The Night Crawler Review

The Gameplay of The Night Crawler

In The Night Crawler, we have a terrarium, and we need to gather nocturnal insects. We start in a charming and dark living room with a cheery fire going in the fireplace, a bookcase, and a cozy armchair. We can get to catching the insects by clicking “Catch insects” in the upper corner of the screen.

The gathering part is essentially a black screen with a spot of light from the flashlight, illuminating a circle in the forest. We can move the spotlight in any direction until we see a glowing insect, which we collect by clicking on it. The flashlight has a few seconds of work before we are back home. Collecting insects earns us coins to use in the shop. We can also adjust the radius of the spotlight and the duration of the flashlight in the Options menu, and make it easier for us.

The insects are transferred automatically to the terrarium. We need to feed them, and we get a friendly reminder in the upper part of the screen when they are hungry. We feed them by clicking on them. Not all insects eat the same food, and some are partial to several items. We can purchase food and gear upgrades at the shop. A few of the objects in the room are interactable- for example, clicking on the teacup gives us an extra 2 seconds to gather insects.

We have a nice list of tasks and quests at the bottom of the screen. Tasks vary between feeding and catching a specific number of a particular type of insect. When we discover a new species of insect, we receive a detailed infocard. We can see all the cards about insects we’ve already unlocked by clicking on the bookcase beside the fireplace. The infocards will also show us the preferred food for some of the insects.

The Night Crawler has a lot of Steam achievements, but all of them are designed to be attainable and relatively quick to get. The developers promise that there isn’t endless grinding.

Some Other Things

The Night Crawler has the basic audio and video settings. As mentioned, the game has a lot of Steam achievements, but no Trading cards.

Conclusion

All in all, The Night Crawler is a short but cute game, with a pleasant soundtrack and hand-drawn animations. It offers a cozy respite from work, without any timers and expectations, and that in itself is pretty valuable.