Party Hard (video game)

Party Hard is an action stealth video game developed by Pinokl Games and published by tinyBuild for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, Fire OS, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One and also coming to iOS and Android. In the game, players assume the role of a serial killer who infiltrate several parties with the objective of killing all attendants without getting caught.

Gameplay
If a player kills a person within other party-goer's sight, they are alerted and will call the cops, and if the NPC finds a dead body, they will call the cops, who put bodies in body bags. In addition to that, the player can hide dead bodies in dumpsters and other concealed locations. The player can set traps, such as poisoning drinks, making speakers explode, destroying dance floors, cutting down trees, starting fires and short-circuiting electricity boards. The player also has limited use weapons like swords (with an area damage), bombs and stun grenades, which are collected from containers. One can also pick up disguises and other collectibles. Bouncers are present regularly, and if the player gets spotted, the bouncers will incapacitate the player, resulting in a defeat. If the player keeps using a certain shortcut to escape the police and is able to escape, a person will block that shortcut so that player cannot use it again. Partying people are distracted most of the time, and the player can take more than 2 to 3 people out in this manner before being detected. The police are ruthless, being very hard to escape from, unless the player knows the level very well. Special agents are called in if policemen are killed.

Twitch.tv integration
The game integrates with the streaming website Twitch.tv. Viewers of a live broadcast can trigger events within the game, such as SWAT raids or rampaging bears. The twitch-exclusive events were later enabled for non-streaming players.

Plot
Initially, you play as an initially unnamed man who is described as "a guy who just wanted some sleep" who finds it difficult to sleep when there are active party-goers nearby. He decides to kill them all using a standard knife. There are five other unlockable characters, including a Ninja (obtained by clearing a level with no bodies found), Policeman (obtained by completing all the levels), Katie (obtained by escaping the police 5 times in one game; also the only person available on the Miami Beach level), the Butcher (obtained by killing 20 people), and Hinter (starts the game with). Each level takes place at a party with a different theme, interactive objects, and "special guests," who are people that you call to distract/kill party guests. The completion of these levels also unlocks the storyline, which focuses on Detective John West's detailing of the Party Hard Killings of autumn, 2000.

The story starts in the present with the inspector John West being interviewed, in the interrogation room, by a cop named Darius who asks him about the Party Hard killings of autumn 2000. His narration, as well as the game, starts in the year 2000, somewhere in San Francisco County with the killer, fed up of the noise and of a small neighbourhood party. He then takes a knife and a hockey mask to start a massacre into a BBQ house party somewhere in North Beach (Salinas, California according to menu map). After he was "done" with the party goers, he gets picked up by bikers who take him to ranch party in Bakersfield and after that leaves to Las Vegas via a shuttle bus to a casino party and rooftop party near Arizona.

Several months later, he reaches Bay City, Texas and boards a cruise liner heading from Trinity Bay to Florida, only for it burn down and sink near Miami, Florida as the killer watches, he also meets up with Katie (Detective John West's daughter) there. She follows his footsteps by attacking a beach party as a way to rebel against her father as it turns out he was abusive (according to Darius). The killer takes a party bus on Route 10 only to murder everyone on board and meets up with Katie, only to kill her (which is described as turning her into "one of his pieces of art") before being arrested by John West, who tried to kill him by shooting him in the back of the neck after seeing that he killed his daughter.

They end up crashing near Salina, Kansas at saw mill. After murdering everyone there, the killer fakes being a victim and escapes the scene by an ambulance. He murders his way through a rooftop pool party at Denver, Colorado and a Halloween party in Wyoming. After a campus party in Salt Lake City, Utah was hit, and finally ends up was a party in the San Francisco subway hosted by some of his fanatics where the detective sought to stop the serial killer.

In the whole final cutscene, the party hard killer is shown seated on the train platform after killing everybody in the underground (in the year 2000), with John and Darius's voices off speaking each other in the interrogation room (in the present), John figures that Darius, the man who was interviewing him, was the Party Hard Killer and confronts him, but Darius rebukes him, saying that the shameful acts committed by those people made them deserve it, he is even convinced that John secretly agreed with what he was doing and that he has been helping him to commit his murders by letting him escape repeatedly and not putting much effort in catching him, and for not having killed him when he had the opportunity. John, not taking Darius's sayings too seriously and thinking that he is just joking, finally tells him "Come on Darius. Let's go home" (as an indirect way of saying "Stop kidding me and go to your house") and both leave the interrogation room.

The game ends with the scene of the year 2000 in the underground with Darius putting on a policeman hat and his mask back on (demonstrating that he was the Party Hard killer).

Reception
Party Hard received "mixed or average" reviews, according to video game review aggregator Metacritic.

Party Hard Tycoon
In October 2017, a spin-off simulation game titled Party Hard Tycoon was released as an Early Access title on Steam. It involves managing and organizing parties in the Party Hard Universe. Gameplay involves choosing venues, planning out your layout, catering, entertainment, and figuring out how to keep your guests happy.