FALLING FOR IT

AS DUSK FALLS is a page-turner without pages

- Luke Kemp

NEED TO KNOW 

WHAT IS IT? A comic that you play- and really, really care about

EXPECT TO PAY $30

DEVELOPER Interior/Night

PUBLISHER Xbox Game Studios

REVIEWED ON GeForce GTX 1650, AMD Ryzen 5 3550H, 8 GB RAM

MULTIPLAYER Yes

LINK asduskfalls.com

On the face of it, this is a hard sell to the videogame crowd. There’s no direct control over an avatar. You complete QTEs and make choices, and… that’s about it, really. Yet the limitations of the format are transformed into strengths here. You may initially mourn the loss of the ability to spin on the spot and jump around on tables during poignant dialogue, but once you’re playing? You’ll want little more than to see what happens next.

The story concerns two very different families brought crashing together during a small-town motel siege. To explain much more than that would run the risk of spoilers which, in a game like this, could tear holes through the experience.

As a motion comic, there’s almost no full animation present. Instead, what are essentially comic panels are presented one after the other with subtle fade-in transitions. I worried that this would break the atmosphere for me, but I got used to it almost straight away.