Beyond The Long Night Preview - Up, Up, and Away!
Here’s an interesting little indie y’all might be interested in: Beyond The Long Night. Already causing a bit of a stir from indie fans in general, it’s likely to be a big hit. Not that I have any of those predictive skills, but having played a preview, it gets my endorsement. Stop laughing.
Now, this game from Noisy Head Pixels is touted as a twin-stick shooter, but in my experience, it wasn’t. That’s no fault of the title, but my DualSense was throwing a bit of a fit and refused to play ball. Having retired the Switch Pro Controller back to the Switch, I didn’t want to fanny about with pairing again, so playing with the keyboard and mouse.
Good choice.
I don’t doubt that Beyond The Long Night will be a blast with a controller, but the accuracy of the mouse was spot-on. It was so good that it wasn’t until my eventual death that I recalled that it was a rogue-like. Without covering this initially, I knew little about it, and perhaps that’s why it was more of a surprise.
Beyond The Long Night Preview (PC: Itch.io)
There’s not much info about the game at the moment as it’s still in the development stages. If you check the Steam page, you’ll note that there isn’t a release date other than 2022. Still, the gameplay was on display, and it was very, very good.
Your quest is to explore a subterranean world known as the Overworld and must ascend a mountain of ‘rooms’ swarming with enemies keen on making you their trophy. The movement here is through balloons. They’re a good way of measuring ‘how long you have left’, but even better, they don’t pop if you crash into something sharp.
While one hand controls movement, the other will be used for your attacks and your character’s accuracy, at least with the mouse, is brilliant. If there were a stats screen, I would have surprised myself with the percent of connected hits. Because it was that precise, the game felt a bit easy.
Easy There, Tiger
Ok, it wasn’t easy, but the controls and response felt natural, meaning that there was zero lag or room for complaint. When I eventually got hit after a wealth of rooms, the enemy numbers promptly increased, and my balloons sadly went to balloon heaven. But it was a bloody booby trap that was my initial demise, triggering that Eureka! moment that Beyond The Long Night is a rogue-like. See, not just a pretty face.
After your death, you’re presented with a stats screen, after all, confirming the perks you unlocked and the unfolding stories. Oh, and you can marvel at the enemies you killed. Not bad to hit three figures on the first go!
What are those perks? Mostly with your attack and its potency. Besides your main projectile, you can unlock a superpower that doesn’t take all that long to recharge but is not frequent enough to spam. The challenge and general vibe are spot-on – even at this early stage. As for unfolding stories, that’s based on the NPCs you meet, who will undoubtedly play a significant role in the full game.
I’ll Get My Hat
Beyond The Long Night gave me the feels for Fez. While structurally, it’s a different genre, the pixel art here and schematics are excellent. There’s so much character in the lead and the little banjo player, Pickles, despite being constructed of a minuscule amount of blocks.
I’m not the biggest fan of pixel art, but I love the presentation here. That doesn’t resonate as much with the music, even though the developer is a sound designer, but that’s 100% taste and nothing else. I guarantee so many people will love it, but coffee – tea, tea – coffee.
As it stands, Beyond The Long Night is a rogue-like set in The Dark Mountain. It oozes charm, replay value (this is only a preview!) and a plentiful amount of excitement to fuel the house this winter. I like this. I like this a lot. Go wishlist this on Steam (available on Itch.io, too) and if you see a demo pop up, try it out for yourself – it’s going to be one to keep your eye on.