Goodnight Universe - Review

Being a baby is a time in your life full of learning, love and constant attention. From learning to smile, to sit up by yourself, to eventually talking, crawling and then walking. Being a baby is pretty restrictive. But what if that baby was far more sentient than it should be? What if that baby had… psychic powers?!

Goodnight Universe is a point-and-click narrative experience, featuring some very basic puzzles, a deeply moving and heart wrenching storyline with a plethora of choices just at your fingertips. Or just out the reach of them. It’s a hard life being a baby. Even one with psychic powers. A premise that in theory seems pretty straightforward, but in practice creates a wonderful little adventure that simply has to be experienced.

From the initial moments of the game you are led to an interesting conundrum. What if you were a wholly sentient being trapped in the body of a six-month-old baby? Able to see the world, comprehend it and think about it at a level of some of the greatest minds of the world. Yet despite all that, you’re trapped in this useless form. Totally reliant on the world around you, totally reliant on your family. A family that you love deeply for no other reason than you feel this primal urge to do so. It’s a simple start, but a beautiful little idea. The ability to process completely, just without the ability to express it.

Goodnight Universe takes you along a journey. A journey that has you explore the ideas of growing up. Family and the interactions they have. The conversations that are had with a child that they don’t believe are being comprehended. At times you’ll be able to laugh or cry, and get a different response from your mother, father and sister. Reactions and babbling that illicit the responses you’d expect. An inner monologue about the futility of trying to tell them how you feel.

The introduction of psychic powers comes in early. A way to interact with the world the puts you beyond the mostly useless body of a six-month baby. The ability to construct and move objects with your mind. The ability to make objects levitate. You can even read minds and at later points in the story, see and hear the world through another person’s mind itself. The few simple puzzles involve doing some chores to help your family feel a little more in control by using your psychic powers. You’ll close blinds, put away all your toys, turn lights on and off. There is a world of things you can do to help, and you do your best to do so.

The game is very much designed with the intention of being controlled with a mouse. This is fine for the original PC release, and for the Switch 2 with the new mouse mode from the joycons you should have no problem controlling the game well and moving the cursor onto the little bits of text you need to click on to advance text-based story sections of the game. There is however a problem in control with the PS5. Unfortunately, the cursor movement is mapped to the right stick which feels awkward to use. On top of this there feels like there is almost an acceleration delay, resulting in the cursor never moving quite how you want it to.

For the most part this doesn’t cause too many issues. There is a section towards the game that requires you to click on pretty delicate parts of the screen, which can be finnicky to actually get the cursor over correctly. The acceleration issue is amplified a little bit when you are using your psychic powers too. The right stick being the main means of control just never feels quite right, and I often found myself instinctively gravitating to the left analog stick. I wasn’t able to see a way to change the control scheme, which meant I had to get used to the controls always being a little wonky feeling.

Thankfully beyond the controls feeling a little off, the game does almost everything else right. The story has plenty of twists and turns. The humour is good; the drama is better and the heart-wrenching tale that is being told does exactly what it sets out to do. The twists and turns all feel like they happen just at the right time, and the struggle of the narrator is told in a way that really expresses a whole range of emotions. A story that perfectly encapsulates the depth of familial love and the absolute insanity of it. The lengths one will go to protect their family and show them that they love them.

Goodnight Universe has one of the most unique visual designs I’ve ever seen in a game. A bright and colourful world with an almost comic-like sheen over a cast of characters with exaggerated features. The somewhat low-resolution models lends the game a feeling of comfort and familiarity. A throwback to the point and click adventure games of the early 2000’s. An almost more stylised version of Escape from Monkey Island and Grim Fandango. It’s a look that will help the game age well over and time.

The sound design is incredibly subtle here. Everything is just what you’d expect. The murmur of the TV, the low sounds of an elderly dog. The babbling and garbling of a baby, and the general fawning of a family. The talking between members of the family assuming the baby is completely inept at understanding. The music swells and warbles when is just appropriate, and there is just the right depth to the interactive sounds of the world around you when using your psychic powers. It’s all very subtle, but it puts together a beautifully alive world that matches all the colour inside it.

Goodnight Universe is a game that has to be experienced. A three-to-four-hour experience that will take you through a whole plethora of emotions. There’s a few different interactions that will give you different story pathways to experience it just a little different each time. An early choice that has lasting impacts to the very end of the story. A beautifully crafted world told through the eyes of the most innocent of beings in a way that you would not normally expect. A beautiful game that is sure to bring you to tears of both sadness and joy.

The Score

9.0

Review code provided by Skybound Games

The Pros

Beautiful Story

Wonderfully designed and colourful world

Psychic powers are fun to use even if sparingly

The Cons

Analog stick controls on PS5 are wonky

The few puzzles aren’t particularly puzzling

Some controls aren’t explained particularly well