly good at protecting his behind-the-scenes tasks secret from us (which explains my shock the opposite day when he announced Nighthawks), so I’ve completely no insider angle on the character of Not Tonight.
