Midnight Witch

• PUBLISHER: Crimson Moon Studio
• DEVELOPER: Crimson Moon Studio
• PLATFORMS: PC
• GENRE: Visual novel
• RELEASE DATE: 31st May 2023
• STARTING PRICE: Free-to-play
• REVIEWED VERSION: PC

Midnight Witch is not your typical visual novel, published and developed by Crimson Moon Studios, but entirely written and coded by one person named Bren. The game is full of magic, horror, dark comedy, insults and violence. It will surely give you mixed feelings when you decide to dive into the story and learn more about the main protagonist who you can name whatever you want. Midnight Witch is completely free to play on Steam, it's not short, and it will give you something to think about when you finish it.

Let’s briefly introduce the story. You are just an ordinary college student, and it was supposed to be just another day in your normal life. You would hang out with your girlfriend, joke with your friends, fall asleep during the lecture… but when a stunningly beautiful new professor shows up, your average day takes an unexpected dark turn. It turns out that she is a witch and is ready to kill anyone who dares to break her rules. You and the other students are now all trapped in this classroom, waiting for death to pick you off one by one but maybe there is a way out?

In the beginning the game introduces us to seven people that will play huge roles during the story, those are: Emma, Jessica, Evelyn, Chloe, Zoe, Dan and Wes. Now, the narrative puts us in medias res which means there is not enough time to properly meet the characters in the beginning, but we get to know them better as the game progresses. Keep in mind there is 4 hours of playthrough and there will be enough time for each character’s story to be told. Everything is pretty much interconnected, and I’ll try not to spoil much. From the outside perspective our characters can be seen as simple people, but once we get to see their stories, they become complex characters. I was surprised how well the game has showed us this, several times I was flabbergasted by certain events. Emma seems like an angel but is she really one? Wes seems like a normal guy but what thoughts is he really hiding? The story doesn't crumble and very much surprises you at the end. Secret person?

Even though some characters are more present than the others, some important parts of the story will only be told at the end. There are several endings included and there many important decisions that we must take during the playthrough. Some might even kill you and some might unlock different paths that you probably never expected to happen. It’s all up to you pretty much, if you follow the story, everything should be alright. Right?

I have several issues with the story. I’m still trying to figure out what that magic questionnaire was all about, my personality is apparently connected with unicorn but what meaning does it really have? There are many curse words and slurs that you’ll stumble upon which is OK, but I feel like it’s really exaggerated. For example, I stopped counting how many times our protagonist called the witch (Evelyn) b*itch or constant words like GTFO and STFU being shown during the social media conversation screen. There is also a lot of unnecessary conversation during the game which breaks the feeling for the story. Just as things got interesting, we are forced to wait for certain conversation to finish. Another thing that bothered me is how easy our protagonist can forgive; it makes me question is love really that unbreakable factor for our protagonist? There is no proper intercorrelation with hate and love because it feels like one is being shun above the other and vice versa.

The graphics (art) of Midnight Witch are well made, especially the animations and sounds are quite interesting and add some flavor to the game. It feels like there should have been more of them and they shouldn’t be overused like in some parts (Dan screaming constantly because Jessica kept hitting him). There is variety of background pictures, and the visuals just attract you more. This is also a very important aspect; nothing feels rushed but completed. There is also music, but it was easily forgotten and didn’t affect the experience of the gameplay that much.

I like how our main protagonist connects the dots and understands how the rules that the witch made work. He is not alone; others are helping him too. Midnight Witch is teaching us the importance of friendship, the importance of life, how everything can be destroyed within a second. Life is full of misery, hatred and anguish but we need goals, just as the people in the classroom had goal to stay alive and not die. Yes, this game is quite brutal and it’s not trying to hide it from us. There are many images representing it – the horror and violence.

In the end, I feel like the story should have been slightly faster, there are lots of things to grasp and lots of things to understand. The game is slowly introducing us to those parts but I’m quite sure most of us will just skip certain parts. There is no proper hook on the story as well, some elements get interesting, some just make you lose focus. It’s really hard to please everyone but the fact his game is not hiding the true nature of human beings, the brutality of life will get a lot of people interested. I was personally hooked by a lot of psychological events happening during the game. From massive killings, people betraying each other, relationship cheating etc. If you don’t know with what kind of visual novel to start, then Midnight Witch is a perfect game to introduce us to these genres of visual novels.

REVIEW COPY PROVIDED BY THE PUBLISHER