➤ Children of Silenttown, the review of an adventure about fear and silence 🕹

The review of Children of Silenttown, a Spanish point and click adventure for PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Switch that talks about fear and silence.

Lucy is a girl who lives with her parents in a town surrounded by a forest where everyone follows strict rules: you don't wander the streets at night, you don't shout and you don't leave the inhabited area. Anyone who violates them ends up disappearing and never returning. It is said that terrible monsters live beyond the trees, but no one seems to have ever seen them. Lucy strictly complies with what is prescribed, at least until one day a dramatic event explodes her desire to discover the truth, which she had somehow kept at bay until then.

We try to explain in Review of The Children of Silenttown because it is worth following his story until the end.

Gameplay: the songs

Children of Silenttown, the review of an adventure about fear and silence — Most of the adventure takes place in the village.

elf games is a talented Spanish independent development studio that had already proven itself with the excellent Little Briar Rose, a point-and-click adventure with graphics inspired by the stained glass art style. Children of Silentown, which maintains the same genre, is proof of great authorial maturity, both in the story it tells and in visual style- A hand-drawn 2D detail reminiscent of children's illustrated books. Thus we have characters with very large heads, completely white round eyes and stylized limbs in which no hands or feet are visible, and we have "painted" environments that form a dream world, in which each object acquires a strong symbolic value.

The general idea that the game immediately conveys is that of being inside a fairy tale with dark and melancholic tones in which we collect objects, combine them and use them in the same scenario through a comfortable inventory that opens on the left side. from the screen. screen. As the story progresses, Lucy will also learn about gods. Songs, which will be increasingly central in solving the various puzzles.

We're not exactly in the Loom zone, but the reference to the Lucasfilm game seems pretty clear, although the music is used very differently here. Each of the songs is made up of three notes and has different effects, which translate into unique mini-games. For example, we can literally patch some people's dreams by running a thread along the edges of the fabric trying to get through all the buttons, to discover what they want, or we can "illuminate" secret areas by rolling our eyes on grids, avoiding however shed too much light on some specific points. The mini-games are tied to the individual songs and are repeated, becoming increasingly more difficult until the end of the adventure, but never becoming impossible. This way you will be able to follow the story constantly, reaching the end in just over six hours, a perfect time considering what has been told (if you want, you can continue playing in the new game + mode).

bewilderment

Speaking of classic puzzles, those based on the collection and use of objects, we can say that we have not had any major difficulties. In the sense that the things to do are quite clear and it is not difficult to find what you need, even in the absence of a button that shows all the interactive objects on the stage. Please note that the control system is completely different depending on the peripheral used. Therefore, using the mouse the gameplay is point and click like Simon the Sorcerer, with the cursor allowing you to explore the entire stage while standing still, where using a controller you have to move Lucy directly by physically making her reach for the interactive objects. to highlight them. We played with the mouse, but we also briefly tried the other system (useful, for example, if you want to play on Steam Deck or on the console), which still turned out to be functional, since the game world is not very big. and the objects to interact with are all clearly visible.

The adventure

Don't expect a big adventure. Children of Silenttown is basically set in two scenarios: the town and the forest, the former made up of a few key locations that can be visited freely, where you spend most of your time, and the latter offering a somewhat more guided experience, composed more of situations than exploration. , with a greater number of mechanical puzzles and a particular focus on songs. The choice is justified by the evolution of history, which essentially speaks of ancestral fears and how human beings founded civilization around them, ending up repressing curiosity towards the unknown and marginalizing all those who do not accept certain rules, with a bittersweet ending that does not console or resolve the initial conflict, except for Lucy's individual conflict, making everything stronger and more appropriate for this reason.

In short, the "Disney effect" was avoided and, in fact, we tried as much as possible to problematize what is a very classic universal theme, even working around the narrative core of the adventure. In this sense, Elf Games has proven to be very skillful in never losing the thread of the discussion, which it has built coherently from beginning to end, leaving no room for escapes into absurdity.

So we have gods characters characterized in a simple and profound way at the same time, they form a varied human community, where each individual aspiration collides with the rules imposed by their living conditions, and which reveal themselves to be more complex than they might seem at first sight, gradually revealing unexpected features and much more. more multifaceted than it initially seems. For example, Lucy's father is both the classic father concerned about the well-being of his daughter and the allegory of an authority that imposes rules without motivating them and without allowing the individual to question them, even in the face of undeniable truths. The songs themselves, in addition to being linked to the game mechanics, are an active part of the meaning of the game, a symbol of Lucy's desire to express herself, who throughout the story tries to find her voice again.

Shit that disappears

In general we really liked Children of Silentwown, so much so that it captivated us from the beginning to the end. That said, we did notice some oddities. defects, such as diction errors in passages on the screen, which could have been avoided. To give an example, entering the farmer's field from the town square, a bale of hay on top of it mysteriously disappears. The same goes for a bulletin board with photographs hanging on it, which becomes a door as you walk around the building. They are small things, but they are noticeable, especially because you wander around the town a lot looking for objects and characters and in the end it is inevitable that we pay attention to them.

For the rest, the work of Elf Games convinced us. Was a beautiful adventure, for as long as it lasted.

Conclusions

Tested version PC with Windows digital delivery Steam Price 19,99 € Holygamerz.com 8.5 Readers (6) 7.7 your vote

Children of Silenttown works: it tells a good story, has great moments, and is characterized by an attractive visual style. It has some diction problems and may be too easy, especially if you already have experience with the genre, but it flows very well and in the end it was deeper than we initially thought.