In "Whispering Willows" you play as Elena, a young girl looking for her missing father. All we know is that he disappeared while working at the Willows Mansion. Along the way, you discover that you are capable of leaving your earthly body, through your amulet, to another realm, where you can communicate with spirits and possess objects.

• The gameplay knows how to take advantage of it: to progress you have to change between "realms", talk to all kinds of ghosts and interact with objects. However, there are not many puzzles to solve and they all are quite easy (there's an image with the solution always nearby).
  
  
• All the characters (ghosts included) are beautifully drawn. The artwork is amazing but is in the characters where it shines the most.
  
  
• The soundtrack is very fitting for this game's atmosphere.
  
  
• Although almost every aspect of this game is great, it's the story that comes on top. Sure, the atmosphere is eerie but you can only fully experience it if you talk with every character and, most important of all, if you read all the notes you find throughout the game. They help provide a more immersive experience. So, if you play the game, take time to read all the notes, they'll help you understand not only what happened but what is happening too.

The game also has its faults:
- loading/saving screen takes more time than it should;
- the pose Elena takes after leaving her body does not make sense (she should fall on the floor). Although, having to get up every time you came back to your corporeal body, would take longer and could get bothersome.

The game isn't very long. You can complete it in a few hours even if you read all the notes.

Whispering Willows is a beautiful game. Unfortunately, it's true only if you use 'beautiful' as a word for 'very pretty' or 'extremely pleasant to look at'.
The gameplay and puzzles are repetitive and boring. The story and writing are mediocre. You're looking at, give or take, 3 hours of walking past gorgeous backgrounds, listening to a decent soundtrack, doing same things over and over, solving a few childishly easy puzzles, dying maybe 2-4 times, hardly ever getting scared or actually caring about any of the characters.

Games like this are hard to judge on face value alone. When you take more common, action oriented titles, it can be easier to tell from just a minute or two of uninterrupted gameplay footage if a game is going to be worth your time or not. But slower paced, narrative focused titles, like Whispering Willows, are considerably harder to figure out from just viewing a short trailer. Games like this are driven by their quality of narrative and puzzle design. Does the crisp and whimsical imagery evident in WW’s screenshots affirm a similarly elegant literary and brain teasing experience? Unfortunately, no, not even close. But Whispering Willows is still an endearing first effort by fledgling studio Night Light Interactive, even with the game’s numerous flaws. In fact, it’s more what the game doesn’t try to do that is most disheartening.

I’ll begin with the most egregious error this game makes: the quality of narrative. The story is thus: young Elena’s father has gone missing, and has been for some time. After waking from a particularly vivid nightmare of her father being held captive by something, she races to an old, decrepit mansion, of which her father is the groundskeeper. She soon meets the ghost of her ancestor, who teaches her of her heritage, and of her innate ability to leave her body and walk the earth as a spirit, allowing her to commune with the ghosts of those who have yet to pass. What follows is a supernatural tale of loss, deceit and the darkness that festers within.

In truth, the narrative plays out like cross between a darker Goosebumps tale with bits of Clive Barker’s grotesque imagery. This is partly due to the art style; it just doesn’t convey feelings of foreboding and fearfulness that I believe the narrative wants to. Worse, the story takes virtually no risks. But what really hurts the experience is the quality of the dialogue. Throughout the adventure, you will speak with the deceased, and often be asked to find items of importance to them to progress through the story. The dialogue that occurs here is just, well… the best thing I can call it would be, “serviceable”. The dialogue is so often uninspired and plain that it would keep me from really caring for any of the characters’ plights.

I feel I’ve spoken enough on the negatives of the narrative, so let’s move on to the disappointment of the game’s main mechanic, your spirit form, and the weak puzzle design dependent on it. The lack of pluralization is not a mistake, Whispering Willows’ mechanic of Elena’s spirit form most often offers only a single type of puzzle throughout the game. You will come across locked doors, and you will either need to pick up a poorly hidden key or flip a switch. Usually, this means that there is a finely carved, perfectly square hole in the wall or ceiling near to you for your spirit form to slink through. Do so, and there will be a bright blue glowing thing for you to interact with. This interaction opens the door. This is how nearly every “puzzle” in WW plays out. I can only think of a handful of individual puzzles that do not play out in the same way, though they themselves were no more complex than filling a hole or playing Simon Says with a moveable object. The simple puzzle design falls in line with the game’s progression; it’s largely linear, with nary a handful of instances where you will have to seek out an item outside of the area you’re already in. Even then, though, the item’s location is always spelled out for you, so this is really no more than a mode of adding longevity to this short adventure. And it is short. In total, I completed the game in under three hours.

Whew, that was a lot of negativity. How about we move on to the more positive aspects of Willows? Speaking purely of the in-game graphics and art style, my opinion is decidedly varied. On one hand, the environments that you explore never amount to anything special, and much like the dialogue, they are content with remaining largely serviceable. The same can be said for the few human characters in-game, who, along with some stilted animations, look oddly plain. This is in stark contrast to my favorite portion of the game, the ghost designs. Their visages reflect how they died, and their appearances range from the grotesque to cringe inducing. Their designs are absolutely phenomenal, and it’s evident where the best of the artistic talent went in the creation of this game. The same can be said for Elena’s own spirit form, whose flowing hair and glowing visage look fantastic, especially in the light of the full moon in outdoor areas.

While the dialogue between yourself and haunting spirits itself does the overall narrative little favor, your interactions with the ghosts of the mansion’s grounds are enriched by the previously mentioned collectible notes scattered along your path throughout the game. Each is one of several diary entries left by the formerly living, and each tells a tale of their final days. While few of them are terribly unique in their subject matter, finding that final piece of each story provided me a greater driving force for playing than the main narrative itself.

As negative as this review has been, the greatest fault I can levy against this game is not what it does poorly, but rather in what it does not even attempt to do. Given all that has already been done with a similar ability in other games, why is Elena’s spirit walking ability as limited as it is? The game is content with delivering only the most lackluster and plain variation possible. And the dialogue... in an adventure title such as this, gameplay often takes a backseat to the narrative. Only, in this case, both aspects are severely limited in their designs. If the sole gameplay mechanic is to be as limited as it is, why was the dialogue not given greater love, to compensate? The game is so filled with potential, and occasionally, this potential appears as though it’s so near to bubbling to the surface, only to be pushed back down below by weak interactions and the umpteenth recycled door “puzzle”.

I did not hate my time with Whispering Willows. Though admittedly, my want to love it so completely has perhaps made me more critical of its faults. I’ll leave it at this: Whispering Willows, for all of its promise, is content with providing only an unenthusiastic effort on its part. For every glimmer of something fresh and unique, of which there are a few, Willows buries it under less-than-uninspired dialogue and consistently recycled puzzle design. I beat the game, with all of my fumbling, in under three hours. By the end, my only thoughts were on what could have been, had this game taken just a little more risk, rather than on my final moments with Elena. There just isn’t enough content or thought put into Whispering Willows to make it fully recommendable.

6.5/10

I liked the art style very much, it was just beautiful, the story was good but i must say, i wasn't a big fan of it.
Some people described this as 'horror', i didn't feel it was one, i thought of it as a puzzle, with the nuances of a psychological
horror and an adventure game, obviously, maybe that was just me.
The music although good, somehow doesn't really feel part of the game (Maybe because of a lower volume overall)
This game might not bring you something new, something fresh, something you've never seen before, but it's certainly a very good game that definitely will be worthy of your time.
Except for the menu where i encountered few small bugs, everything worked smooth, and everything is polished.

To be mentioned: The game is a bit short, only around 3 hours, so you if you're into longer games, you might be a bit unhappy with the playtime this offers.
If you can get this on sale, i believe you'll be very happy with it.

Whispering Willows is a nice adventure game, with a lovely art style and some challenging puzzles. The story is straight-forward and not very imaginative, but it does the job.

Bear in mind that it will last for about 2-3 hours, and there's no reason to play it again (apart from the usual achievement hunting).

If you can get it at a discount and like adventure games - I'd recommend you try it.

In whispering Willows the protagonist is on a mission to find her missing father, who is a groundskeeper at the spooky old mansion because and she fears that a supernatural
force has taken him hostage.

Whispering willows is a horror themed graphic adventure game where you control Elena as she explores the haunted mansion and surrounding properties while most kids her age would be too scared to search through the ghost filled house .


Elena knows she has a secret weapon up her sleeve, actually it's around her neck, her stylist necklace allows our fearless hero to make contact with the other side. Having the necklace give the players the ability to turn Elena into a ghostly version of herself, now she is able to interact with dead people and squeeze through small openings.

You will solve puzzles by taking control of inanimate objects and locating items that would
normally be out of reach, these two forms should be all Elena needs to make it to Whispering Willows safely. When she is not solving puzzles, Elena will spend a lot of time tracking down notes and diary pages.

Keeping track of where the doors leave ends up being the most challenging part of Whispering Willows. It doesn't take long for the game to introduce enemies to avoid, but it never turns into an action game. With the exception of the necklace our hero is always vulnerable and unable to fight off otherworldly attackers, but this never proves to be a problem since most part of the game is about solving puzzles and uncovering the mysteries of the mansion.

Even a simple thing like opening a door is done really well, music and sound effects are well put at moments of high tension in the game or when there is some kind of dramatic event appearing on screen. Its runtime is pretty short and is a linear game as well, once you have played through the game once, you will know exactly what you have to and there is simply no variation between playhroughs.

We will learn about a family stricken with death and sorrow as well as a serial killer who still haunts these grounds, while the story is well-written and full of interesting characters, it has a lot of familiar twists and turns, the quest is presented as a side-scrolling adventure game, which can get a little confusing if you aren't paying attention. The mansion is filled with locked doors and mysteries to solve, sending Elena out to dig through the guest house.

I could accept the Whispering willows isn’t very scary and the ghost story is far from original but puzzles usually involve pushing a box or moving a table, even the more challenging brain teasers give the answers away seconds before the puzzle starts, few enemies to dodge and simple puzzles to solve.

It is also possible to die in the game at certain points, but there is no penalty for that because the game saves at the transition of every location, so if you do die by one of the handful location where is possible you don't lose any progress so you just basically try again.

Whispering willows is a engaging graphic adventure, Elina is a likable character and I'm a big fan of the way each ghost looks. And being a game like in an "easy" mode make this a good entry point for those new to the graphic adventure genre.


Whispering willows is beautiful and backgrounds are gorgeously and drawn, and the attention
to details is obvious but I wish the developers would have spent more time creating more challenging puzzles.

Pros:
Lot of languages available
Difficulty friendly, puzzles will be easier for both experienced and no experienced users

Cons:
Only has one story mode and once you complete it there is no many reasons to go through the game once more.

I don’t normally complain about the names of the achievements, but in this the game is a little egregious, here is a character desperately trying to rescue her father, so seeing Ghostbusters joke takes me completely out of the story.

Rating:
I'm going to give this an excellent 8 out of 10, because what you do get is a high quality
product for your money, a well written and constructed story that makes definitely worth for its price.

How much gameplay do you expect from your games? It's a salient question in this post-Greenlight age, with many games offering impressive gimmicks and visuals propped up by only an hour or two of gameplay. Whispering Willows is just such a game, a no-frills adventure game with some charming graphics and a neat mechanic that's over before you know it.

You play Elena, the Native American daughter of a groundskeeper at a super spooky mansion. He disappears, you gear up to find him, and the next thing you know you're in the ass-end of some pretty dire catacombs. Like I said, it's an extremely straight-forward side-scrolling adventure game with notes to find, keys to collect, and notes to read. The one gimmick is astral projection, which releases your fabulously-coiffed soul to roam, slipping through tiny cracks, moving mundane objects, and talking to dead people. This mechanic develops one or two additional uses over the course of the game, and is pretty fun to dink around with, since there are no living NPCs.

Game flow is clear and steady, for the most part. There's no map but the mansion and its environs are usually simple enough to follow to your next objective. The hand-drawn graphics are delightful and well-animated, though I must admit the horrific condition of the spirits you encounter clashes a bit with the lighter, kids anime art style. The story rides a fine line between dark and silly and I was engaged the whole time, it's just that the whole time was about 90 minutes. It's a short, short game and if you like the simple gameplay, you'll surely be left wanting more. I'm glad I didn't Kickstart it, but if you pick it up on sale it's a charming little adventure and I can't knock it for anything but its length.

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 (so 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 :p ) 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 an odd feeling to be drawn into an experience designed to haunt you in as beautiful and elegant a way as Whispered Willows. The exquisite hand drawn art combined with a dark, supernatural overtone almost seems to jump out of the screen toward you, rattling your bones but demanding your attention. Dig a bit deeper though, it becomes rather apparent that Night Light Interactive’s ghost story relies quite a bit more than it should on smoke and mirrors, eschewing compelling mechanics for comparable but uninspired design, which is less a disappointment because the end result is a menagerie of excellent and mediocre components, and more because of what it could have been.

Elena Elkhorn is a rather troubled young girl. Plagued by visions of her missing father, she embarks to the Willows Mansion in hopes of finding and saving him from the horrors she sees in her dreams. As it would happen, the lands the mansion are built upon exude a powerful spiritual energy, which Elena has the power to control through her family’s amulet, allowing her to project her spirit out of her body to help her on her way. Doing so quickly unveils that the mansion has a dark history, that only the spirits of the dead can still recount.

If this sounds a bit haphazardly contrived and thrown together, it’s because Whispering Willows does about as good a job introducing its characters and plot as I just attempted to. Vast portions of the narrative are taken without question or explanation, told through brief exchanges in dialog that fail entirely at turning any character into anything but a blank slate intended to advance the plot, or allowing the narrative to grow past the predictable first layer. It feels rushed and thoughtless at the best of times, and painfully written at the worst (which the cheeseball of an ending would be part of), like a book that’s had all but the most crucial parts removed.

Contrasting this though (and making the previous paragraph all the more complexing), is the rich backstory presented in the notes you find scattered throughout the grounds. Written mostly in the form of diary entries, they do far more to flesh out the story than anything of the dialog, creating a series of interconnected tales that all eventually fold into the present day. They are also responsible in invoking the surprisingly sinister nature of the plot, which begins as little more than a depressing history lesson but evolves to a supernatural downward spiral of one man’s grief and his tireless determination to remove it, whatever the cost.

As you make your way through the grounds of the mansion (and eventually venture inside), Elena’s power to enter spirit form come into play for more than talking to ghosts, allowing you to posses certain objects and move them from afar. It’s a mechanic with great potential, but I was a tad disappointed that for being a large part of the narrative, it’s used sparingly during actual navigation and puzzle solving. Whispering Willows also suffers a great deal from including far too much “dead space”, which is to say rooms and environments that serve no purpose but to turn you around and pad out the experience. They also caused me to get lost on a continuous basis, as with no hint or objective system there is little in the way of player direction.

Whispering Willows’s biggest asset by far is its mesmerizing art design, gorgeously hand drawn and filled with character. It sets the tone for the experience while leaving enough color and childlike charm to keep from crushing you under the weight of its own wickedness. Some animations are clumsier than they could have been, and the cutscenes unfortunately plagued by slowdown (hopefully a bug that will soon be patched), but otherwise I was enthralled by the vivid look of the game and desperately hope any future projects by the developers will continue to use it.

Whispering Willows is a flawed experience salvaged partially by the character present in its art design and lore. The conflicting qualities of its parts result in an uneven but not entirely worthless adventure, but one in dire need of polish and a better editor to scrape it all together into something more cohesive. I enjoyed my time at Willows Mansion, but find it difficult to recommend with sincerity to another. It has me hopeful for what the developer does next, but not entirely sure they accomplished much with their first attempt.

Full disclosure: Whispering Willows was reviewed using a copy of the game provided by the developer.

Guys, I felt a little bit bad. I'm gifting a key for this game on Steamgifts and I saw that I didn't review it! But many months have passed since I enjoyed it :(
It's really an awesome adventure in my opinion, both scary and deep, with many twists.
There's a great balance of exploring, adventure, riddles and puzzles and in my view the story is great too! It's full of romance, of horror themes (but it never becomes too frightful or scary fortunately ^^), of many character's backstories intertwining between themselves and the more general plot. It's really well-realized!
Plus, graphics are stunning and I really love this style, both for what concerns the exploration environments and the character sprites, the ghosts and everything you'll encounter!
So, take your time as Elena, the main character, and talk multiple times with everyone, transform yourself and keep on exploring everything - it will be worthy from the beginning to the end.
Maybe the price is a little bit too high (I think I bought it on a 2017 Steam sale, 10€/$ are too much 'cos you'll spend maybe 4 or 5 hours here but they're greatly spent trust me ^^) but really, this game in my opinion is one of the best indie (i'm stressing of course the fact that it's an indie game, so you can't expect a 100-hours adventure xD) exploring/puzzle/adventure games, with lots of work put both in the graphic compartment and in the story itself, with everything in its right place - especially when it comes to your main character and everything she will be able to do!
I'd definitely recommend this title to anyone, if you like point n' click adventures, puzzle games, games based on exploration with great graphics (and music) and so on.. it's really awesome for being an indie game!
Have fun with Whispering Willows, you won't be disappointed!