Whispering Willows

Whispering Willows
by Night Light Interactive, LLc. - July, 2014

Available at:
Vote to get it at GOG HERE
Steam



Young Elena Elkhorn embarks on a harrowing journey to find her missing father and discover the secrets of the Willows Mansion. Aiding her journey is a unique amulet, she received from her father, which allows her to astral project her spirit into a ghostly-realm and communicate with the dead. Play as Elena to find her missing father, use your astral projection to solves the mansion’s tricks and puzzles, help the lingering souls and discover so much more in Whispering Willows.

• Immerse yourself in a beautifully hand-drawn 2-D world as you traverse the Mansion grounds
  
• Allow the haunting music and chilling sound effects to send goosebumps across your neck.
  
• Let the history of the Willows Mansion draw you into a plot full of twists and betrayal.
  
• Explore the vast Mansion and unlock its puzzling secrets as you search for your missing Father.
  

Deluxe Edition includes:

• Digital Art Book - A 56 page Digital Art book exploring the concepts and style used to create the art of Whispering Willows
  
• Soundtrack - 10 Tracks of original music from Whispering Willows
  
• Wallpaper - 1920x1280 Wallpaper of Elena Elkhorn
  

Already voted to get it on GOG.  Looks interesting

Voted too. Thanks for bringing it to our attention!

Whispering Willows (Adventure)

Whispering Willows is a side-scrolling adventure.  It does have its horror elements (and a few "EEK!" moments) but overall this is a game of exploration and story-discovery. 

Options include choice of Controls (I used the default), separate sliders for Sound Effects and Music, a slider for brightness (    we can choose how environmentally dark we want it!), Language, Fullscreen/Windowed, Screen Resolution, and Graphics Quality.

All of the controls are given to you as you play but I'll list them here for you, anyway   The default controls are as follows:  Arrow keys or W-A-S-D for movement, E for Inventory, Q to switch to your astral form, Esc. for Menu or Cancel, and Space or Enter to interact with things.

Since the gameplay is exploration-based, the devs chose not to add a running ability... but they changed their minds after getting feedback from the fans.  You can run when you are OUTSIDE ONLY by holding down the Shift key.

You CAN miss things if you don't take the time to explore everywhere -- don't make assumptions that what looks like a dead-end is actually a dead-end!  For the most part, you won't be able to miss things, however.  Any time your character touches something important, you'll get a pop-up at the top of the screen telling you to hit the Space key to pick it up, possess it, move it, or whatever interaction is necessary at the time.  You can look at your inventory at any time, but you don't actually need to -- all inventory items are automatically used when you need them. 

The story is told via notes and letters that you find as you explore.  I recommend reading them immediately, and you can do so by hitting the Esc key when you find them (the game will tell you that every time you find one of them   )  If you're not sure which character wrote the letter, just hit the Esc key -- you'll see the newest note's name highlighted.  ie. William Wortham 3/15.

As you explore you will discover and -- in your spectral form -- be able to talk to the many ghosts that populate the grounds, as well as "possess" items for a short time and squeeze through small openings.  Although these openings have little sparkles around them, I *still* managed to miss a couple   Another way to notice those small areas is to switch to your spirit form.  When you get near one, you'll switch from your full-form to a little bluish flame.

So how do you know when to switch forms?  You are wearing an amulet, and when it starts to glow, you know that you are getting near a ghost.  Otherwise, you just need to keep an eye out for small spaces, and things that don't quite look right.

You might think that being a side-scroller, there would not be much depth to your environment, and you'd be wrong   There are multiple layers to every area you visit, not just "front" and "behind".  My preferred method of play is to fully explore an area before going through any doors or going up/down stairs, but that's not necessarily what works best in this case.  'Nuff said

You CAN die in a few spots, but luckily you won't have to re-do much, as the automatic saves are well-spaced.  Survival is not dependent on reflexes, it's all about patience and/or moving your character to the right place.

Overall, I enjoyed the game, and think it was definitely worth playing.  It's bundled with a bunch of other games at Groupees right now, and you can get them all for $5 HERE.

Thanks for the great review, Genki! Have you played any of the other games in the bundle? (I did a forum search, but nothing came up.)

I've had Betrayer on my wishlist at Steam for quite a while, and Consortium looks interesting. I'd like to buy the bundle. Consortium has a few bug reports on the Steam forums. I'll wait a few days for new(er) reviews.

Betrayer is on my wishlist, too.  The Mysterious Cities of Gold... I'm sure I have a topic here. *goes to look*  Found it!  It's here:  The Mysterious Cities of Gold: Secret Paths.  I own the Little Big Adventure games on GOG, but haven't had a chance to play them yet.  The Heileen games are visual novels, which vervaine has been enjoying quite a bit!  As for the others, I really don't know, but you can always trade the game codes over at the GOG forums -- just let me know if you need a link to their trading thread.

I thought I might also like Mysterious Cities of Gold when I saw the screenshots and the blurb about it on GH. At least I could demo that one, and I trust that Betrayer will be a solid game from some (or all) of the team behind Condemned: Criminal Origins, which I love! If you haven't played that one, and you like horror-themed FPS (although Condemned isn't really a shooter as the combat is mostly melee with anything you can find to defend yourself, including a blade from a paper cutter), you should check it out. I bought it on GameFly, but I may buy it again during a Steam sale.

I'm not familiar with Heileen games.