Children of Silentown, the tried

It is no mystery that Elf Games, a development studio from Brescia, makes aesthetics its strong point. We were impressed with Little Briar Rose and we still are after a brief but heartfelt immersion in the dark, albeit fairytale atmosphere of Children of Silentown. The project was born from the collaboration of the team with the creative studio Luna2, aka RichardHTT and Fraffrog, and stages the story of Lucy, a little girl who grew up in a small village isolated from the rest of the world, surrounded by a forest that is said to be inhabited. from monsters. People have to periodically deal with the disappearances, to the point that they no longer consider them as unusual as evidence to surrender to; young Lucy, however, plagued by constant nightmares that along with the creepy roars coming from the forest do not let her sleep at night, she is now old enough to investigate on her own something that adults prefer not to talk about. Thus begins an adventure with dark colors, accompanied by an artistic sector once again in evidence and a series of minigames that go alongside the classic gameplay in the point and click style: all while the bungling cat of Lucy - aka Strabico - seems do everything to always get her in trouble.

Mystery with horror shades

From the premises, Children of Silentown is a game that does not differ much from the previous one, except for the darkest themes, it aims to be a relaxing, fun experience and very captivating to behold. We have only seen the first lines of the plot, which in part reminded us of Tim Burton or Guillermo Del Toro atmospheres (hopefully without the same passion for childhood trauma as the latter) but, in particular, recalled The Village from the distant 2004 : on a conceptual level they have similar elements, although for example the mysterious creatures in the film do not enter the village by virtue of the stipulated pact and until this is broken. Beyond this, the short experience allowed us to get to know Lucy a little more closely and her desire to shed light on what really lurks in the mysterious forest that surrounds the village; a little to silence the nightmares that give them no respite and a little to allow everyone to relive a normality that, if they have ever known, they have now forgotten.

Point and click but also minigames

Children of Silentown: the protagonist In terms of gameplay, the section took place almost entirely in Lucy's house, with a short excursion to the immediate external perimeter, and gave us back the aforementioned typical aspects of a point and click: the protagonist can interact with many elements of the scenario, collect some to solve environmental puzzles or, and this is the typical aspect of Children of Silentown, obtain notes from specific objects that she will insert in her diary - where they are enclosed all game progress - with the aim of recombining them into melodies capable of speaking to people's hearts ... or even unlocking the memories inherent in a particular element. These last two are the features that most capture the attention, the real novelties in a game that in its first steps follows the stylistic features of the genre: they weren't in the prologue but it was still possible to test them in the "Minigames" section from the menu .

In specific moments of the game, Lucy will be able to use the song to discover secrets that otherwise would remain hidden: we move from speaking to people's hearts, as already mentioned, to recalling past situations without having lived them. Both situations, and probably all those present in the version, are resolved with the resolution of a minigame, different according to the context, with very simple rules, as it is to conclude them. These are very small tastings that we do not exclude can become complicated as the adventure progresses; for now, I'm just an example of what Children of Silentown is preparing to offer. As for the dialogues, it was decided not to focus on articulated interactions (since the rest of the story is not, for what we seemed to understand) but this is not bad at all: the game is not intended as an intense experience and committed, that the dialogues respect this choice is only natural. In addition, there is a lot of space for interpretation by the player and a hint of sarcasm, sometimes childish nor could the protagonist be otherwise seen, which she never hurts to break the rhythms. Overall, the new Elf Games project is inspired and interesting, suitable for those who wallow in mystery with that horror aftertaste to make it even more captivating.

Children of Silentown: a puzzle Children of Silentown is a project that in part it follows in the footsteps of the previous Elf Games video game, focusing heavily on aesthetics and the soundtrack for an evocative experience: in terms of gameplay we are faced with a classic point and click, embellished with some sections of minigames that will go to integrate into the plot by making small puzzles in turn. There are all the bases to match and even exceed the good results obtained with Little Briar Rose but, at the moment, we cannot express ourselves more about it given the brevity of the demo: we hope that these positive premises will be able to expand in the final version. br>

CERTAINTY

Aesthetically very appealing The soundtrack is a classic point and click element, embellished with some minigames Plot suitable for those who like mystery with a hint of horror DOUBTS We have seen too little to draw more precise conclusions Given the previous ones, the puzzles should be more elaborate