Yes,youreadthatright.Satanhasa taste
for booze and demons like to party just as
much as teenagers do. It sounds like
Disneyland for burnouts, where lurid
cocktails replace rainbows and monsters
prowl the streets instead of cute animals.
Fitting considering the inspiration thathad
been brewing for a number of
months before development began.
“The core concept came from a
series of conversations that Adam
[Afterparty and Oxenfree writer] and
I had while walking around a massive
cemetery across the street from our
office,” says Sean Krankel, co-founder of
Night School Studio. “It’s where Michael
Jackson, Walt Disney, Carrie Fisher, and
Lucille Ball are buried, and we used to
wander around the grounds to get our
creative gears going. Weird, I know.”
At first Krankel and his team wanted to
make a game about being in a bar
“because bars in games and real life are
pretty rad”. But they began to wonder,
would you play as a bartender or a
drinker? Well, of course a drinker. And
would it take place in one bar or many? It
had to be a pub crawl. And would you betrying to outdrink anyone? Who would be
the craziest person to topple? In the
graveyard it hit the two friends – Satan!
Yet Night School’s depiction of Hell is
far from the traditional ones we’ve seen in
art and literature, where a labyrinth of
flames promises endless suffering for its
eternal guests. Here it’s a modern
cityscape of winding streets and grotty
bars, brought to life in pops of romantic
neon like the colours you find in bottles of
strawberry liqueur and crystallised violets.
“We knew fairly early that we wanted
move past everyone’s stereotypical vision
of Hell,” says Krankel. “We wanted to draw
from a wider variety of cultural and
geographical reference points, to create a
new, nightlife-fuelled, hybrid underworld.
So if an artist or writer wanted to have a
district inspired by Shibuya, or another
with cobblestone streets and cute pubs,
let’s make room for it! We’re creating [our]
own version of Hell, one that we can think
of as distinctly Night School.”ONE FOR THE ROAD
While the characters and dialogue options
are very similar to Oxenfree, there are so
many new features for you to look forward
to. For example, every bar you visit in
Hell sells a variety of drinks, and every
drink unlocks new dialogue trees.
Want to be flirty? Aggressive? Sloppy,
funny? Afterparty’s bars are littered
with options. While you’re at it you can
play beer pong, dance, and take part in
drinking minigames with the assorted
demons you meet.
Yet the story still feels cut from the
same cloth as Oxenfree. What is it about
young people that resonate so strongly
with Night School?
“Our games are inhabited by people
who are hopefully very relatable, but
dealing with circumstances that are
wholly unfamiliar,” explains Krankel.
“Being a teenager or in your early 20s is a
magical, messy moment because huge
pieces of your core personality are
formed, yet so much of who you yearn to
grow into is a mystery. So as you hack
through all that stuff, you do it with
friends. It’s a hazy, perfect window of time
wherelove,trust,andpersonalgoalsare
stillmalleable,andit makesfora great
canvasforinteractivestories.”
KimberleyBallardI
t’s been three years since Night School
Studio released its bewitching coming-
of-age debut Oxenfree. Its next game,
Afterparty, looks even stranger and more
surreal. We meet Lola and Milo, two recently
deceased best friends who wind up in Hell. Their
only chance of escape? Beating the Devil and his
horde of demons in a drinking contest.Explore the mean streets of Hell
as two dead best friendsAFTERPARTY
TAKE PART IN DRINKING
MINIGAMESWITHTHE
ASSORTEDDEMONSYOUMEETRELEASE
2019DEVELOPER
Night School StudioPUBLISHER
Night School StudioLINK
afterpartygame.comNEED TO KNOWFIRST
LOOKYou can shape relationships
through cheeky messages.Afterparty
PREVIEW
Lola and Milo feel like spiritual
siblings to the teens of Oxenfree.