WARNING: This game may make you grimace for minutes at a time. Some of the jokes are.... too painful to bear. I just... I... My face has yet to recover and the pain I felt may be etched into the creases of my frown permanently.

As many others has said, this game is SHORT. At least 1 of the 4.2 hours of the game was spent watching Walkthrough's while I was stuck on a puzzle and another half hour was spent reading the diary pages. However, the story is really interesting and the diary pages are worth reading, if you are one who actually reads for enjoyment. I waited until the Halloween sale and bought the Deluxe Edition for a fair price, so I recommend waiting until it's on sale to actually buy it.

I was a backer of the Kickstarter and I'll admit that I was originally in it for the soundtrack. I wasn't sure what to think about the story and gameplay at first. However, after playing the game I found it a rather enjoyable experience. Certainly a huge step up from the Web-based demo I had played previously. While there are a few things that did frustrate me a bit, particularly the lack of running indoors, those are minor nitpicks when you take into account the positive aspects. The story starts off with a girl trying to find her father and she quickly discovers a mystery at the Willows mansion and her journey takes her delving into a centuries-old tale that tugs at the heartstrings. If you like stories that evoke emotion and make you think then you can't go wrong with this one. Just make sure you pick up all of the notes lieing around for the entire story.

Release trailer looks amazing.

Game is.. not as amazing but worth playing.

Good story, good game mechanics, just a bit short.

Then again, making this game longer might been bad for the story.

4/5

Whispering Willows is a sidescrolling adventure game, driven by its story and atmosphere, about a haunted mansion and the surrounding grounds. It's charming, and can pull you in for a little while, but it's hampered by some cumbersome situations and rudimentary elements. I beat it in five hours, while taking my time, and had a decent amount of fun despite the flaws. There are a few last achievements you can hunt down when you're done, but no real replayability.

The game has very attractive graphics, with nice lighting and glow effects. The ghosts you meet have a cartoony style, but are still depicted with various fatal injuries that add some distinction to each one. I'm not a fan of the cutscene artwork, as it looks a lot more crude and clumsy than the game itself.

The sound is nice as well. Subtle music and eerie ambient noises give each indoor and outdoor location its own feel. Invisible creatures, both helpful and harmful, are signaled by the noise of your character's amulet, or of their own mysterious movements.

The game is played by exploring each area of the mansion. This is a mostly linear experience: talking to ghosts, unlocking doors and collecting necessary items along with documents that gradually tell the game's story. Experiencing new environments and reading the story are really the high points of the game, but toward the end, many of the rooms are bleakly similar to each other, the abritrary size and layout of the mansion leading to some slow backtracking. If you manage to miss something, you'll be plodding around for a few minutes, trying to figure it out, and the feeling of reward when you get it right isn't as satisfying as in some more elegantly built games.

Puzzles are often solved by assuming a spirit form which can pass through openings in walls and ceilings, and manipulate objects like switches or keys. There are a few moments of novelty to this, but compared to some games about changing forms or manipulating your environment, Whispering Willows uses it in a fairly simple and straightforward way. The final scenarios of the game remind me of the game Ghost Trick, but Whispering Willows can't really compare to something like that.

The story is fairly interesting, largely delivered through notes that you pick up. It's fairly easy to find them all, so you probably won't miss out on any details. The story falters a bit near the end, in my opinion, by trying to be a bit more epic than it is, but it reveals some final truths and then wraps itself up without dragging on too long.

In the end, parts of the game shine more than others, but it still all comes together to a decent experience. It can feel slow or annoying in some areas, but I've played worse. If the ghostly atmosphere, solving a few puzzles, and collecting and reading notes and letters to piece the story together sounds fun, you might have a good time with this game; otherwise, I would steer far away from it. Either way, I would wait for a sale. This isn't a game so amazing you just have to play it right now, and $15 is a lot for a short one like this.

I feel like my mom was a dev on this game...... there's a very frustrating "no running in the house" rule

Honestly, I don't really have anything too bad to say about Whispering Willows. It's a fairly short game, but that works in it's favor as the gameplay, story and incredibly slow walking pace does wear thin by the end. It killed a couple of hours and I didn't hate it... best praise I can muster.

That said the current asking price of $15 is VERY hefty for what you get. I cleared it in under three hours and there is little to no replay value for most people. I'd personally recommend waiting for a sale.

playing the game and reading the diary
this kind of game its really nice to play
love it!

HIDDEN GEM!

This game is so great. If you love adventure games this one is just hitting a sweet spot. Not too complex but engaging, with a beautiful art style and simple controls on keyboard or gamepad.

I bought it on a whim and fell in love.

Great game. Full playthrough takes about 2.5-3 hrs if you don't get to in depth with the notes, so I would recommend buying it on sale and not paying to full price.

8.5/10

Pros:
+Story was very well written
+Great artwork
+Controller supported
+Very low chance of dying (Thats a plus for me. :P)
+Casual

Cons:
-Short
-Expensive for how long it is.

This game has absolutely beautiful artwork, a compelling story, and a haunting soundtrack. Strongly recommended for any fans of puzzles, ghost stories, and gorgeous art styles. 4/5

This was a very pretty game, with amazing cutscenes and artwork. In fact, if it was my first time playing this game, the best advice I could be given is to set aside 2-3 hours of nighttime and set to it. The game does an excelent job at creating the perfect atmosphere for what it intends. I think the easiest way to describe the atmosphere is with the word 'eerie', with well timed music and the creaking and cracking of old buildings, the whispers that you think you hear at night all provide an excellent setting. The game is fairly straght forward with the only choice I found myself having to make was which room to explore first.

In my opinion there are a few down sides, first for a game that took me 1.5-2 hours to complete the price is rather steep seeing as there isn't much replayability(having completed it on the first playthrough). Secondly for those who watched the trailers, or have played the game, the black ghosts don't have much of a role in the game. Don't get me wrong, when the black ghosts come its fairly heart racing, but I was just expecting them to appear more often and for my character to have to hide from them in some hole or cupboard(though there seem to be plenty of games with that included already, so maybe less of a downside).

All in all it's a really good game, 2-3 hours worth of play time. Again, since there isn't much replayability I would suggest waiting for the game to go on sale, or for the price to drop a tad.

Even thought it's rather short, Whispering Willows makes sure to get you right into the feel of the game! A must have for those who love platformer games!

Overall, it's a fun game. The story is interesting and you really do feel compassion for the characters but there are some elements of the plot that felt rushed and left a lot of unanswered questions. This is especially true near the end, where a lot of new developments were kind of just thrown out there without getting any proper explanation. Not even a casual "Oh yeah and this is what happened here". Just... nothing. This left the story feeling a bit unfinished, though the depth earlier in the game makes up for this well enough.

The audio in this game is great and definitely helps to give off a creepy vibe that keeps you, at the very least, unnerved. The music, especially, is lovely and fits perfectly with the genre of horror. It's not a terribly scary game when you get down to it, but I'm not really a big fan of super scary games. For me, it had just the right amount of creepy to make me jump and get my heart pounding without actually freaking me out so much that I never open the game again (which has happened a lot in the past).

My only concern with the game is the bugginess of the movement. If you go in one direction for too long the game will get stuck on it and keep you moving even after you've stopped pushing the arrow key. Definitely annoying (and quite terrifying) when you need to turn and run from a monster, but Elena keeps strolling straight for it. The stairs, though not necessarily buggy, could be difficult to ascend when placed right on top of one another, as it was hard to line Elena up in the exact same spot. Neither of these ruin the experience, though, and the game remains an enjoyable one to play. I'd definitely recommend buying it!

This game was a nice break from my usual diet of FPS and character action games. It isn't very difficult. You'll spend most of your time backtracking as you gain access to additional areas in other regions of the game. I found the art style and the story to be compelling. The gameplay is a little flat.

There really isn't a lot to say about this one. The game is good, not great. The horror elements are tonded down quite a bit, so it isn't scary for the most part. The atmosphere is solid, the music is good, and the story and presentation are interesting.

The game is short, took me under 3 hours, but its worth 5 to 10 dollars (probably not full price). It was enjoyable and never overstayed its welcome. If you like adventure games despite the flaws of every adventure game ever, then you might find something to like here.

Met the developers & demo'd this game at Magfest13 (January 2015) and loved it. Bought it on the spot, and I'm so glad I did! Beautiful graphics and solid design/gameplay, really interesting storyline. Highly recommend!

This is a cute little adventure game. I was actually a kickstarter supporter of this project, but like many kickstarter projects, they sound better on paper than they are in execution.

This is not to say this is a bad game. The story is charming, the 2D art is incredibly well drawn, and the music is appropriately creepy. This is Night Light studios' first foray into gaming, and they did a decent job.

The overall experience was lacking in a few areas, however. The puzzles are quite simple, your character is rarely in any kind of danger and there's a lot of backtracking involved. This can get tiresome when considering Elena's plodding walking pace (though I hear a subsequent patch has fixed this).

The game is also quite short. You're looking at about five hours of play, so keep that in mind before you decide to spend your money.

If you're a fan of adventure games, you'll probably like Whispering Willows, but I think that the full price tag is perhaps a little high for this game. I'd recommend putting it on your wishlist and waiting for a sale.

A friend of mine bought this game after I expressed interest in it since the puzzle mechanics looked a lot like the ones in Ghost Trick, and while I did have fun playing the game, there were some difficulties to be had with it.

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

First off, while I didn't run into a lot of glitches in my playthrough, getting Elena up and down stairs was ocassionally finicky when it came to placement, which can get sort of annoying. I also don't understand why the choice was made to have her unable to run around indoors, but that's just me. When Elena loses her powers halfway through the game, it really puts a damper on the fun of it all, not to mention it seems unecessary cop out and sort of ruins the purpose of having the powers as a prominent showcase if you're just not going to use them in the second half of the game. Puzzles involving interesting mechanics like this shouldn't be shoved into the corner for the climax of the game only to be brought out to do one or two things at the end.

Secondly, as far as story goes, the game is a little... lacking. It starts out well enough, and a reversal of the Dad Looks For Missing Daughter trope is always welcome. It even continues fairly well with the way that you were able to help a few of the people who's lives Wadsworth ruined in his mad attempts to speak to his wife again. While I liked that you could reconcile Darby and Skyflower, I had a problem with the fact that Elena couldn't explain to Fleur that Wadsworth was kind of ♥♥♥♥, or that you couldn't find out more about the veritable ♥♥♥♥ing menagerie of ghosts milling about the mansion.

It also makes no sense that Wadsworth is showing her the suffering that he's had to go through in his life, but despite it not really being time travel and basically being projections in his own mind, Elena can still somehow alter events and give him knowledge of what could have happened when none of the characters have a reason to know any of this stuff at all. And in addition to that, after seeing that his own greed and desperation to see Martha again lead to a genocide, the murder of two people he'd loved, and the probable neglect of his son, to have him be able to flit off to the afterlife scott-free (especially since Elena's nonsensical foray into what could have been doesn't actually change the fact that he killed two people and slaughtered her ancestors) is unsatisfying and anticlimactic. While it's all well and good for us to consider the nature of good and evil, setting up the Big Bad of your game as an admittedly realistic portrayal of the attitude taken during Western Expansion in the U.S. and then having it turn out to be some mysterious dark lady-shaped force posessing him for no reason is just disappointing.

Finally, merging those two points, I feel like the game could have been stretched out a little more if the random ghosts had been given little miniquests or something that would allow you to accomplish certain tasks for rewards (e.g. tellings about hte history of the mansion, turning the notes or locations of notes into rewards, making it a little harder to get the keys by having a miniquest needing to be done first, etc.). There could have also been more variety in the puzzles and a more satisfying resolution to the story.

Overall, I do reccomend playing the game, because it's actually pretty short, pretty fun, and Elena is a very likeable character. Even with all the flaws it has, it's still worth a run-through at least once.

Honestly though, if you did like this game, I highly reccomend picking up Ghost Trick for the Nintendo DS. It's an older game that has a similar gimick that it does much better, and it's the reason I picked this up in the first place.

I bought this game because it was on sale and it looked interesting. I really enjoyed the game. Its a simple 2d adventure game that I beat in one sitting. It was more enjoyable than I expected which is always good. Worth a playthrough :)

Whispering willows is a "puzzle horror" indie adventure game where you control elena a girl looking for her missing father in the willow mansion.
She can see and talk to ghosts thanks to her family memento, you encounter several ghosts you help reach rest in order to proceed through the game, the puzzle part is very simple basically you just need X item at Y spot, and they're usually easy to find, there's a few easter egg achievements, and the game is not scary at all.
The graphics are quite nice, i love ghost form elena visuals, the ghosts you encounter usually are mutilated or have broken bones according to how they died.
You can't really die in this game, at some points of the game enviromental hazards will appear but you will respawn in the same room, it can get frustaring though, specially with those spider ghosts and your slow walking speed.
Overall is a satisfying game to play.
The game is about 2-3 hours of gameplay so full price is not recommended, wait for a sale.

Now if you don't like reading much or you hate backtracking large map exploration stuff you wont like this game. but if you love a good read, appreciate in game music and love exploring every inch of a game map/dungeon then this is the game for you. it may be a side scrolled but don't let that fool you. getting a bit lost a part of the game play. also there is a lot of retrieving items for various spirits and its not the easy kind that just lets you go everywhere and get them all at once, no, you have to do things in order and figure out what needs to be done next by listening to the ghosts you run into and reading the notes you pick up. The story is intriguing and the art and character animations are beautifully done. its defiantly and "acquired taste" sort of game. Its not for everyone but i enjoyed it for what it was. A beautifully creepy atmospheric game that makes you pay attention to the little details and explore a fantastically drawn and haunting world with a sad history and a lot of heart.