Midnight Scenes: The Goodbye Note

About Midnight Scenes: The Goodbye Note

Midnight Scenes: The Goodbye Note is the second in a series of short horror tales with adventure elements by Octavi Navarro, an artist on Thimbleweed Park and the maker of Photographs, and Susanna Granell. As White Blanket Games they also made The Supper, The Librarian and Unwelcome. Their site dates it to October 2018, and it came to Steam and GOG in September 2020, with a PDF art book and the soundtrack in the game's files.

Like every Midnight Scenes episode it opens like an episode of a TV anthology. Tonight, the future of humanity falls on the shoulders of Dr. Richard P. Griffin. You see him at the breakfast table at home, then in his lab full of tape machines and control panels, phoning someone to say go to bed, he'll be home soon. Then he's at an airfield at night, climbing aboard a propeller plane. The whole thing is framed as a letter he writes to his wife, saying sorry for not telling her what this trip was really about.

You play it as a story-driven point-and-click adventure, all with the mouse. Walk him through each scene, click on people and things, carry a few items in the bar at the bottom and solve some light puzzles. The art is black and white pixel work inspired by 1960s shows like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, with a curved old-TV frame around the picture, an eerie soundtrack and creepy sound. The fear here is slow suspense, not gore. One reviewer found it the tensest of the first three episodes, though the letter gives a bit away early.

It takes about half an hour (one reviewer finished in about 25 minutes) and stands on its own, so you don't need the first episode, The Highway. It suits anyone after a quick, old-fashioned horror story for one sitting with the lights off.

How to play Midnight Scenes: The Goodbye Note

1. Buy the game on Steam, GOG or itch.io and install it on Windows.
2. Start the episode and follow Dr. Griffin from home to the airfield.
3. Move him through each scene and click on people and objects to look, talk and pick things up.
4. Use items from the inventory at the bottom of the screen on the world to get past what blocks you.
5. Follow the story to its end in about half an hour.

Tips

• Play it in one sitting with the lights off, as the store suggests.
• Click on everything in a scene, since small details carry the story.
• This episode lets you save, so you can stop partway and come back.
• Look in the game's extra_content folder for the art book and soundtrack.

Questions