Let's Watch Steamboat Willie!

About Let's Watch Steamboat Willie!

Let's Watch Steamboat Willie! is a visual novel led, written and coded in Ren'Py by Alexis Royce, with sprites and concept art by May Sparrow, full voice acting for its two leads, Liam and Niles, and an original jazz soundtrack. It was made for the Spooktober Visual Novel Jam 2024, where it placed 27th overall and 10th for voice acting, was nominated for best log line and made the judges' shortlist. It plays free in the browser on itch.io, with downloads for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Two film nerds sit down for a comfy evening of old movies. Next up is Steamboat Willie, the 1928 cartoon, shown in full now that it is in the public domain, and the two quickly take to bickering. The game auto-advances and lasts the seven minutes and forty-seven seconds it takes to watch the cartoon, and it ends when the cartoon does. By the time it is over, one of them will be dead.

The whole thing is drawn in black and white: the two men are dark silhouettes on a sofa in front of the screen, and the title art shows shadowy hands clawing in around them. Runs repeat, the conversation changes with each loop, and players describe working through bad endings before finding a better one. The jam page warns of crude humour, alcohol and silhouetted violence; the itch page links a separate content warning file.

It is an odd little game, as its maker says, a mix of bickering banter and slow dread rather than shocks. It suits players who like short looping horror stories such as Hikeback and want something they can finish in minutes and keep thinking about.

How to play Let's Watch Steamboat Willie!

1. Open the itch.io page and play in the browser, or download it for Windows, Mac or Linux.
2. Turn the sound on; it is fully voiced and scored.
3. Let the story run; it advances by itself for as long as the cartoon plays.
4. Watch how the evening ends, and look for what you can change.
5. Play again; each loop changes the conversation, and there is more than one ending.

Tips

• Read the content warning file on the itch page first if you are sensitive to violence.
• Pay attention to what changes from one loop to the next.
• Download the game for the best quality, as the maker suggests; the browser build is a convenience.

Questions