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YMMV / Night in the Woods

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  • Accidental Aesop: On the Gregg route, there seems to be one: bringing your friends' problems to the surface is better than letting them simmer, even if you're enabling their worst behavior. Mae engages in criminal activity when hanging out with Gregg, from the dangerous knife fight to destroying merchandise at the store where he works. Yet, because of this, Angus catches on that Gregg hasn't actually changed and calls them both out when the trio goes out for donuts. This allows Mae to point out that Gregg is an adult and responsible for his own decisions, which in turn motivates Gregg to admit that she's right and set boundaries with Mae. He promises to stop doing stupid stuff that could get him fired or arrested, while asking Mae to not enable him. Mae promises to do so, because she cares about her friends' happiness.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • Were the villains being honest when they said Casey was a criminal, or were they just lying to justify their actions? Or did they sincerely believe it, but were actually wrong? Or, is it a case of Believing Their Own Lies? Even if they were telling the truth, does this really outweigh his friendship with the rest of the cast, or the possibility he could have gone on to something better?
    • Did Mae really want to attend college or did she not have much of a say and was the decision made by her parents? Her mom says that she'd be the first in her family to go to college, but from what we hear in game, it doesn't sound like Mae was ever very enthusiastic about wanting to attend college and from what we see in game, her parents have talked about her being the first to go to college since she was six years old. Or did she not want to go, but tried anyway and failed to make it work?
    • Bruce's final conversation with Mae. Was he telling the truth or telling Mae and Pastor Karen a kind lie? Did he commit suicide, go drifting again, get grabbed by the cult, or actually make it home? Due to his Ambiguous Situation afterwards, his final fate is rife with interpretation.
    • Was Angus' mom wilfully abusive? We hear from her son that she locked him in the pantry nearly every day but knowing that she and Angus were being beaten by his father, she might have been doing it to spare him from even more abuse. Angus also visits her in her old age, implying that he sees something redeemable in her.
  • Award Snub:
  • Awesome Art: The game has an unique art style, beautiful scenery and lighting that creates beautiful imagery, from Mae's Astral Dreams to the Bridge near the outskirts of the town.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • Breather Level: Demontower's penultimate level, "Leafy Graves", is thick with traps, and patrolled by the game's toughest enemies. Its final level, "Cemetery Grounds", is inhabited only by the slowest, weakest, most predictable enemies in the game.
  • Crack Ship: Surprisingly there is a certain niche of fans who ship Casey x Steven, an artist named: "t3f3r" might be partly to blame for this.
  • Crosses the Line Twice:
    Bea: They're going down.
  • Demonic Spiders: True to its name, Demontower has some enemies that can kill you in a matter of seconds.
    • Ratballs, because once you kill one, three mini ratballs appear. Against a group of ratballs, it's hard to overcome a group of 9 or more.
    • Fire Birds will launch fire balls at you usually between 2-3. Against one, they aren't that annoying, but a group of three is frightening trying to dodge their fire balls while trying to kill them.
    • Blue Skellie Warriors. Unlike the other skellie warriors, they will lunge at you with their spear when they get close to you, so they are far quicker than the other two.
    • Knife Guards. They move far faster than the fire birds and they throw their knives shortly after finding a new location.
  • Diagnosed by the Audience:
    • As the game goes on, it becomes more and more apparent that something has happened that messed with Mae's mental state. Bea suggests she possibly has depression or anxiety after a traumatic event in her childhood; said event matches up with a textbook description of dissociation. The near-end of the game seems to imply Mae has psychosis or derealization disorder.
    • Gregg mentions having "really up up days and really down down days," and exhibits some poor impulse control, and self-destructive habits when particularly "up". Bea explicitly says he is probably bipolar.
  • Disappointing Last Level: Your reaction to Chapter Four depends heavily on how you feel about the somewhat abrupt shift from "open-ended slice-of-life game with horror elements and grounded social commentary" to "totally linear allegorical Cosmic Horror." It also lacks any puzzles or minigames, with all the action happening through dialog and cutscenes. There's also a distinct lack of the sense of humor the game had up to that point.
  • Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: While "The Lost Constellation" has a compelling story, most of the actual gameplay involves merely going in circles through the main forest to accomplish numerous things. Furthermore, if you go too far to the right at any point you also cannot backtrack as the forest shifts so that trying to turn around will only lead you out of the forest entirely instead of back to where you just came from, meaning you have to go all the way back through the forest to get to where you were which can add even more unnecessary walking.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • A lot of people really like Jeremy/Germ.
    • And Bombshell, for much different reasons.
    • Many fans find Lori M. quite lovable due to her strange yet oddly charming love for horror movies and generally being younger and cuter.
    • There are quite the niche of fans who are interested more about Casey Hartley and want to know more about him before he was killed by the Black Goat Cult.
    • There also a few fans who seem to like Steve Scriggins.
    • Jackie is one, due to her being a good friend to Bea and her theatrical anti-fascist opening. The fact that she's trans also makes her interesting.
  • Epileptic Trees: The game has a very out-there story, mixing Ghost Story, Cosmic Horror, and Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane. A lot of things go unanswered.
    • The biggest theory among fans is that the Janitor is actually God, or something similar to it. If that guess pays off, it wouldn't be the first time He worked on that.
    • There are some that believe Eide is (somehow) Mae's grandfather, or even a brainwashed Casey Hartley.
    • The nature of the creature that talks with Mae in her last dream is also questioned, from it being the Black Goat to the real god or even another thing entirely.
    • People have also raised the possibility that the Black Goat is ultimately not even real, and it may be just a bunch of coincidences happening together while a bunch of people, desperate to ensure their town's survival, are doing misguided and unspeakable things.
    • The fact that Aunt Molly doesn't appear in the final chapter led people to believe that she is among the cultists and point out a lot of Foreshadowing of it. The Weird Autumn update appears to have jossed this particular theory, as she shows up in the epilogue, and gives no indication she knew about what happened the night before.
  • Fan Nickname: The wolf from Lost Constellation is never named in the game, but fans usually call him either "Cabin Wolf" or "Coffin Wolf".
  • Fanon: A certain niche amount of fans have drawn Casey with fur color similar to Mae, mostly due to the fact that his missing poster has him in a dark color. Despite the fact that, said poster is obviously uncolored and it was stated in game that he had orange fur.
  • Friendly Fandoms:
  • Fountain of Memes:
    • Gregg is becoming this thanks to YouTubers making random "shit-post" videos of him and his scenes in the game.
    • Many people like to quote Mae due to how hilarious and immature her dialogue can get.
  • Genius Bonus: The Black Goat is most likely a reference to a Lovecraftian Great Old One Shub-Niggurath, which is associated with the phrase "The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young".
  • Harsher in Hindsight: The fact that Alec Holowka, one of the creators and the composer of the game's music, took his own life. The scene where Bea reveals that she has to work with a repairman that may be a sexual predator also becomes this when the game's main developer Scott Benson alleged that Alec emotionally abused him and Bethany during game development. Alec, also like Mae, asked why Bea couldn't just leave her father to go to college and Scott had to explain that responsibility and poverty create limits to what we can do. For a game addressing themes of mental illness, abuse, and suicide, it definitely makes the game chilling in a very different way.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • Mae isn't the first anthropomorphic cat who dug a hole in the backyard at night after eating something sweet.
    • The amount of Fan Fics that take place after the game and after the Black Goat cult was most likely killed, a popular fan theory that Aunt Molly was part of the cult and as a consequence seemingly died with the other cultists, becomes pretty weird when it's rectified that she wasn't part of the cult, and probably was never involved with them to begin with. Seemingly rendering most of the angst that comes along with the fact that Mae realizes that she might have killed a family member, especially her mother's sister, for naught.
  • Jerkass Woobie:
    • Bea used to be a happy girl like Mae, but after her mother died her life went downhill. Forced to live with her aging and lonely father, she has to run the family store (which is frustrating her to no end) and can't pursue her dreams of going to college. She's vocally resentful of Mae, who she feels is too immature to realize that she threw away an opportunity that Bea would've killed to have, taking her anger out on her as if Mae was there out of some personal obligation to her.
    • Bea's father, Mr. Santello, also qualifies. Devastated by his wife's death, he has become lazy and bitter. Bea explains to Mae that he's still in the midst of a breakdown.
    • Mae. She's rude, disrespectful, and irresponsible, and extremely immature. She's also been struggling with mental illness since early adolescence and feels frustration over alienating others.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Due to Mae being pansexual (which was confirmed by the creators), the Playable Character, and being able to interact with a lot of people, Mae's been shipped with several members of the cast, the most common ones being Bea, Selmers, Bombshell, and Casey. There's a few strange or rare ones like Cole, Lori M., or even Germ Warfare and Scriggins. But not only that, then there's some fans that actually go out of their way to ship her with Gregg, despite their Incompatible Orientation (she's pan, but he's gay as sunshine).
  • LGBT Fanbase: The game has a prominent LGBT following (in addition to its furry following):
    • The player character, Mae, is pansexual. She expresses attraction to both men and women, but isn't treated like a Depraved Pansexual for it.
    • Two of the other main characters, Gregg and Angus, are gay and in a relationship with each other. Like Mae, they're handled in a realistic way, and given depth that both relates to their sexuality and also doesn't.
    • Minor character Jackie is a trans woman, but this was only confirmed outside of the game, due to time constraints during development. The Weird Autumn Edition remedies it a bit when Bea tells Mae in her final path, that Jackie has a one-woman band called "Trans World Order Give Them Hell" (TWOGTH), implying that she is indeed trans.
  • Memetic Mutation: The game is insanely quotable.
    • "Gregg rulz ok"
    • "Crimes?" "Crimes."
    • "Eels, honey!"
    • "I'm Lord of the Snack Falcons!"
    • "Got cups on my ears."
    • "I'm a total trash mammal!"
    • "I have nightmare eyes!"
    • "Bite my entire ass! Go legally brain dead from lack of oxygen due to choking on my entire ass!"
    • "Everything sucks forever..."
    • Gregg's arm flailing animation has spawned hundreds of YouTube videos setting it to various songs.
    • "Bea Bae" or "Bea is Bae" is a popular phrase among fans who love Bea. There's also the similar "Mae is bae."
  • One-Scene Wonder: Selmers at the library. Her poem beautifully summarizes the game's societal themes. If you listen to her poem, Mae writes later that she's a "GREAT poet," for good reason.
  • One True Pairing: Gregg and Angus make up for an amazingly sweet loving couple that are absolutely loved by a vast majority of fans, with some even being disappointed at Bea for believing they might break up. While the game makes it clear that their future is uncertain, staying just on Gregg's route will show that their relationship is sweeter and closer than Bea realizes. If you go through Gregg's route, Angus will confront Gregg's inner childish behavior and they both seems to reconcile afterwards, making their future much more certain than Bea's Route.
  • Paranoia Fuel: There's a cult kidnapping people in your town, lying in wait to find those they deem unambitious, and throwing them into a hole with no hope of ever escaping. They could be anyone in your entire town. And they already killed one of your friends. Add onto that, there may or may not be some kind of horrible evil entity compelling them to do it, and you're pretty sure it's messing with your head. The eerie sensation of feeling watched plays a heavy part in the nightmare fuel of the game, which ties into the eerie designs of the characters' eyes. There's a reason why people often tag posts related to it with "scopophobia".
  • Popular with Furries: Immediately spiked in popularity once its Kickstarter campaign began and received another rise in popularity after its official release, possibly due to the furry fandom falling in love with the game's premise. It's a contemporary slice-of-life adventure game with some supernatural elements, and it takes place in a rural American town but in a World of Funny Animals. The player character is Mae, an anthropomorphic cat. Her friends are Bea: an alligator, Gregg: a fox, Angus: a bear, and Germ: a bird. There's also a large LGBT furry fanbase due to Mae being stated to be Pansexual by Word of God, and Gregg and Angus are a gay couple.
  • Portmanteau Couple Name: MaeBea, Angregg, SelMaenote , Maesey note , and GerMae or JereMae note . There's also Marbo note  (no, not that Marbo.)
  • Scrappy Mechanic: While the platforming works well most of the time, performing high jumps is arduous. You need to do three jumps in the same direction without changing in order to high jump. This wouldn't be a problem, but in the early game, before you've mastered it, getting around the rooftops is a pain.
  • Self-Fanservice: Thanks to the game's rather toony artstyle, some of the more risque fanart tends to go this route for most of the cast. Examples are such as going full in with Mae's "out-of-shape" or "sturdy" figure and turn her into either a Big Beautiful Woman or short yet stacked cat. Going hard into the Goth GF craze with Bea by making her curvaceous, making Gregg twink-ish or very muscular as a contrast to Angus' stout figure, and speaking of the latter it's also common to make him into a Big Beautiful Man.
  • Ship Mates: If someone ships Mae/Bea odds are that they also ship Gregg/Angus.
  • Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer:
    • The main story is only about four hours long. A player can easily stretch that out to about twelve hours in a single playthrough just by participating in the sidequests around town or simply talking to people each day, as each day has new dialogue for every single person in town.
    • Many players also admitted sinking a LOT of time into Demontower.
      • Ditto for the ability to practice songs in Mae's room, even though the 3 band practice songs only appear after their respective practices (as those are the first time Mae hears them.)
  • That One Achievement: "Seriously!?" is an achievement that can only be gotten by getting every single page on the notebook, IE 100% Completion. The creators themselves lampshade in the achievement description that they didn't manage to do that, and they created the game. It does not help that it's a situation of Guide Dang It!, since there's no hint on what, where or when gives you a new page and people are still finding out what and how many are all the pages.
  • That One Level:
    • While "Pumpkin Head Guy" is a pretty good song, it's universally hated by most players due to being a huge Difficulty Spike in comparison to the first two songs.
    • For some parts of the fanbase, all the band practices are this. Luckily, screwing it up doesn't affect the story any; though achieving both the Maestro and Bass Ackwards achievements require a passing grade on all three. Including Pumpkin Head Guy.
    • The later levels of Demontower, usually starting with level VII, as the tougher and quicker enemies appear more often and sometimes the area that leads to the boss is surrounded not only by the guards but also by lava. Level VIII is probably even harder than the final level. There are knife guards galore, which are almost impossible to kill due to their fast speed and constantly throwing knives at you, if you manage to make it to the boss fight, the boss is a upgraded knife guard that throws three knives at a time, while also being surrounded by many other enemies, including regular knife guards. It makes Pumpkin Head Guy look easy.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Some fans wish there was more development for minor characters including Bombshell and Casey.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Generally, the mundane escapades of Mae and co, as well as the obstacles each of them face should mix well with the Cosmic Horror story the game is trying to build up. Instead, it feels like two tonally completely different games were tacked together, only sharing the visual style and characters, leaving many frustrated that these two stories which work perfectly fine by themselves never feel complete. And considering what happened behind the scenes, it's not surprising why that is...
  • Ugly Cute: The rats Mae can feed aren't exactly pretty, but still strangely adorable.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion:
    • From first glance, Mae can easily be mistaken for a boy since she doesn't have many notable features that would have people know she's a girl based on her appearance. Heck, even her name sounds gender neutral and sounds like a name that could be used for a boy or a girl.
    • This also tends to apply to other female characters in the game due to a general lack of Secondary or Tertiary Sexual Characteristics. In fact, Bea seems to be the only character who wears makeup.
  • Viewer Species Confusion: After the game's release, there was debate over what Gregg was supposed to be, ranging from a wolf, a fox, and a dog, to a water deer. The creators eventually confirmed that he was a fox.
  • The Woobie: All four main characters.
    • Mae is a frustrated, anxious and energetic 20 year old. She dropped out of college because she felt like she didn't belong there, had no friends while being there, and was as miserable as she always was. She suffers from dissociation and 'anger problems' and suffered from what was possibly a psychotic break when she was 14, resulting in the Killer incident, and while it takes several playthroughs to find everything that's gone wrong in her life, the sheer amount of terrible events that have happened to Mae is almost tragic.
    • Angus was abused and neglected by his parents for years.
    • Gregg has severe doubts about himself and the future of his relationship with Angus, believing that he is simply not good enough for Angus.
    • Bea not having enough opportunity or money, or both, to go to college like she wants. She can only take free online college classes. Her mother died and she's stuck running her sick father's store. Bea lies to her other friends that she's going to college, and Mae inadvertently spoils Bea's illusion of being a normal college student instead of a business-alligator.
  • Woolseyism: The Japanese version of the game did some changes in the game graphics and text, in a way the local audiences could understand the text in their cultural context. Some of the most notorious changes, as noted by the developers in their Twitter account that no longer exists, was the replacement of the original English text "Gregg rulz OK" with "Gregg saikou yosshaa/グレッグ最高よっしゃー", literally translated as "Gregg is the best, yeah!" written in very rude slang.

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