Given the fact that some of my fondest early memories of playing games on the PC involve old-school adventures (first text-based, and then later the classic point-and-click style), it has been heartening to see the genre return with a vengeance in the last generation. For quite a while it had clearly been written off, and with the lack of mainstream interest, perhaps for larger publishers that was justified. With the emergence of a strong indie development community though, only requiring much more modest returns to be successful, it’s great to see them not only back but thriving.

While we’ve seen adventures through aspects of the afterlife before, most famously represented by the excellent Grim Fandango, Shadows of the Afterland thankfully helps itself out by bringing an odd and fresh take to the table. When your character meets her demise through a very unusual set of circumstances, and seemingly happening beyond her control, she ends up stuck in an intermediary space between the living world and the afterlife. To make things even more confusing, she somehow is possessed by the consciousness of a detective named Carolina, who hasn’t even been born yet. In order to sort this out you’ll need to work through the typical genre process, engaging people in a variety of odd and often humorous conversations, working through some puzzles, and hopefully enjoying the ride.

The highlight here is obviously the mix of the unusual story and some of the great dialogue you’ll bump into as you talk to your fellow former citizens. Both the writing and typically the delivery are solid, which helps give the whole adventure depth and shows some craft on the part of the developers. Some creative puzzles await you as well, some requiring you to possess others, which helps make for a nice change from the norm. Thankfully I’d say most of the solutions tend to be more readily apparent than your typical game in this genre, which is great if you typically get frustrated by the sometimes obtuse logic required you need to work through but perhaps it could be too easy if that’s more your preferred speed. Since, in general, most things work out reasonably well I’d say the biggest complaint would be that it’s over relatively quickly for a game in this genre, though at least at its reasonable price point it feels like a fair value, even better if you could pick it up on sale.