There’s a lot to appreciate about devs who try to do different things in and with video games. I’m all about innovation, but there are some situations where it’s best to stay in your own lane and try not to overproduce a project. This is exactly what Goodnight Universe does. It has a bunch of good ideas going for it, but it also falls flat on pacing, which gets progressively worse if you’re playing on a platform the game wasn’t meant for.
Goodnight Universe puts you in the point of view of Isaac, a six-month-old baby who also happens to have psychic powers. The reasoning for the phenomenon starts to unveil as you progress through this roughly five-hour story, but the act of fully controlling the thoughts of an infant is a fascinating ordeal. Throughout the game, you’ll question both the thoughts and desires of the baby as he goes through his own growth as a human and deals with the eventual family instability.
You would think a baby causing fires would make for some interesting gameplay. That was hardly the case.
The game is narrated entirely from the perspective of baby Isaac, played by Lewis Pullman (Thunderbolts). Much of what you’re doing is listening to Isaac’s commentary about how foolish everybody in the outside world is. A common fixture in the game is a baby blue goat named Gilbert — made much in the vein of a Barney or a Bluey — who Isaac grows to begrudgingly appreciate. The baby is a fan of the blue goat, but does Isaac’s conscience care? Not one bit. The performances and some of the writing really shine here, but a lack of any interesting gameplay tremendously holds the game back.
There really isn’t a lot to do. Honestly, you just vibe. At first, all you do is deal with dialogue prompts, but the choices you make (simply by aiming the cursor at whatever you’re thinking) don’t actually impact anything. Eventually, the gameplay becomes more intuitive as Isaac realizes how to use his psychic and telekinetic powers, but it quickly stops being fun.
Whether it’s knocking objects down and causing a raucous time at his sister’s date where she’s supposed to be babysitting, moving harmful obstacles out of a toy train’s path, or having to do an on-rails stealth segment where you have to shut off cameras as your rollaway crib makes its way through a high-security facility, the game loses its luster faster than you can say “Goodnight universe.”
That last part about the high-security facility might be random, but it was absolutely necessary to really open the gameplay up.
There were only about two or three instances in the game where you had a checklist of objectives, and they were actually fun to do.
Unfortunately, during what’s supposed to be the climax of the game, you’re met with what seems like an eternity of text that handles itself like a lyric music video without the music. For way too long, you have to use a cursor to highlight text, and that absolutely bogs down the experience. Once I got to this point, I longed for the game to end, even though this was when all the juicy stuff in the plot was happening. The game even became an on-rails, first-person shooter after this point. I won’t go into much more detail than that, but it didn’t feel good either, so that really isn’t much to be excited about.
All this said, it’s worth noting that I played the game on the PlayStation 5. The game is originally meant to be played on a PC with a webcam, because the main draw to the gameplay is the ability to play with your camera as a controller, which allows for a more immersive experience where eye movements can trigger actions to guide the story.
Nice Dream’s previous game, Before Your Eyes, featured this same mechanic. I’ve unfortunately never played Before Your Eyes, so while the technology does sound cool, I don’t think any sense of immersion can really improve the game’s rough pacing. I usually get excited over a game like this being five hours, but even I felt like it was too long for this one.
This part really sucked and made me hate was supposed to be the most active gameplay segment in the game. Luckily, the UI allowed me to skip it after failing so much. Hopefully it’s not connected to the platinum trophy…
All that said, Goodnight Universe does have its captivating points, and the story did leave a smile on my face when I rolled credits, but that was mostly because I was finally done. There isn’t enough here to recommend it at the price it’s being offered for, even if you played it the way it’s meant to be played.
There’s a lot to appreciate about devs who try to do different things in and with video games. I’m all about innovation, but there are some situations where it’s best to stay in your own lane and try not to…
There’s a lot to appreciate about devs who try to do different things in and with video games. I’m all about innovation, but there are some situations where it’s best to stay in your own lane and try not to overproduce a project. This is exactly what Goodnight Universe does. It has a bunch of good ideas going for it, but it also falls flat on pacing, which gets progressively worse if you’re playing on a platform the game wasn’t meant for.
Goodnight Universe puts you in the point of view of Isaac, a six-month-old baby who also happens to have psychic powers. The reasoning for the phenomenon starts to unveil as you progress through this roughly five-hour story, but the act of fully controlling the thoughts of an infant is a fascinating ordeal. Throughout the game, you’ll question both the thoughts and desires of the baby as he goes through his own growth as a human and deals with the eventual family instability.
You would think a baby causing fires would make for some interesting gameplay. That was hardly the case.
The game is narrated entirely from the perspective of baby Isaac, played by Lewis Pullman (Thunderbolts). Much of what you’re doing is listening to Isaac’s commentary about how foolish everybody in the outside world is. A common fixture in the game is a baby blue goat named Gilbert — made much in the vein of a Barney or a Bluey — who Isaac grows to begrudgingly appreciate. The baby is a fan of the blue goat, but does Isaac’s conscience care? Not one bit. The performances and some of the writing really shine here, but a lack of any interesting gameplay tremendously holds the game back.
There really isn’t a lot to do. Honestly, you just vibe. At first, all you do is deal with dialogue prompts, but the choices you make (simply by aiming the cursor at whatever you’re thinking) don’t actually impact anything. Eventually, the gameplay becomes more intuitive as Isaac realizes how to use his psychic and telekinetic powers, but it quickly stops being fun.
Whether it’s knocking objects down and causing a raucous time at his sister’s date where she’s supposed to be babysitting, moving harmful obstacles out of a toy train’s path, or having to do an on-rails stealth segment where you have to shut off cameras as your rollaway crib makes its way through a high-security facility, the game loses its luster faster than you can say “Goodnight universe.”
That last part about the high-security facility might be random, but it was absolutely necessary to really open the gameplay up.
There were only about two or three instances in the game where you had a checklist of objectives, and they were actually fun to do.
Unfortunately, during what’s supposed to be the climax of the game, you’re met with what seems like an eternity of text that handles itself like a lyric music video without the music. For way too long, you have to use a cursor to highlight text, and that absolutely bogs down the experience. Once I got to this point, I longed for the game to end, even though this was when all the juicy stuff in the plot was happening. The game even became an on-rails, first-person shooter after this point. I won’t go into much more detail than that, but it didn’t feel good either, so that really isn’t much to be excited about.
All this said, it’s worth noting that I played the game on the PlayStation 5. The game is originally meant to be played on a PC with a webcam, because the main draw to the gameplay is the ability to play with your camera as a controller, which allows for a more immersive experience where eye movements can trigger actions to guide the story.
Nice Dream’s previous game, Before Your Eyes, featured this same mechanic. I’ve unfortunately never played Before Your Eyes, so while the technology does sound cool, I don’t think any sense of immersion can really improve the game’s rough pacing. I usually get excited over a game like this being five hours, but even I felt like it was too long for this one.
This part really sucked and made me hate was supposed to be the most active gameplay segment in the game. Luckily, the UI allowed me to skip it after failing so much. Hopefully it’s not connected to the platinum trophy…
All that said, Goodnight Universe does have its captivating points, and the story did leave a smile on my face when I rolled credits, but that was mostly because I was finally done. There isn’t enough here to recommend it at the price it’s being offered for, even if you played it the way it’s meant to be played.
by Danreb Victorio
