I played One Night, Hot Springs by npckc for this week’s critical play on my laptop through Steam. The target audience is players interested in narrative-focused indie games, LGBTQ+ stories, and emotionally driven visual novels. The main character of the game is Haru, a transgender woman in Japan. The story is about Haru going on a trip to a hot spring ryokan with her childhood friend Manami and Manami’s high school friend Erika. The game mechanic is choosing between two choices, but it made me think about social acceptance and self-perception as a transgender person in everyday situations.
One Night, Hot Springs succeeds as a feminist game because it transforms ordinary social interactions into emotional and political decisions. The game centers on vulnerabilities that many people normally never have to think about. The game creates empathy through everyday experiences rather than dramatic conflict.
When I first started the game, there were some moments that I debated, but most choices were what I thought were morally right. But the heart meter on the top left decreased depending on my choices, and that changed my own beliefs. For example, when I chose for Haru not to use the family bath, if I were in her situation, I probably would have lied to Manami and Erika afterward and said I had already gone. I found this very interesting because the game mechanics themselves influenced my ethics and behavior. I felt the game tended to compare minimizing the emotional harm versus confronting the world. According to Shira Chess in Play Like a Feminist, feminist play often focuses on relationships, emotional negotiation, and systems of care rather than domination or achievement.
The next playthrough, I tried to see a bad ending by choosing not to go on the hot spring trip at all. I expected the game to push Haru to go on the trip in any way. However, nothing happened and the game ended right away. Later when I revisited the gallery, I knew that it was the normal ending and Manami made another plan for Haru. Many games lead players to make the right choice and give hints about which one is more appropriate, but One Night, Hot Springs wasn’t like that. The game understands that people struggle through constant adaptation, so it brings feminist theory through Haru’s identity and the social discomfort that she experiences in everyday life.
Later, I replayed the game and chose to reserve the family bath instead. It led to more positive experiences, and the ryokan staff upgraded thesj room. For the first time, the background music changed into something warmer and lighter when Haru enjoyed her time in the outdoor bathtub. This is when the world felt much nicer and Haru was easily accepted by others when she tried something and something unexpected happened. I also noticed that the option to go to the women’s bath together with Erika appeared, which I didn’t see in my first playthrough. I immediately chose it, and that path allowed Haru and Erika to have a much deeper conversation and get closer than before. I personally think this is the best ending that we can see in our real life. The emotional uncertainty reflects back to the kindness of the world.
One thing I could relate to was when Haru and Erika talked about bullying in high schools. Erika explains that invisible and subtle behaviors hurt because they force the victim to engage in self-censorship. Feminist theories discuss that oppression can appear through exclusion, discomfort, and emotional signaling. The game delivers this through ordinary dialogue and that made it feel more realistic and emotionally effective.
I also focused on the fact that Erika is vegetarian. Living as a vegetarian in Japan is still relatively uncommon and many foods contain meat-based broth or seasoning. I imagined Erika probably struggles to filter those things out regularly. It means Erika can also be positioned as a kind of minority. Both vegetarianism and gender identity involve personal decisions, yet society doesn’t always respect those choices equally. This connects closely to feminist intersectionality, where identity is shaped through overlapping experiences instead of a single category.
From an ethical point of view, the game changed the way I think about honesty and self-consciousness. We all think lying is ethically wrong. However, I realized that marginalized people sometimes lie not to manipulate others, but simply to avoid awkwardness or rejection. The game made me think about why it is unsafe to tell the truth. One Night, Hot Springs doesn’t have any competition but it could succeed as a feminist game because it showed that small everyday experiences could mean something different to minorities.
