This party's dead
Afterparty isn't the Oxenfree successor I was hoping for.
For a sophomore effort, Afterparty's controls and interactivity are surprisingly amateurish. Not only does it still have the ambiguous dialog-choice timings and interruptions of its predecessor, it adds seemingly-at-random swaps between which of the two lead characters you're controlling. Its sidescrolling scenes make inconsistent use of depth, sometimes as background and foreground décor but sometimes as a continuation of the walking path. Characters waltz through doors as they're closing; the zoomed-out view obscures relevant scene details; message pop-ups from Twitter "Bicker" appear partially off-screen, such that reading them would require walking away from an ongoing conversation.
The game feels so unpolished that I'm tempted to call it unfinished. But all these issues could be forgiven for the sake of a compelling narrative -- and there lies Afterparty's gravest sin. It's boring.
Walking from point to point is slow, even when you know the right way to go (which you often don't). And while you're meandering back and forth over the map, opportunities to interact are rare; it's like the game just expects you to stare at environment art while holding a directional button.
At the four-level walkway up to Satan's house, for example, each level has two to three horizontal screens of space but only one (other than the elevators) prompt for conversation. Then in the house itself, an office room filled with thematic art and furnishings has a single prompt for conversation ... about a barely-visible fiddle, deep in the background. That's it.
The conversations themselves - not just those, I mean, all throughout Afterparty - are pretty dull. An occasional witty quip lands well, kudos to the voice cast, but characters' scripts seem to be half about reiterating worn-on-their-sleeves personalities and half about describing the current objective. Neither the protagonists nor the plot's mysterious backstory seem to develop at any pace. Two hours after teeing up the the question of how Milo and Lola died, the game has still told me absolutely nothing about it.
The drink-based dialog mechanic sounds promising - cocktails with different effects such as "Liquid Courage" or "Flirty Floozy" add unique options to a conversation - but the option occurs so infrequently I'd struggle to consider it a key game feature. (Though it's worth noting that I bailed before reaching the game's promised drinking-contest climax.)
I remember Oxenfree motivating me to unravel its mysteries, keeping me engaged and attentive, through thrilling environmental tension; and the cast's conversations reinforced that tension, as they handled the spookiness around them. Afterparty, despite its visually-striking setting, doesn't maintain any narrative tension of its own -- nor character intrigue, gameplay depth, or any other reason to hold my interest.
Better than: Kentucky Route Zero
Not as good as: Broken Age, Oxenfree
For a more interesting afterlife, see: Hades (2020), or Spiritfarer: Farewell Edition
Progress: Met Satan.