Children of Silentown is an endearingly moody Tim Burton-inspired adventure
“Don’t ever go into the forest.” If someone was to tell you that, they’ve probably got a pretty good reason for it.
That’s the warning issued to Lucy, the main protagonist in Children of Silentown, which is released on January 11 on Steam, Xbox, PlayStation and Switch.
Lucy is a young girl who lives in a village deep in a forest. The forest itself is inhabited by monsters, so it’s made perfectly clear to Lucy that she should never stray from the village.
Life is happy enough for Lucy, at least during the day, as she hangs out with her friends and helps her mother out. At night, though, she has awful nightmares and hears growling coming from the forest.
Although Lucy is in no hurry to head out and see what’s making those noises, a tragic event occurs – without spoiling anything – which leaves her with no choice but to enter the forest and face whatever it is that lurks within the woods.
Children of Silentown is a point-and-click adventure, but it’s one that – in case it isn’t already obvious – has a much darker tone than most other games in the genre. This is almost entirely down to developer Elf Games and art studio Luna2, both of which collaborated to create the game.
Originally starting life as a short animated movie, the game’s art style was heavily inspired by the animated movie Coraline and the work of Tim Burton, something that’s immediately clear as soon as you start playing (or even from watching the trailer above).
“We wanted our characters to look both cute and creepy at the same time,” character and background artist Francesca Presentini said in a recent behind-the-scenes video for the game. We can safely say mission accomplished, because Lucy and her pals are endearing but unnerving.
It would be one thing to simply
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