This dark adventure game looks like a Tim Burton movie - Children of Silentown Quick Review

PLAY IT OR SKIP IT?

Children of Silentown is totally worth playing, especially if you enjoy cozy adventures games or the Tim Burton aesthetic, as seen in films like Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie. Children of Silentown doesn’t break new ground, and its puzzles can be overly simplistic, but the overall vibe of the game earned it a lot of goodwill as I played.

TIME PLAYED

I’m currently three and a half hours into Children of Silentown, and based on the spoiler-free info I’ve looked at, that’s around halfway through the game’s five chapters.

WHAT’S AWESOME

• Style. What an absolutely lovely look for a game! Children of Silentown uses big-eyed character design that reminded me of the great 2009 stop-motion movie Coraline. That fantastic aesthetic is mixed with a hand-drawn approach and beautifully animated, nightmarish cutscenes that break up each chapter.

• A sense of dread. Children of Silentown excels at slowly building up tension. Even several hours in, I’m not totally certain what terrors await in the wood just outside of Silentown, but I’m sure that finding out is going to be a harrowing experience.

• Setting. Speaking of Silentown, I wouldn’t want to live here, but I’ve sure enjoyed visiting. In this town, children are warned not to stay out after dark, adults are constantly whispering to each other in dire tones, and people of all ages just keep disappearing. The game beckoned me to keep digging and uncover the dark secrets of this strange village.

WHAT SUCKS

• Puzzles. Children of Silentown’s simple adventure game scenarios are totally fine, if not particularly challenging. But the small mini-game puzzles I had to solve at certain points totally killed the flow. Stopping to play a Pipe Mania-style puzzle in the middle of searching for my lost mother was not a welcome distraction.

• Limited voice acting. This is a minor complaint, but Children of Silentown features tiny snippets of voice acted narration that are super high quality and set the grim tone perfectly. I expect that if the rest of the game were voiced at a similar level of quality, it would have only pulled me in more.

💬 Is that Tim Burton style enough to make Children of Silentown worth checking out for you, or is this one a pass? Let me know below!