One Night, Hot Springs is a visual novel video game where the player takes on the persona of Haru, a young transgender woman, as she embarks on a journey to the hot springs in Japan for her friend’s birthday. This game is targeted at all ages; the only hard requirement is the ability to read. It is an online game created in 2018 by npckc.
This game is all about the narrative, the main type of fun in this game. The mechanics are minimal — as a player, you just read through the story as it unfolds. There are some choices that you can make along the way that dictate how the story moves along. One Night, Hot Springs features the narrative type enacting stories. Depending on the choices you make throughout the story, the outcome you face may change.
Example of player choice influencing outcome
There are strict boundaries in the game. You can’t move freely throughout the world; you must follow one of the pathways already laid out in the game. As a queer, woman of color, it was fun to take on the role of a queer woman in a video game, particularly because video games traditionally feature heteronormative stories and characters.
The story that unfolds in One Night, Hot Springs is quite powerful — it shines a light on the unique set of challenges faced everyday by transgender woman, particularly in vulnerable spaces (e.g., a bath house). In this game, the player navigates new and old female friendships, sharing living quarters, and encounters with strangers. It achieves what Shira Chess details in Chapter 4: Gaming Feminism of Play like a Feminist: a good feminist game needs to tell a good feminist story. Because this game focuses so heavily on the narrative, it evokes a deep sense of emotion around the subject. It is educational, informative, and tugs on your heart strings. The emotional effect of this game is part of what makes it such a successful feminist narrative.
Difficult moment faced by the protagonist in the game
Chess discusses theories developed by feminist narrative researchers Teresa de Lauretis and Susan Winnett, and queer narrative theorist Judith Roof, that claim that the traditional narrative structure of a singular path leading toward a singular climax is “not only masculine but heterosexist.” They argue that real-life queer and feminist narratives are free-flowing and never ending, so feminist games should follow this same non-traditional structure. One Night, Hot Springs fits this definition perfectly. The choices you make dictate the way the story progresses; there is not a singular climax that you are approaching.
This game was very enjoyable for me. It invited the type of fun submission, as it was almost more like watching a movie than playing a video game. This allowed me to really soak in the narrative. The simple mechanics and graphics evoke a lighthearted tone, which provided an optimal balance for the difficult subjects uncovered in the story.
