Shadows of the Afterland is an upcoming point-and-click adventure game in development by
Aruma Studios with expected publication in 2024.
The Premise of Shadows of the Afterland
In Shadows of the Afterland, we play in a space between death and life. An incident happens at Madrid’s old zoo, which leads to a mysterious death. A soul is sent to the realm between the world of the living and the afterlife. But its journey is interrupted, and the soul arrives with the memories of Carolina, one of the pioneers of the Madrid police force. The problem is that our incident happened in 1960, and Carolina had yet to be born.
Our job is to follow clues, solve puzzles, confront supernatural forces, and understand what happened, who we were, and whether we can change our destiny.
Gameplay
Shadows of the Afterland is a classic point-and-click adventure reminiscent of the games from the golden era of point-and-click quests. This feeling is reinforced by pixel graphics and the sense of humor imbuing the whole game.
The mouse does all of the controls. We have inventory at the bottom of the screen- if you need to use an item, drag it from the inventory and drop it wherever you want to utilize it. The demo is a brief taste of the game but gives a good idea about the ease of movement – Carolina moves quickly around the screen, and the controls are smooth and responsive. The full game promises to include more locations, as well as the ability to take control of various playable characters using unique possession mechanics.
The Worlds of Shadows of the Afterland
The demo shows us mostly the waystation between the world of the living and the dead. It has its own administrative structure, police of ghost agents, different shops and institutes, and even a gym. Ghosts are seen mulling about making the game world feel populated and alive. Excuse the irony.
The music is quirky and well-suited to the game. The characters are not voiced. That may change in the final version of the game. The dialogue might be a tad difficult to read since it’s in a pixel font, but thankfully the developers have included a dyslexic-friendly font in the settings, which makes things a lot easier.
Shadows of the Afterland has basic audio and video settings, as well as accessibility and dialogue options such as the above-mentioned dyslexic-friendly font and options to change the size of the font.
Some Notes
Shadows of the Afterland will be available for Windows and MacOS. The demo is now on Steam, and the game is expected later this year.
Since the game deals with ghosts in the afterlife, themes of death are part of the storyline. From what I’ve seen in the demo, the game’s overall tone is lighthearted but still with the needed respect for heavier topics.