Before getting started, I’ll openly admit that titles I review that are heavily story-based, without much in the way of compelling play to support them, don’t tend to be something I enjoy. I’d consider outright visual novels to be at the lowest end of my interest spectrum, at least those that are heavily focused on style over substance and that leave players no agency to really change their course. As the underlying play or the ability to influence the outcome improves, so does my opinion generally. With The Mildew Children I’m a bit more challenged than normal though, as I can see that there are opportunities to likely affect the outcome, and there’s at least an attempt to “game-ify” the experience in some way… but since I struggled to connect to the narrative the experience fell apart a bit anyway.

There’s no question that the central story, set in a community full of only children, has the seeds of being interesting. For one, you’re immediately left to wonder about how this happened initially and then how their society has managed to organize itself, having read stories like Lord of the Flies and others over time. Thankfully, at least in terms of getting pieces of the puzzle, it doesn’t take too long to sort of enter the flow of traffic in the middle of things to begin trying to put that picture together.

But, for me, that’s also where the trouble begins. Very honestly, with the characters and their early interactions you start out with, I was pretty well completely lost. I was reading quite a bit of paganistic mumbo jumbo, but initially when some more dire things began happening I was too confused to be shocked, because I had yet to be at all invested in any of it. Making decisions, including ones that felt like they would carry consequences, was a bit of a mess, because I had yet to really get my bearings. Perhaps that’s the intent, and the idea is that I’ll be pulled into the thick of things, but for me that more drove me away. Throw in what, to me, were mini games and some adventure elements that felt more like going through the motions to create gameplay than well-conceived and meaningful, and it fell a bit flat.

All in all that leaves me torn on the experience as a whole. It absolutely has elements that work, and if you’re drawn into the story the way it is told you may find it fascinating. That said, you’d also need to tolerate the pretty weak gameplay elements that are at least present (to its credit for trying to be more) but don’t always clearly work in the game’s favor. If you find the mystery and the promise of some brutality in this children-run society intriguing it may be worth a look, just be ready for what could be a rocky start.