Shadows of the Afterland Review
This fun point-and-click romp offers an amusingly sinister view of the afterlife.
Shadows of The Afterland Title Screen with Menu . Aruma Studios 2026
Aruma Studios’ Shadows of the Afterland uses an alchemical union of humor and fear to investigate an important stage of life, death. A simple point-and-click interface allows adventurers to inhabit a lost soul trying to find her way in a new existence. Her name is Carolina or is it? The memories of her life are confused, and perhaps unreliable. She needs to make sense of them. Through it all she will learn that love transcends death. Adventurers help her navigate the road to this epiphany using a simplified point-and click interface.
The game is fantastically simple to navigate. The interface controls all of Carolina’s actions. Movement, gathering and using items, talking with characters, and saving and loading the game. Left-clicking on a spot on screen moves Carolina to that spot. Pressing the Tab button reveals all the context-sensitive interoperable hotspots.. If the hotspot is an object, Carolina moves over and picks it up. She stores her inventory at the bottom of the screen. Hovering over an inventory object provides its description. Reading it can offer insight into its proper use. Left -clicking on an inventory object selects it for use. Moving an object over a spot on screen and left-clicking attempts to use it. Carolina lets players know if they are successful. One of the actions adventurers compel Carolina to perform is giving objects to other characters. Carolina discovers what they want through talking to them. Left-clicking on a character reveals a list of tropics on the bottom of the screen. Left-clicking on a topic starts a conversation about it.
Saving and loading the game is simple. Adventurers press “Escape” to reveal the menu. They left-click on “Save” to open the save slots. They type a label with their keyboard and hit “Enter’ to save. Loading is simpler. Left-click on a slot and then left-click on “Load.” Shadows of the Afterland has an Auto save system. Its squares are designated with the name “auto.” I enjoyed the game’s flashback feature. When they press “Continue” on the Title-Screen, adventurers are shown a flashback of the important things they accomplished before they last quit the game. It’s a great way for adventurers to acclimate themselves after a break.
This interface allows adventurers to participate in a story that fills the afterlife with sight and sounds and characters who give tasks that propel the story forward. Adventurers will want to explore for hours. My favorite location in the afterlife is the temple. I enjoyed talking to all the spirits passing through it. My favorite location in the living world is the zoo. I liked the bright colors and all the people milling about. Thanks to brilliant sound-design, those people have a voice.
A woman begs to visit the zoo in Shadows of the Afterland Aruma Studuis 2026
Ghosts look for guidance in the temple while playing Shadows of The Afterland Aruma Studios 2026
The sound-design, especially the voice-acting, is beautiful. Every performance is alive with passion and emotion. My favorite character is Carolina. I led her into many situations, and her voice always communicated her emotions appropriately. I enjoyed the interactions between Carolina and her mentor Cesar, they talk through lots of hard things, including what to do about an antagonistic spirit named Damian.
Stopping Damian’s scheme involves solving puzzles. Observant adventurers will be able to solve them without help. My favorite puzzle involves selecting lines from a previously researched lullaby to calm a restless spirit. All adventurers need to do is left-click on the proper lines from the song that they learned earlier. Another puzzle involves using X-ray glasses and chalk to find the code to a secret door. There are also puzzles that require Carolina to possess other people. Once Carolina is trained in possession, adventurers left click on a person to posses them.
Shadows of the Afterland is a wonderful adventure game. Beautiful visuals and sound-design set the stage for thoughtful puzzles, controlled with a simple interface. Taken together they involve adventurers in a beautiful story about love transcending death. Shadows of the Afterland is available on Steam for Windows, Mac, and Linux. A Nintendo Switch port is coming soon.
Score: 10/10