Described by developer Serenity Forge as a “romcom adventure game,” Land of Screens is each charming and decidedly extra grounded than equally sentimental video games. While it examines the weighty means of how we construct ourselves again up after struggling a loss, quite than sending gamers down the trail of introspection, it opts to be a bit extra simplistic and ship only one pertinent message: There’s a complete world outdoors your telephone display screen and also you would possibly simply be lacking it. However, in taking this strategy and focusing so totally on this one message, Land of Screens in the end comes throughout a bit too reductive and preachy to ship it as subtly and powerfully because it may.Land of Screens begins as life as Holland is aware of it involves an finish: After 5, lengthy years collectively, her companion has simply referred to as it quits on their relationship. Before she even has the time to course of her emotions and what this implies for her life, Holland finds herself pacing round her bed room occupied with how others will course of the information, and thus begins to seek for the appropriate approach to share the information on social media. As she debates phrase alternative and makes an attempt to search out the center floor between indifferent and devastated, she realizes she’s been tagged in her ex’s breakup announcement, which naturally results in a wave of feedback and dangerous emotions she’d quite ignore.
Desperate for some kind of outlet, Holland racks her mind for somebody she will be able to attain out to. However, it would not take lengthy for her to comprehend that–thanks to being in a snug relationship, her busy work schedule, and the appearance of social media–she’s failed to truly nurture her relationships in a significant approach and feels a bit remoted. Holland in the end decides to pay her ever-accommodating childhood greatest buddy, Cody, a go to, tacking on a fast detour to her already busy weekend full of a piece convention and a household reunion. She rapidly packs her issues and heads over to Cody’s residence, realizing a bit too late she forgot her charger and her telephone is sort of useless.While Holland finds little methods to maintain her telephone simply charged sufficient to succeed in the locations she must go (and be reminded of her breakup), what ensues is a collection of conditions the place she is tasked with getting folks off their telephones so as to foster connections and make folks a bit happier. These occasions take the form of brief, point-and-click journey sections, whereby you need to stroll round a given atmosphere and determine methods to make folks lose curiosity of their tablets, telephones, and imitation Nintendo Switches. Each of the sport’s handful of ranges requires a bit of sunshine puzzle fixing as you discuss with of us and work together with objects in an try to determine what is going to coax them away from the blue mild’s glow. However, these puzzles–along with a lot of Land of Screens–suffer from one main downside: They’re simply approach too simple.Land of Screens’ few puzzles require no strokes of cleverness or shut inspection to resolve. Instead, Holland should merely discuss to folks till they don’t have anything left to say and issues more-or-less work themselves out. While some simplicity is sweet, in the end these duties find yourself feeling like small-scale fetch quests as you click on backwards and forwards between characters.Holland laments about social media.Even extra unlucky is that the sport’s narrative additionally suffers a bit from the identical over-simplification drawback that makes the whole lot really feel a bit too on-the-nose We all know that for all the advantages and conveniences social media, the web, and expertise as a complete supply us, there are simply as many downsides. It’s all too simple to turn into dependent upon your digital gadgets and the validation of people that barely know you–it’s all too simple to commerce in real happiness and your means to reside within the second for the looks of happiness and the flexibility to put up about that second. The entirety of Land of Screens is spent trying to drive that time residence, however sadly the sport would not go about it in a delicate or modern approach. At instances, it feels a bit extra like the sport is lecturing its characters (and also you) extra so than it is reflecting upon the difficulty in a sympathetic and insightful approach.Quite a lot of this stems from the sport’s lack of nuance. All of Land of Screens’ online-obsessed characters come throughout as caricatures, from the selfie-obsessed health bro and dog-loving woman riddled by anxiousness, to on-line trolls and the youngsters on the household reunion who simply will not cease enjoying these darn video video games. In addition, the entire attention-grabbing issues that would have been mentioned about how expertise is a software that may foster real-life connections are left unstated. This is particularly attention-grabbing contemplating Holland makes new buddies on her journey that she intends to maintain involved with through telephone or social media, engages with individuals who use the web to work together with others/discover occasions to attend, and speaks to folks affected by social anxiousness. While the sport’s core message is totally true–we are too reliant on social media on the expense of forming actual connections to our others and ourselves–the approach it goes about speaking about it feels barely belittling.Holland and Nora have a heart-to-heart.There is an simple sweetness, nevertheless, to Land of Screens. A big a part of this comes from the sport’s tender and beautiful vector artwork model, which provides a youthfulness and attraction you possibly can’t assist however admire. The message, whereas not expertly executed, can also be extremely earnest, and Holland’s journey to rekindle her relationships additionally results in some tender moments which may make us rethink our personal strategy to {our relationships} in addition to the place we draw our sense of self-worth from.Ultimately, it’s these interactions that would have elevated the sport and offered extra emotional depth in the event that they had been leaned right into a bit more durable. Rather than spend a lot time forcing background characters off their telephones, it could have been compelling to discover extra of Holland’s inner narrative and relationships along with her household, barely estranged buddies, and her potential new love curiosity. So a lot time was spent strolling round, displaying others the sunshine quite than basking in that heat glow ourselves, a alternative that may have made the sport extra impactful. Land of Screens in the end appears like a predictable-yet-endearing Netflix romcom–though assume extra Love Hard quite than Someone Great.Holland dances at a live performance.