A really good and engaging point-and-click adventure is Children of Silentown. Even while it’s not very long or extremely unique, the polish and atmosphere more than makeup for these shortcomings.
The game delivers a captivating and enigmatic tale that centers on a cute hamlet that is tucked away in a scary forest full of monsters. Although people have been going missing for some time, our playable protagonist Lucy is old enough to look into things on her own. Lucy is determined to find out what is going on after her mother goes missing. But is she ready for what awaits her outside the town’s walls?
However, Lucy first explores the town and its eccentric residents, solving riddles, playing games, and gathering information. Across five chapters, the game will take you anything from 7 to 13 hours to complete, depending on how quickly you can solve the puzzles and complete the obstacles this one presents to you.
The plot itself is alright, though it must be said that the early build-up is much superior to the late-game revelations. While I won’t give anything away, the conclusion to a game that is otherwise quite good is quite predictable.
This ending—or endings, to be more precise—comes down to a decision that, depending on your choice, can either bring the story to a “good” or “bad” conclusion. You’ll have to play the game four more times to see everything because the quick-save is in effect here, making it impossible to leave and replay the conclusion. Of course, you could just Google it, but asking everyone to simply watch this four times seems a bit excessive.
The gameplay, which is typical of a point-and-click adventure, finally takes precedence over the story. With the use of her personal inventory, Lucy is able to gather goods from the various connected locations and even combine some of them to make entirely new ones. These can then be applied to certain portions of the world to unlock doors or solve riddles.
While on a PC you’ll use your mouse to uncover everything, on consoles the trigger buttons will do the heavy lifting. When you approach areas of study, a magnifying glass appears.
Children of Silentown make an effort to keep things interesting throughout its running length, whether it’s utilizing corks to attempt and stop the flow of water or locating youngsters in a game of hide and seek. A variety of minigames, from button-mashing races to line and light puzzles, are interspersed throughout various planet portions. There are a few late-game puzzles that may keep you from solving them for a while, but they aren’t particularly incredibly difficult.
In addition to this, Children of Silentown’s Singing mechanic gives its puzzles an additional layer. Given the plot and how essential singing is in this universe, you’ll learn song notes as you tour the town that you can use to influence the environment. These can range from learning what people are hiding from you to learning the background of a certain object.
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There are several lovely places to explore in Children of Silentown, and the hand-drawn style is just stunning. This game has a highly distinctive graphic style that surprisingly works well throughout. The game’s art aesthetic is consistently strong, even later on when new mechanics and concepts are added (particularly in Chapter 5, which drastically alters the gameplay).
The music and sound can get really annoying given how long you can occasionally spend in one place (particularly in Chapter 3). You could find yourself entirely muting the music and playing your own music or podcast in its place because the musical soundtrack isn’t varied enough to support its different problems. at least until you reach the following region!
A good little point-and-click adventure and entertaining diversion are Children of Silentown. The puzzles are enjoyable, the mechanics are well thought out, and the art is stunning. The storyline is perhaps a little thin, and the monotonous soundtrack eventually grows annoying. This game is good overall and is definitely worth playing despite its shortcomings.