One Night Stand review

As the name implies, One Night Stand has players in the shoes of a man waking up in a bed that wasn’t his, next to a woman. Problem is, our main character is currently nursing a hangover as he wakes up and he doesn’t remember how he ended up there, let alone remember who the woman is. To figure out who the mysterious lady is and what happened for him to get there, players will need to look around the room and discuss with her in order to figure out what happened the night before. Depending on your actions, you can get a new friend or end up half naked outside.

One Night Stand is a visual novel meaning that the gameplay is reduce to navigating through items that can be picked up and examined and making decisions throughout this experience; basically a point and click game. Depending on what you decide, the woman will react either positively or negatively. All decisions made will have an impact on the woman’s perspective and also will decide which of the 12 endings you will obtain.

When the girl leaves the room, players will have a few minutes to rummage around to find their clothes, find out more information about the mysterious host and find clues to understand what happened. One of the things that this game, along with most visual novels, get is that the replay value is through the roof. Completionists will have a field day replaying this game in order to unlock all endings and see the consequences of every action in the story. Each playthrough can take about 20-30 minutes, but with the various decisions spread across the game will lead you to different path opening up the various endings. Note that some text will repeat across playthroughs no matter what you answer in order to keep a certain logic to the events.

One Night Stand features a unique visual style to complete its unique premise with a handdrawn style visuals. It fits the scenario well and the character is well detailed with the appropriate reaction in her face; so much so that after a few playthrough, you might feel bad for the way you’ve treated her. There’s a bit of stuttering, but nothing really major. Sound wise, there’s not much there.

“One Night Stand is a very unique, albeit short, visual novel experience.”

There’s a re-used quiet, borderline creepy soft ambiance track playing at times, but most of time it’s dead silent…much like a real life arkward one night mis-adventure. When you’re about to get in trouble, you’ll hear the sound of your heartbea The lack of voiceover (there’s only two characters after all) is unfortunate as it could’ve given a more realistic (so to speak) approach to this experience.

One Night Stand is a very unique, albeit short, visual novel experience. While it’s short length can be seen as a detriment, it makes it the ideal visual novel game for players who have been hesitant to dabble in this unique genre. Despite its few shortcomings, I do recommend One Night Stand: it’s fun, can be played in a single sitting and the decent quality of replay value. It also gives players a chance to experience the awkwardness of a one night stand… without any serious consequences.