Ophelia Payne

I love building games, and I love games where I can just dial in and ignore the outside world for a while. Midnight Moments from Happy Volcano gives me both of these things.  It’s a casual, cyberpunk diorama-building game where there are no in-game goals. Build what you want, how you want it, at your own pace.

Whether you want to create cozy rain-soaked backstreets, quiet neighbourhoods, or bustling glowing apartment blocks, you have all the components and tools to bring your vision to life on your screen.  Create your own world, taking time to zoom in and add each detail you desire, then zoom out and watch the world you created come to life. Streetlights and glowing signs add to the rain-drenched atmosphere where the animated people living in your created space go about their day. Use the photo mode, hiding your UI, to take beautiful pictures of your creations.

While there aren’t any goals in Midnight Moments, I think that’s the point of the game. It makes you think about moments in time. It’s a game where you pop in and out when you have a couple of free moments in your busy day to unwind. Your saved creation will be there just how you left it, ready to be added to. It’s become more meditative than I anticipated as I look forward to popping in between other tasks that require my attention.

Starting with a 10×10 grid block, you will start to build with cubes composed of a variety of materials, some steel, some textured, some are even glass.

Now, as much as I’m praising Midnight Moments for its Zen-like gameplay, my first moments in the game were anything but stress-free. Nothing is labelled. None of the categories you use to build and none of the sliders on the right of the screen that control things like time of day, lighting, weather, etc. Whether you see this as a fault or an intention to make you slow down and learn by trial and error will depend on how you approach this style of game. I would have loved a few labels (even when hovering over a category at minimum), so I had an idea of what was in each. I spent a lot of time at the beginning snooping and searching and trying out a lot of the items to see how they might be used.

While there doesn’t appear to be a limit to the height you can build, Happy Volcano uses a snap-to-grid mechanic that does limit some of the full free-build feeling. This helps maintain beautiful straight lines in your building but does limit a little creativity in my opinion.  This mechanic also means that graffiti and posters often feel too organized and clean rather than the artistic chaos they could convey. 

What makes Midnight Moments stand out is the cyberpunk aesthetic, though. Neon signs, streetlights, vents, wiring, etc. You can litter the map with fast food containers and cups, but I find it amusing that you can’t add any of those items to the garbage bins you place. The neon gives off a beautiful glow in the rain and water-covered surfaces.

If it wasn’t clear that Happy Volcano wanted you to play your own way, there is no real soundtrack to speak of in Midnight Moments. You’ll only have the soothing sounds of falling rain and a few city sounds. Pick your own music and really make the gaming session your own.

Until next time…be good to yourself and be good to each other.

**Special Thanks to Jarvs from Happy Volcano for the review code**