Clues to Elkhorn’s disappearance come from cryptic notes left behind by him, providing insight into his investigation into the mystery of the estate. The counterpoint to the settlers’ stories comes from the notes of Flying Hawk, a shaman of the Elkhorn tribe, who gives his version of the events as the white folk ventured into their territory and set down roots. The creepiest creatures of the lot, however, are a bunch of bony white, chittering, spidery things that scurry about the mansion unless locked up in cages.Įlena learns the history of the estate from the numerous notes scattered about, written by its erstwhile residents: Wortham, his lover Fleur La Rue (a local dancer with whom he had a clandestine affair), and his longtime friend and aide Darby O’Halloran. There are ghosts with mangled body parts, some with knives sticking out of them or their heads half blown off by musket fire, and even a ghost-dog with a peculiar half-skeleton body. These people now inhabit the mansion as ghosts and are illustrated in gruesome detail showing how they died. He eventually emerged from this low point to rebuild his life, but in the process developed an insane, dangerous obsession that cost the lives of many people, including most of the Elkhorn tribe and his own friends as well. He started as a bright young prospector keen to set up a new phase of his life with his beloved wife, but her death on the fateful trip plunged him into deep depression. The story is divided into four chapters based on Wortham’s life. But the soul-sucking backtracking is still there, and along with the already sparse interactivity, it ensures that this otherwise superlative production ends up being exhausting instead of exhilarating. Night Light has since released a ‘Run Elena!’ patch, and now she can run while traversing the estate’s grounds (not indoors, though, because her mother wouldn’t approve), which eases the frustration somewhat. My first run – or more accurately, lazy stroll – through the game took over six hours as Elena moved with all the alacrity of a tween en route to a math exam rather than one trying to save her father from the clutches of evil. There is no sense of tension to match the spooky atmosphere the few inventory-based puzzles are too simple and insipid, and the game quickly becomes an exercise in drudgery as Elena is made to trek across the sprawling estate again and again and again in search of banal items like knives and rags. It’s a lengthy adventure lush with attractive side-scrolling screens and an intriguing backstory of how the West was won by the ambitious Wortham Willows, but falls short of its potential by failing to capitalize on its supernatural premise. Whispering Willows, developed by Night Light Interactive, is suitably titled as solving the mystery of Elkhorn’s disappearance hinges upon Elena deciphering the whispers and echoes of the past, of those who lived – and died – at the estate. Shaken by a frightening premonition of his impending doom, Elkhorn’s young daughter Elena ventures into the malevolent clutches of the estate in a desperate bid to rescue him, thus setting off a chain of events that literally opens up numerous cupboards and crates full of skeletons, and eventually unearths a dramatic saga of death and destruction from a bygone era. The latest is the fate of Elkhorn, the groundskeeper, who has gone missing while tending to the mansion. The Willows estate, once a luxurious haven for a group of white settlers in the Wild West of newly-colonised America, has jealously guarded its secrets over the centuries even as it crumbled to ruin.
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