In Goodnight Universe, your greatest foe is communication. The new indie game is told from the perspective of Isaac, a six-month-old infant who develops psychic powers. Though he can pester the family beagle with his mind, he’s still just a babbling baby who can only speak to his parents and sister through soft coos. He has so much to say, but no one can hear his true frustrations buried in typical tyke tantrums.
It’s unfortunate, then, that Goodnight Universe also has so much trouble communicating what it wants to say. In trying to follow up the ingenious Before Your Eyes, an emotional game that turns “blink and you miss it” into camera-controlled gameplay, developer Nice Dream was left with the unenviable task of replicating the unreplicatable. How can you take a signature as specific as blink-based gameplay, an idea built around an idiom, and apply it to a follow-up with the same sense of purpose? That tension makes for a disjointed sophomore effort that never quite finds its voice.
For the first third of its runtime, Goodnight Universe’s intentions are clear and delightful. Players watch the coming-of-infancy tale unfold through Isaac’s first-person perspective, all while an internal monologue by Thunderbolts* actor Lewis Pullman narrates the story. At the risk of sounding like a guy who has only seen Boss Baby, it’s a lot like Boss Baby.
No, really: The idea here is that Nice Dream is imagining what it must feel like to be a baby. Boss Baby does that by taking the bossy nature of demanding infants to its logical extreme, depicting them as corporate suits who treat their parents like assistants. Goodnight Universe has a similar thought process, but it’s focused on two different ideas. One is the idea that babies are mischievous little devils. That’s where Isaac’s psychic powers come in. Early in the game, he discovers that he’s able to move objects with his mind, change TV channels by blinking, and cause all kinds of chaos. It’s a cute concept that parents will likely find relatable: You can’t leave a baby alone for a second without them getting into some impossible hijinks.
That’s where Before Your Eyes’ control scheme comes into play. If you choose to play with a webcam, you’ll be able to control some of the action through eye tracking. Blinking to turn off light switches, holding your eyes shut to hear other people’s thoughts, even smiling and frowning to respond to situations. It’s a clever way to return to the well, but one that Nice Dream never fully commits to. A mouse or joystick is still required to move objects or shut cabinets, even if your instinct is just to turn your head to do it. (It’s understandable: Repeatedly being forced to whip your neck around sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.) As a result, these camera controls feel more like a half-hearted gimmick rather than a meaningful storytelling tool. In fact, you can play the entire thing without a camera at all and none of the console ports support camera controls, period. (Switch 2 will receive camera support post-launch.)
The story of a baby who always finds ways to get into trouble makes for perfectly sweet Dreamworks fare, but Goodnight Universe hits a snag when it tries to be bigger than a parental gag. Its main focus centers around self-expression. As a smart infant who is misunderstood by his family, Isaac wants nothing more than to be seen for who he really is. He tries to tell his parents, but it all comes out in goo-goos and ga-gas. He feels as though there’s an unseen person hiding inside him waiting to come out. It is, for a third of the story, an effective theme that gets back to the humanistic storytelling of Before Your Eyes, a game about a man reliving his memories as he crosses into death.
But Goodnight Universe isn’t as invested in Isaac’s story as it is sci-fi sentimentality. Its second act is marked by a twist that has Isaac escaping the clutches of a mysterious captor, using his powers to smash drones and destroy machinery. It makes explicit references to Steven Spielberg and his brand of kid-friendly ‘80s adventure movies that inspired the likes of Super 8 and Stranger Things. It’s the point where Goodnight Universe begins to teeter off its axis en route to a series of screwy plot twists that render Isaac’s arc moot.
I can feel the tension of a studio trying to follow up a singular vision with something new that still bears enough of a resemblance to it. Aside from the fact that Nice Dream can’t find enough ways to stretch its camera controls to fit a longer game, there are also moments where the studio seems overeager to tug on my heartstrings. Before Your Eyes is renowned for its emotionally devastating story. It’s not just emotional, but effective design too; if you cry while playing it, you risk blinking and skipping a memory in its hero’s life. Goodnight Universe tries to pepper in some sob-worthy moments of its own, but they feel too tangential to Isaac’s story to land. There’s a thin line between tear-jerking and eye-rolling.
Like its infant hero, Goodnight Universe never fully develops its voice through its five-hour story. You can hear it sounding out the words it wants to say, but it’s still getting hung up on the syllables. A potentially moving story about characters who want nothing more than to reveal their true selves to the world comes out as precious babbles in a cute little game. You’ll just want to pinch its cheeks, whether it wants you to or not.
Goodnight Universe will be released Nov. 11 on Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 4, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on Windows PC using a prerelease download code provided by Skybound Games. You can find additional information about viraltrendingcontent’s ethics policy here.
