Night Book is a 2021 FMV occult thriller horror game developed by Wales Interactive
In it you play Loralyn, a French/English interpreter working in London. She's pregnant, her husband is building a new resort on Iawell island, and her mentally ill father Alecis is staying upstairs. It's a tense situation even before her job leads her to an ancient tome in Kanaar, a rare language to speak with the spirit world.
Now, faced with evil spirits and mundane tensions, she must choose what to sacrifice to keep her and her family safe...
Night Book contains examples of:
- Action Survivor: It's entirely possible for Loralyn, a heavily pregnant interpreter with no knowledge of either the supernatural or survival, to save everyone and banish the spirits without any casualties.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: If you refuse to help the Kya-nem, they force Loralyn's father to kill himself and threaten to murder her unborn baby. Loralyn is reduced to desperately pleading that she agrees to work with them. In a less villainous context, if other attempts to get help fail, Loralyn has the option of simply begging Max or Theon to help her.
- Ambiguously Absent Parent: While Loralyn's relationship with her father is central to the plot, her mother is never mentioned — whether she's dead, left or simply not here right now is never established.
- Ambiguously Evil: Mr. Theon. He's certainly creepy and manipulative, and his eagerness to have Loralyn read the cursed book out loud implies some kind of malice. However he's also willing to help Loralyn, if for somewhat self-centered reasons.
- Agent Scully: Pearce dismisses all of the supernatural phenomena, even when they reach the point where his father in law is killed by poltergeists. Even when he agrees to stop the resort, it seems to be more for Loralyn's mental health than any acceptance of the supernatural.
- As You Know: Both Alecis and Pearce pointedly mention that Loralyn got pregnant due to IVF, something that Loralyn presumably already knows.
- Black Speech: Kanaar is a language that is designed only to speak to spirits, and is never to be spoken lightly. You ignoring that is what sets off the plot.
- Botanical Abomination: The Kya-nem are spirits from "the great tree", are strongly associated with mangrove trees and wood, and their presence is seen in vine-like shapes growing from people's skin and coming from the ceiling.
- Brutal Honesty: During the pre-supernatural interactions, you can bluntly tell Alecis that you think he's insane and Pearce that you hate the clothes he picked for your children. Alecis appreciates the honesty, Pearce doesn't.
- Career Versus Man: A platonic one. Your first big choice is to either help your friend Max reunite with his estranged mother, or help a wealthy patron buy a rare book. The choice is explicitly called Head or Heart.
- Connected All Along: Both the heart and head paths will lead to you reading the rare book — Max is Vito's son, and has taken the book to reconnect with his heritage.
- Closed Circle: An oddly mundane version — you can't run because the Kya-nem have locked the door and hidden the keys.
- Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Jacqualine abandoned her son due to being possessed by the Kya-nem, who forced her to try to kill him.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Alecis and Jacqualine had an encounter with the Kya-nem years ago. We never find the details, but it left Jacqualine blind and Alecis a paranoid wreck.
- Deadly Book: Reading the Kanaar book summons evil spirits into the world, and is a trap to possess those who read it.
- Demonic Possession: The Kya-nem possess Alecin, and can permanently possess Pearce or Loralyn depending on your choices.
- Elective Broken Language: While the Kya-nem prefer to speak the obscure and ceremonial language of Kanaar, a few moments make it clear they can speak fluent English if they wish.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: If she chooses to read rather then burn the book, Loralyn reads out that she is no longer the spirit's vessel — she's their body, forever. She has enough time for the horror of what she said to sink in before they claim her.
- Evil Is Petty: The Kya-nem can smash a photo of Loralyn and Pearce, seemingly out of pure spite.
- Fictional Country: The Godhead Islands, of which Iowell is the largest island, appear to be a fictional Polynesian nation, and presumably a former French colony.
- Fog of Doom: The Kya-nem appear as branches formed of black smoke when they're not possessing people.
- Forced Miscarriage: The Kya-nem can inflict this on Loralyn if she fails to stop Pearce's resort being built.
- Found Footage: Almost the entire game is shown as videos, either video calls or home security videos, along with a few emails and messages. Pearce mentions that he installed CCTV around the house to deal with Alecis' breakdowns.
- Gaia's Vengeance: The act of cutting down the sacred trees of Iawell Island has called forth its spirits to get revenge.
- Happily Married: Loralyn and Pearce seem happily in love, at least until evil spirits start interfering with things.
- Heritage Disconnect: An odd inversion of the standard dynamic: the young Max is in touch with his Kanaar heritage, while his mother has fully assimilated into French culture.
- Honest Corporate Executive: Pearce, Loralyn's husband. He talks about how his new resort will help the people of the Godhand islands, is a caring husband, and will ultimately give up the project to save his family's life.
- Honest John's Dealership: A more upper class one with Mr Vito, who sells antique books, but has no knowledge of the area and is deeply evasive as to how he obtained them. Sure enough, he stole them, and you can use this to blackmail him into giving you the books for a fraction of their worth.
- Informed Flaw: If you convince him to stop building the resort, Pearce will chew you out for being controlling and a perfectionist. You can play Loralyn this way...or you can play her as a complete doormat who caves on everything, making the accusation come right out of nowhere.
- Imperiled in Pregnancy: Loralyn is heavily pregnant during the Kya-nem's attack.
- I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure: The Kya-nem threaten to kill Loralyn's father and unborn child if she doesn't help them. They can follow through on both threats.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Jacqualine is haughty, cold and rude to both you and her son during her entire call. However, she thanks you for helping them out and is one of the people who will help you banish the spirits. You can get her to warm up to both you and Max over the course of the game.
- Made a Slave: Loralyn can end up under the complete control of the Kya-nem in the worst ends, forced to do their bidding for the rest of her life, if they don't simply control her.
- Nature Spirit: The Kya-nem are particuarly nasty examples.
- Never Say "Die": A creepy, non-censorship version — the Kya-nem never say "kill", instead threatening to "end" and "stop" people. It gets across their inhuman disregard for human life.
- Neurodiversity Is Supernatural: Alecin appears to be psychotic, but it's actually a full on spiritual attack. It's unclear if he has real mental health issues too, or if it's all the Kya-nem.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: One of the game's few funny moments: if you are trying to get Max to help you, he'll be dismissive — until the Kya-nem attack you on screen. At which point, he'll immediately drop everything to come help.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Loralyn can give up the chance of a healthy paycheck to help a close friend rebuild ties with his estranged mother. Doing so summons the Kya-nem to her house and kickstarts the horror game. To be fair, though, accepting the paycheck also leads to them being summoned.
- Nothing Is Scarier: When he's first possessed, Alecin's shadow appears to be growing branch-like extensions. We never see this, but Loralyn can open the door, only to scream and slam it shut.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Maybe. The Kya-nem's desire to protect their home island is understandable. However you can find a bit of lore giving their motivation as being bored of their life in the great tree, and desiring to play in the outside world. If this is the case, they're doing this in large part for fun
- Offering Another in Your Stead: A particularly nasty one — Loralyn can escape the Kya-nem by offering them Pearce instead.
- Ominous Visual Glitch: Constantly, as the Kya-nem manifest more openly. People even start reacting to them with horror and confusion, if they're on call when they happen.
- Panicky Expectant Father: Subtle, but Pearce asks you if the baby is OK in every conversation. When you message him saying that you need him to call right now, he notably asks if it's a problem with the child before considering it could be a problem with your severely mentally ill father.
- Properly Paranoid: Alecin is sure Pearce's building of a resort on Iawell island will bring supernatural retribution. He is, of course, absolutely right.
- Poltergeist: Among other supernatural phenomena, the Kya-nem hurl objects around the house.
- Psychic-Assisted Suicide: The Kya-nem inflict this on Alecin if she refuses to play ball, and before the game forced Jacqualine to blind herself.
- Repeating So the Audience Can Hear: While calling the possessed Alecin, Loralyn translates the Kanaar dialogue, despite the fact there's only two people in the call, both of whom speak fluent Kanaar. As a professional translator, it might just be force of habit.
- Room Full of Crazy: Alecin has one of these, with walls covered with scrawlings in Kanaar.
- Soul Jar: The book that summoned the Kya-nem is their connection to this world. If its destroyed, they're banished back to the great tree.
- Tactful Translation: You generally have a choice to translate more hostile dialogue as is, or in a more polite manner.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: A slightly more sympathetic one then most — with your father refusing to take his meds, you can put them into his food.
- Translation with an Agenda: As Loralyn gets more desperate, one method of getting help she can do is to...creatively translate people's messages.
- Uncertain Doom: Carol, your supervisor, gets possessed by the Kya-nem, as you can see if you answer her call. What she did, whether she survived or what happened next is never answered.
- Unexplained Accent: Loralyn has a notable French accent and speaks fluent French. Her father has a lower class English accent and doesn't speak a word of it.
- Villains Blend in Better: For ancient, primordial spirits awakened into modern day London, the Kya-nem are immediately adept at using modern day technology. They're actually better than Loralyn's dad!
- Villainous Face Hold: The Kya-nem do this to Loralyn in several endings, using their branchlike tentacles.
- You Have to Believe Me!: When calling up Pearce about the situation, Loralyn acts like a complete lunatic babbling about spirits, which naturally leads to him assuming she's gone crazy and trying to set up a mental health plan.
- Your Makeup Is Running: Loralyn's mascara gets smeared with tears as the night goes on, especially visible when she's calling people.
