“In Afterparty, you play Milo and Lola, recently deceased best buds who suddenly find themselves staring down an eternity in Hell. But there’s a loophole: outdrink Satan and he’ll grant you re-entry to Earth.
“What adventures will you stumble through in the underworld? Every step is up to you. Time to go on the best bender ever, uncover the mystery of why you’ve been damned, and drink the big guy under the table.”
I recently played through this with a friend on Xbox and loved the story, setting (lots of dark humour going on), and the voice acting. There are some very light gameplay mechanics but this is definitely all about conversations and narrative. Even though they are quite different games, the humorous corporate underworld along with the charming characters brought up a lot of Grim Fandango nostalgia.
We were really enjoying it until we hit a game breaking bug halfway through and it was a bit depressing to have to restart. That being said, due to the branching nature of the story we decided to take a different path the second time through which turned out to be a lot more enjoyable than our previous choices, and saved us a bit from having to go through all of the same dialogue again.
I am still very much in love with the game and I’m going to go have a peek at their previous game Oxenfree, which I missed out on before. Other than the bug it was a really enjoyable trip, and if not for that I would fully recommend it to anyone looking for a very narrative focused adventure that touches on mental health in an interesting way. Hopefully you will have better luck than we did. 🙏
Platforms: Windows, Mac, PS4, Xbox, Nintendo Switch
Release: October 18, 2019