Traveling to a mysterious world, finding out whats going on, seeing how you can help, solving puzzle sequences to pass scenes and finding out who are the real main characters behind the story were all aspects that kept me going when I was playing Silence by Daedalic.
Story
The game takes place in a mysterious, fantasy world known as Silence. In this land, there has been a tyrannical ruler, known as the False Queen, who has sent out Seekers on the land. These Seekers are known to be feared and dangerous as anybody they attack goes missing. Once you arrive in this world, you meet some interesting characters that will help you along the way with your main companion being your trusty sidekick, Spot; a caterpillar-like creature with rather helpful abilities. It is up to you and your small team to put a stop to the rule of the False Queen and restore the land of Silence to the peaceful, prosperous land it once was! Or is it...
Gameplay
Featuring the point-and-click adventure and puzzle elements, this game is a rather challenging one; both for your patience and your ability to succeed through trial and error. You can hold the space bar, for PC, and it will list out the options of different items you can interact with in the environment screen around you. Through a specific sequence of tasks, you can get through any challenge that gets in your way.
It is a very easy gameplay style to learn how to use, and you will need to know what each character is able to do in order to make sure that not only the right task is done in order, but done properly by the correct character for the section. It is not often you will have multiple characters to choose from during the on-screen puzzles. For instance, Renie is too small and weak for big items while Sadwick is strong enough for most. Your biggest helper, though, will be Spot.
Graphics
The visual aesthetics was very well done! The world truly gave off the vibe of mysterious yet desirable living location. With a mystical land and castle in majority of the backgrounds, a dark and gloomy swamp, and all the other areas drawn the way they were, you could truly feel that you were in another world. The many creatures you find and interact with were pretty interesting looking and definitely showed a creative side of the developers work, that is if the backgrounds and scenery didn't already do it for you.
Replayability
Other than a different ending, this game doesn't really leave you much to want to come and play through it again, however. With the puzzles already known, the story being the same with little to no alteration due to your choices made through the game, and the truth behind the events known, it just doesn't have anything for you to go searching for or find out in a second run.
What Could Be Better
The voice acting in the beginning seems unenthused and didn't make the events taking place seem important; like the section didn't matter and was just put in to be a filler and extend the gameplay further. As the story progressed, the voice acting got much better and the story became more enjoyable when the actual characters seemed to care a lot more about it.
The jokes made by the main character, Sadwick, are rather distasteful and ruin the mood that the game had been portraying up until his oh-so-awful jokes. There are just times that some things are uncalled for and a better one-liner, retort to a statement, or answer to a question would be nothing in more than one occasion in the dialog.
Also, the first main puzzle has you working heavily with Spot, your sidekick. However, there is no instructions or tutorial that shows you what he does or how he can help you. Thus, the guessing game begins. It would of been nice to at least have been shown some examples of what he could do with a small cutscene or even just seeing him do the actions so I can try and see what those actions could do to complete the current puzzle.
Final Verdict
Silence is a decent game with a great story, if you are able to get past the beginning. With an ending that can pull on your heartstrings, even more so if you check out both of them and put the now-known information together, this mystically drawn fantasy world can pull you in, once the twist that comes midway through the game which will make you rethink many aspects that have taken place and look forward to what the rest of the story holds.
