Steam Review Code Provided by Serenity Forge
The latest release from developer Serenity Forge and publisher Way Down Deep is a point and click game called Land of Screens. It’s essentially a playable Public Service Announcement (PSA) about the negative side effects of spending too much time on social media. When I first signed up to play this game it wasn’t lost on me that it asked the question, “What if we spent less time looking at screens?” while using a medium that requires a screen to enjoy. Despite the irony, I wanted to withhold judgment until I got the chance to play it, hoping it might surprise me. Unfortunately, it didn’t.
Story
We play as a young woman named Holland who has just gone through a very bad breakup with her boyfriend Brian, after five years of being together. Seems like a long time, right? It would make sense for Holland to be completely devastated. But she seems more concerned by what people are saying about the breakup on social media, rather than trying to figure out what to do with herself now that she’s single. And while that is the point of the game, an exercise in breaking free of the hold our phones have on us, there’s something almost hollow or unfinished about her character.
The goal of the game is to guide Holland through awkward interactions and small talk with strangers in her valiant attempt to stay offline while the breakup blows over. The game is split into chapters, each chapter focusing on a specific event taking place over the course of a busy weekend. When she goes to a friend’s house to vent about the breakup, only to find an entire “Welcome Home,” surprise party waiting for her, it’s the player’s job to help her re-connect with friends she hasn’t seen since high school.
Gameplay
There’s not much to talk about when it comes to gameplay. You use your mouse to click on objects or characters you want to interact with and hope that Holland doesn’t get stuck on an object in the environment on her way there, which did happen to me quite a few times while I played. There are some puzzles in the game that require you to find the right strategy to getting a character off their phone but nothing you would need a walkthrough to figure out.
Audio and Visuals
The audio and visuals are the high points of this game. Especially the visuals. Land of Screens is done in a charming vector style with a calming but still fun color palette. It reminds me of corporate stock vector art, but with an actual personality. There’s an attention to detail present in the way that characters’ expressions will change based on what is being said to them and the few environments we get to see are well-crafted. The music doesn’t stand out, but there’s something clever about the way the game emphasizes the digital clickity-clack of fingers tapping away at screens at one point in the game when Holland finds herself at a concert with an unenthusiastic crowd.
Replayability
The game is quite short, and unfortunately not very memorable. We don’t get to spend much time with any of the characters, and the writing isn’t powerful enough to drag me back for another playthrough. You’d be better off checking out the rest of the games in the Serenity Forge library.
What Could Be Better
A game like Land of Screens with very little actual gameplay needs to be driven by a powerful narrative, and unfortunately, that’s just not present here. Holland feels like she’s going through the motions. Everything is a little too easy for her to get over or figure out. Most of the other characters we meet are quite shallow, which only becomes more noticeable the longer the game goes on. I think if the team had cut one or two locations and given us more time to get to know fewer characters, they might’ve been able to dig a little bit deeper into Holland’s head.
Verdict
While the game is cute and easy to get through, it doesn’t have much else going for it. The message it tries to send is one we’ve all heard before, and the solution it offers, “Just get out there and chat people up!” rings especially hollow when many of us are still choosing to stay home because, you know, there’s a global pandemic going on. I’m not mad at the game, it does have charm and the dialogue got a chuckle out of me every now and then, but I wanted it to be more than it ended up being.
