Children of Silentown

PC
Emotional and beautiful story that moves to tears.

Players of the point and click genre, should take a closer look at the latest game from developers Elf Games and Luna2 Studio, who worked together with publisher Daedalic Entertainment to release their game on 11-01-2023. I checked out the game on PC and was already familiar with the Steam Fest demo. What you can expect and how I liked it, I would like to tell you now.

Story and plot:

In a world haunted by fear and monster stories, there is no salvation, no hope, and no happiness. You'll take on the role of Lucy, a girl who has permanent nightmares at night or is awakened by the roar of the monsters that search for victims in the village who don't obey rules. As Lucy, you can freely explore the village, Silentown, play hide-and-seek with your friends, help your mother cook and do many other "forbidden" things that are necessary. The story is very interesting and heart-touching. There are four endings in total, but you will only discover them if you currently complete the game four times. There is no choice of chapters, once you are through with the story, a New Game+ starts, but there are no differences. Here I still hope for a better solution on the part of the developers, because three of four endings can already be viewed on the first playthrough (you make the choice at the end which song you want to play, the first three songs are not missable), on the fourth ending then all notes are needed, which you can then find in the second run-through, if you have not already collected them. 

Various puzzles await you

Typical for point and click games are of course various puzzles and yes, in Children of Silentown you can also use objects or combine them. However, there are not many puzzles. Especially at the beginning you will be confronted with the button and mill puzzles, which should be no problem with a little trial and error. In the button puzzle you have to sew buttons together to find your way into the broken memories of the villagers, whereupon they become a bit friendlier and also reveal some secrets. In the mill puzzle, on the other hand, you have to find a way to let the water flow into the gates. A little later, this puzzle is made more difficult by red vines that should not be hit with water. The last puzzle you'll get late in the game is the eye puzzle, where you have to bring light into the darkness, but you must not blind the eyes that are illuminated. The puzzles are well done, but get a bit repetitive and can be frustrating if you don't find the solution right away. There are no hints and skipping the puzzles is also not possible.

Graphics and Sound:

Graphically Children of Silentown is very nicely done, sure the white eyes, missing hands and feet take some getting used to, but fit the story and the atmosphere very well that they want to hit here. The hand-drawn style is very nice and detailed, I had a lot of fun looking at everything. Even more beautiful than the graphics and gameplay is the soundtrack. It really creates the right atmosphere and brings the story to life. It's a pity that you hear so little of the narrator's voice, because it captivated me from the very first second, and I would have loved to experience more passages here.

Trailer:

 


Summary

Children of Silentown has become a beautiful point and click game, the story is a bit confusing, but some things can be illuminated with further progress or the various endings, but many important questions remain unanswered. That doesn't make the story, which was incredibly great for me, any worse. Still, I would have liked to know more. I particularly liked the soundtrack and the hand-drawn graphics. I was also entertained by the later puzzles in the forest. The button puzzles were also good, but the mill puzzle sometimes made me despair, especially when the red vines got in the way. My first playthrough took me about 12 hours, but the time varies as everyone solves the puzzles faster or slower. Another run through then reduces the game time enormously ,since you know what you have to do. Still, I find it a bit silly that I have to play through the game completely four times for four endings. As much as I liked the game, but four times without change and without the possibility to skip puzzles is a bit boring. I therefore hope that at least a chapter selection will be added or that the first playthrough will not be overwritten with "New Game+". If you like point and click games, you should take a closer look at Children of Silentown, the story is really very nice and also the different endings (which I then watched on YT), I liked very much, it is definitely worth playing through at least once or twice.
Emotional and beautiful story that moves to tears.


Comments:
Your comment has been saved!!!
The Captcha element applies the Captcha validation, which uses reCaptcha's anti-bot service to reduce spam submissions.