“The Secrets of Sylvan Gardens”, by Lamp Post Projects is a choice based game; a fantasy, romance, mystery, with perhaps even a little adventure thrown in. “Sylvan Gardens” hasn’t gotten many reviews, which I’m sure is due mostly to its length. The game is one of only two in the competition listed as “more than two hours”. I don’t watch the clock when I play, but I estimate this took me three to four hours, over two days time. The game is professional quality in terms of its scale, writing, original visual graphics, and lovely classical music. I REALLY liked the music (classical compositions, changing with each location) which the blurb says is original music written for this game.
Mild Spoilers
The PC, who lives in a little village called Sylvandale, has recently been troubled by sleepwalking. They find themselves waking up night after night in the local botanical gardens. To help cure the sleepwalking, the PC begins visiting the gardens during the day. The story is presented in six chapters, and lasts over several weeks of game world time. The character is highly customizable in terms of personal characteristics chosen in the early chapters: I role played a half-elf, Bard named “Alex”. But the character is also defined by choices the player makes throughout. I was someone interested in being polite and developing close friendships with the four NPCs who play a major role in the game, but I had no interest at all in devloping a “romance”. Thankfully this game allowed me to play aromantic, which not all romance simulators will. There is so much more driving this story than just the romance aspect.
All five characters (The four NPCs and the PC) have been cursed in some way; three have been cursed by magic, and one has been cursed by the selfish choices made by the garden’s wealthy founder (a wizard) many decades before. The PC is cursed by his sleep walking, which also turns out to have a magical origin. In the game I played, all five characters aligned to lift all of these curses. Other endings may be possible, but I got the feeling that many of the most significant choices are reserved for the last chapter.
In the version I played, I reseeded the forest for the original inhabitants of the land, driving away the more recent immigrants in the process. I also betrayed one of my companions by determining to become a wizard myself, using the founder’s library as my training resource. I don’t know if these were the most noble choices I could have made, but they were mine and I was rewarded with a lengthy epilogue describing the results of my decisions. I might come back later to try one of the alternate paths, but right now I feel I’ve completed an epic adventure and need some time away to process it.