I Played Kinmoku's One Night Stand Simulator Game ....And Did Pretty Well

Greetings and Salutations, Y'all!

How many of y'all have ever woken up from a night of drinking too much alcohol with little to no memory of the previous night? Add to that waking up completely naked in a strange room next to a complete stranger who is also completely in the buff.

Well folks, in this time of social distancing, yours truly had a one night stand -- uh, kinda sorta.

Thanks to the current world-wide pandemic these days your favorite blogger is spending almost all of his time indoors online. Not that that's a new things for yours truly, being a huge introvert.

All the same: All work and no play makes Carl a dull boy.... Okay maybe I'm not quite that bored just yet, but not being able to travel just sucks.

So recently I received an e-mail from a friend of mine online with a YouTube link discussing a somewhat interesting simulation game called One Night Stand.

One Night Stand is a fun little visual novel type game that strongly reminds me of those Choose Your Own Adventure or Secret Path Books that were really popular when I was a kid in the 1980s where the reader becomes the protagonist in the story with choices that determine the main character's actions with various possible outcomes.

Created by online game creator, Kinmoku (aka Lucy Blundell) in 2016, the game One Night Stand is a first person simulation player where you interact in the role of a person who wakes up naked with a major hangover in a strange bed in an unknown room next to a complete stranger thrust into an awkward “morning-after” scenario.

With no memory of the previous night's events, your job is to explore your surroundings and try to piece together what happened, learn who your new bed buddy is, and find out what happened to bring you both together. 

The gameplay is fairly simple. It begins with you as the first person waking up with a hangover to your dying cellphone buzzing with an annoyed text message from a friend of yours explaining how you ditched him and your other friends the previous night. The first minute, or so, has your character slowly awaking and coming to the suddenly realization that you are in a strange room in a strange bed sans clothes. 

Then a small, moan can be heard and your character turns to see the nude back of what is clearly a sleeping female. A person you have absolutely no memory of, or how you two met and ended up in this position.

Yeah that would be my first question too, but its something
you have to find out as the game goes forward.

After you are hit with this realization, the game begins to give you multiple choices on what to do next. Some are simple yes or no questions, while others offer either three to four possible outcomes, each of which determining the progress for the next set of choices.

Abruptly your female partner wakes up suddenly and leaves the room, allowing you to explore your surroundings and gathering clues as to her identity and what happened that led you to her bedroom the night before. You only have time to check out two or three things around the room before the girl abruptly returns and you are formally introduced to her. 

Beautiful hand-drawn artwork on her expressions.

What kind of a girl is she? How did you end up where you are? How much do you reveal to her about not remembering the details of the previous evening? What do you talk about? All important questions that the game offers dialogue to help you find out the path you need to learning these details.  

Over the course of the gameplay the girl -- whose name you have to learn if you can -- leaves the room for various reasons (to get you coffee or pain relievers for your aforementioned hangover, or to answer the door, or continued sickness as she's also recovering from the effects of too much clubbing) and that gives you time to explore the room and check out a couple of more items each time to try and piece together what happened on your own. You can use your mouse pad, or game controller to click on objects in the room and learn more about what they are. 

I'd advise against looking in the mirror, the image of a
hungover you isn't a pretty one in this animation.

You are given several options, including simply ducking out of the situation, escaping when the opportunity presents itself and you can find your clothes; or sticking around and exploring your relationship with this complete stranger you apparently shared a night of naughty fun with. Can you keep up the act of pretending to remember long enough to find out what really happened? Or is honesty the best policy and you tell her you cannot remember and trusting her to help you remember? Do you end up making her angry, making her upset, or gaining a new friend and the promise of more in the future?

One Night Stand has 12 unique endings to discover and unlock, some of them positive outcomes and others no so much. Each ending reveals some new insight into what happened. You may resort to some unusual methods to find the answers you’re looking for, but take care not to prod and pry too much. Your choices have major consequences. One or two wrong moves in your investigation, or being too pushy in your questioning can be enough to earn you a fast exit with an angry woman telling you to get out. A nosy guest quickly becomes a very unwanted one! 

The game contains some strong language and suggestive themes -- no shock given the plot, but oh well.

One Night Stand features beautiful hand-drawn artwork in life-like rotoscope animation, and a simple but beautiful original soundtrack. Game play per round is about 15 to 20 minutes. The game is available for download on Windows, Mac, Linux, Playstation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

Now for my review. 

I downloaded the game simulator and resolved to see how well I would do my first play through. I confess that the situation described in the visual novel isn't one that I am usually accustomed to. 

While I am no stranger to having a one night stand, I can honestly say that I have never had a drunken one night stand in my life. Being a firm believer in the Straight Edge lifestyle I personally don't drink alcoholic beverages, and I would never allow myself to become intoxicated with complete strangers. For various reasons being drunk and randomly hooking up is not a good thing for anyone, male or female, and can lead to very unfortunate -- sometimes life-altering -- consequences later on.

I have far too much respect for myself and for someone willing to share that particular experience with me to consider getting them intoxicated, or getting myself wasted and then hooking up with no guarantee of remembering the events the next morning.  

Also, I'm aware that most sources online that talk about one night stands advises that the proper protocol is to leave the next morning and not stick around -- which I consider a pretty screwed up thing to do to someone. I know this is to avoid causing awkwardness, or getting in deeper than you probably already have (no pun intended); but I've always felt that if someone was willing to share that part of themselves with you even if the plan isn't to go farther, simply walking away without a goodbye, or at least staying for breakfast, is just a sleazy thing to do. 

I have had a couple of sexual partners who had no qualms about doing the same to me after a night of dirty deeds, but that's on them.

That being said it was unique to play the role of a man who was put in that situation and trying the best way to subtly do detective work while at the same time learning more about the female character in the story. 

The animation is beautifully done in watercolor and the facial expressions on the girl brought to life with the animation actually create a real emotional connection to the character. The dialogue is very human and well written, and I found myself really wanting to learn more about the mysterious girl. Despite the situation you find that she is quite charming, and a bit mysterious. The fact she's also just as hungover as you are and seems every bit as vulnerable and insecure as you are about the situation also kind of endears you to the character. 

Also, on a personal note, the fact that the female character actually looks like someone I would in fact have a one night stand with in real life also kinda helped me take on the challenge of playing the role with a bit more appreciation for how serious the situation being played out is. Her character is done so well that the thought of being a jerk to her, even unintentionally, honestly inspired me to do the best I could not to make things too weird as I struggled to learn more from her about the previous night, and about her personally. My complements to the creator for doing such an amazing job there.

I followed the game play and made the choices that I more-or-less see myself actually doing in the situation. Mainly I tried to learn more about her interests, especially her interest in music, and kept the subject on that. I did confess that I was too hungover to remember too much about what happened the night before. She was willing to fill in the blanks as best as she could. I stayed honest and kept snooping to a minimum -- mostly I looked at the objects around the room and stayed away from prying into her notebook, her wallet, and opening clothing draws. 

Ultimately I ended up getting an ending where she actually plays a beautiful guitar solo for me....in her t-shirt and underwear no less! It ends with a very positive epilogue that included a hug before going our separate ways. Our characters exchange phone numbers and resolving to remain friends. It unlocked one of the 12 endings, this one was titled: Her Song. 

In the end she ended up playing an awesome guitar solo for me.
In her underwear! How cool is that!

A beautiful ending -- I wish all my actual one night
stands had been so amicable.

Not too bad at all, if I do say so myself. I'm pretty proud of the fact that I was able to turn an awkward situation and help end it on a more than positive note for both me and my new friend.

The only thing about the ending is that you don't get to learn the girl's name. I looked up other play throughs of the game on YouTube to see what the other scenarios were, and learned that her name is Robin.

I also saw based on other videos by people who played the visual novel game that some of the other endings were pretty messed up; including one where a decision to snap a photo on your phone of her nude body from the back comes back to bite you in the ass hard later on -- and rightly so! That's a serious no-no right there and even considering it would make you an asshole. There is even one ending where your character puts on her underwear (Yeah, my thought was WTF?! Seriously folks, do people actually do stuff like that?) and she understandably flips out over it big time dropping an F-bomb before kicking you out wearing that underwear....and nothing else, with you doing the walk of shame. Another bad ending comes from prying into her wallet, or her laptop.

The main trick is don't try to push more into this than just friendship. At least one other scenario shows that this just turns Robin defensive and gets you kicked out. In another you stay friends, though there is a suggestion that it could lead to more down the road. And no none of those friend endings include the words: "with benefits" so you just have to settle on a one night stand that you can't remember. 

There are other things that result in a bit of paranoia about Robin and her motives, but I don't want to go too deeply into them in case one of y'all intend to try this little game out for yourselves.

Well folks, that's about it. Even though this game has been out for about four years now, my complements to Kinmoku for creating such a wonderful little visual novel. It was a great distraction from the current quarantine situation.

Maybe next computer game I think I'll try Slender Man....

Yeah, maybe not....LOL!

Have a wonderful Dixie day everyone, and y'all come back now, ya hear!