Longest Night

Back when people had nothing else to do at night, they turned their gazes to the sky. Thousands of stars are usually visible if no light pollution is present, which means that our ancestors had plenty to look at. After a while, people started to pinpoint shapes and formations in the sky, probably because it’s a fun thing to do, but some of them created entire religions around these constellations.

Longest Night is a cute little video game designed to be enjoyed for about ten minutes, in which your task is to look at the night sky and pinpoint a few imaginary constellations. It’s a simple game that requires trial and error instead of skill or speed, but the adventure is fun enough to be worth a try from anyone. There is a bit of dialog to keep you company as well.

The actual story is not very complicated either, since it’s all about four friends gathered around a campfire, stargazing and telling stories. Each time you manage to find a constellation, one of the characters tells a story about it, detailing its origins and related myths. Naturally, given the fact that the constellations are made up, so are the stories in question, but they are pretty funny.

Gameplay-wise, there are barely any new mechanics to get familiar with. In essence, you just have to click on a star and drag a line to a nearby one, thus creating all sorts of shapes. Thankfully, this only works if you choose the correct stars, which means that it’s impossible to mess up the constellations. However, it also means that the experience is the same every time, so there’s basically no replay value.

As far as the technical aspects are concerned, the game features very simple graphics as well. Except for the colorful characters and the nicely animated fire in the middle, there is nothing but darkness, white dots and blue lines. The constellations are pretty nicely drawn, but they are also simple and cartoonish at the same time. Relaxing music plays in the background too, which keeps you company.

Longest Night is both pretty and funny, but it’s also short and disappointing in some regards. Even so, as long as you are comfortable with just a few minutes of fun, this can be the perfect distraction for when you have a bit of spare time.