Afterparty - Play beer pong for your eternal soul

Afterparty is a game that is more than it appears. On the surface, it seems like a beautifully designed frat party simulator set in Hell.

You play as the duo of Milo and Lola, who were killed in a car accident on their way to their graduation party. Upon your arrival in Hell, you quickly decide you don’t belong here and aim to challenge Satan himself to a drinking game for your immortal soul. But first, you need to get yourself an invite to the party. You traverse Hell’s many districts, win a few dance contests and games of beer pong and you get the approval you need to play the drinking game of your life.

The design of Hell is just gorgeous. Using a purple and red colour palette, the boroughs of Hell are seedy downtown areas complete with neon lights and literal dumpster fires. Bars litter the landscape filled with demons and damned alike. I love the way the demons have been constructed. The voice actors tend to lean towards aggressively cheerful, your personal demon Wormhorn sounding more like she’s trying to sell you something as opposed to trying to cause you mental anguish. The demon who takes your personality test, Barbados, sounds like a sweet American lady.

In order to get the chance to play Satan in a drinking game you have to impress some higher level demons by taking part in mini games involving drinking games and dance contests. Alcohol and partying is a large part of the game which makes it somewhat jarring when the face off with Satan is turned into an intervention – one of the generals of Hell you had to impress to get here, Apollyon, worried about how much the Lord of Darkness himself drinks.

This new dimension to the game adds a curious element to the battle for your eternal soul. You have the opportunity to win more time on earth, the thing you’ve been fighting so hard to get the whole game, but is it morally responsible to encourage someone with an alcohol problem to play a drinking game? You can choose not to play, and Satan will get more and more uncomfortable with your refusal to enable his addictive behaviour.

It’s an interesting comment on addiction. Not even the Lord of Hell is immune, and that’s a message that should be considered up here on earth too. Often, suffering with addiction can cause a lot of assumptions to be made about a person, and none of them are kind. In reality anyone could need to numb their existence and it’s important that this is remembered. Reaching out for help is something that should be encouraged and spoken about openly, there’s nothing intrinsically shameful about it. We all have weaknesses. A little understanding goes a long way when someone is trying to recover.

I chose not to play the drinking game, damning Milo and Lola to an eternity in Hell. It felt like the right thing to do, and Satan does take himself to rehab to try to recover after that. Was it worth the torture of your eternal soul though? Milo and Lola attempt to make the best of their lot in Hell while trying to find a way out. I still feel like I made the right choice, but that could be because I absolutely will reload a save if I made a choice that made a character sad. Besides, it’s too ironic that the literal Devil was beset by the demon drink.