Review for Slender Threads

Slender Threads by Blyts draws players into a spooky story with an amusingly compelling twist. Its mouse-driven interface, augmented with keyboard shortcuts, transports adventurers back to the point-and-click golden age. Artfully drawn, stylized backgrounds provide settings for uniquely proportioned, well-animated and voiced characters that players hobnob with and investigate. 

The story begins as struggling writer and book salesman, Harvey Green, pulls into the town of Villa Ventana and rents a room at a local hotel. After falling asleep while working on his manuscript, he experiences a macabre nightmare, which shocks him awake. He decides to go for an evening stroll and stumbles upon an active missing person investigation. Emboldened by his nightmare vision, he overcomes his reluctance and sets out to discover who or what is pulling the strings behind the strange events plaguing Villa Ventana.

The lovely, colorful graphics look like a Looney Tunes animated cartoon. The bright colors successfully dilute the sinister nature of the story so that players aren’t overly frightened. In fact, they may laugh out loud when they see the characters who occupy the Slender Threads locales, with their humorously bulbous heads that are too large for their bodies. The best location for lounging around is the pizza shop, where many comically drawn customers crowd together for adventurers to enjoy.

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The sound design brings the game world to life. I appreciated the spooky melody for the title screen, the eerie orchestral music in the forest, and the jazzy tune in the beauty salon. Sound effects increase immersion as birds flap their wings and crickets chirp in the evening air. These details deepen and enliven the experience of playing Slender Threads, but the game’s greatest asset is its voice acting. Harvey, for example, goes from a place of low self-esteem through a tunnel of bravery to a place of exhausted frustration. Although he has the same voice throughout the game, near its conclusion Harvey sounds completely frustrated and angry, as if the trials he endured burned the compassion out of him, taking a colossal toll. 

The challenges Harvey encounters are fun to solve and fit the narrative. They are also responsible for his dramatic personality change. He must perform many spooky and nefarious actions during the course of his adventure. For example: ingesting a questionable fungus, or interacting with his hallucinations to gain an item he needs, or locking an annoying character in a closet without a key, or poisoning the entries in a flower-growing contest, or deciphering a code in a creepy house, or harnessing the wind itself! It’s enough to make anyone undergo a personality transformation.

Unbeknownst to Harvey, players pull his strings using a simple mouse-driven interface, enhanced by keyboard shortcuts. Pressing the S key reveals all the hotspots at Harvey’s current location. Placing the cursor over a hotspot discloses the contextually appropriate action Harvey may take. Hovering over an item may reveal a hand icon; then left-clicking allows Harvey to pick it up. Once he possesses it, Harvey stores the object in his inventory, which is accessed by left-clicking on the briefcase in the upper-right corner of the screen. Items may be examined and combined within the inventory.

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Pressing the right mouse button reveals more choices Harvey may take, including “Look” and “Speak.” Left-clicking on one of these actions triggers it. The “Look” icon provides a description of the current hotspot. Clicking the “Speak” icon on a character activates a topic list at the bottom of the screen. After he procures a map, Harvey can instantly backtrack to any place he has previously visited. The game has a hint system that players may access by pressing H on their keyboard; the hints remind them of their objectives in broad terms.

Sometimes adventurers may find it necessary to take a break during Harvey’s travels. Saved games are labeled by date and time only. There is also an AutoSave feature that automatically saves progress at important junctures. However I was unable to label the saved games, so this procedure did not help to remind me of what I had already accomplished. The ability to type descriptive labels with the keyboard would solve this problem. The game saving procedure is slightly frustrating, but it won’t hamper players’ appreciation for the lovely world of sights and sounds that Slender Threads offers.

Slender Threads is an entertaining, memorable experience that harkens back to the age of classic adventure games. Great voice acting and sound effects invigorate a chilling yet amusingly compelling narrative. Despite a minor inconvenience involving the Save/Load utility, I recommend Slender Threads to all adventurers.