The Town of Light Reviews
Explores a hard-hitting, if somewhat familiar story in gorgeous visuals without quite offering enough in terms of gameplay.
The Town Of Light is an atmospheric horror game set in the 1930s-40’s and explores the horrors of mental illness and pre-professional health care. The game has no zombies or action, but instead follows along something like Dear Esther or one of the “walking” simulators. The game takes place in Italy and features native voice acting, as well as english to deliver the heavy narrative which follows Renee’ as she struggles to find what is real what isn’t. Moving through several locations and exploring the now abandoned mental institution showcases different aspects of how someone can remember something in opposition to actual events.
The Town of Light, by LKA.it and Wired Productions is a first person story driven game that tells the chilling tale of Renée as she returns to her former home, the Volterra Psychiatric Asylum located in Tuscany, Italy, where she had spent much of her youth.
Although it is not for everyone, The Town of Light is unique. It is a serious game that is deliberate in its storytelling and design choices, and it is purposely looking to provoke an emotional response in the player, as it tells Renée’s story of being confined to an asylum. It has some technical issues and text size issues that can pull you out of the story, but the ending will leave a strong impression on anyone with an ounce of empathy.
Uneven, bleak and unflinching. You won't enjoy it, but it's one of a kind.
However, even if you're one to stomach these triggers in some way, you must also be open to the power of storytelling over gameplay. If you're looking for a jump-out action packed horror game, The Town of Light is not for you. But I urge you to open your mind and consider it a separate learning experience.
The Town of Light explores the most terrifying horror that exists, the kind man perpetuates on others on the basis of false beliefs and prejudices.
The town of light does some really unique and innovative things for the horror genre but its adventure game aspects are simultaneously mundane and confusing. Still, its real-life horrors stick with you longer than the more fantastical and gruesome images that are commonly seen in other games.
A different kind of horror that could have been much better without its technical flaws and a bit more freedom.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
This exploration of Volterra and its practices by first-time Italian developer LKA is a gruelling, uneven but ultimately worthwhile trek through the peeling corridors of an all too real place. The story follows Renee, a young woman who was committed at Volterra shortly before World War II, as she returns to the hospital's abandoned husk decades later. While Renee herself is a fictional creation, her experiences are a patchwork of real-life patients pieced together from director Luca Dalco's extensive research. You are tacitly cast as a voice inside Renee's head, whom she talks to and questions as you explore the hospital, trying to piece together and make sense of her experience.
The Town of Light is a powerful experience that highlights a fascinating, if chilling, chapter in human history. The heavy atmosphere is achieved through the very real setting of Volterra, and Renée's unfortunate tale of life inside its walls that represents the woes of many real people. The story meanders a little too far into obscurity and can become confusing, and some long load times scupper things further. While you won't necessarily have fun in the traditional sense, it's worth playing if you're at all interested, as it contains some striking sequences that will stay with you long after you finish.
You'll remember the story long after the game has finished, but you'll likely forget how you got there.
Genuine creative potential, but lacks polish
The Town of Light sounds like an interesting interactive adventure from the outset however it suffers from a story that is terribly told and a gameplay that feels archaic forcing you to motivate yourself to finish the game.
Even though The Town of Light fails at any sense of creating a compelling gameplay experience, it does do a fantastic job of illustrating the difficulties individuals face with metal health problems, even if it does focus on the past and how such cases were handle.
I encourage you to play The Town of Light, just don't say I promised you an easy ride.
Using various narrative and visual devices, The Town of Light serves as an interactive historical textbook. With roughly 2-3 hours of gameplay, it covers a lot of ground in a short amount of time, yet its execution seems to cloud its intention.
Overall, there is a lot of merit for a game that deals with a tricky heartfelt subject matter. That puts it into a very rare category of games. As a gaming experience it is frustrating, has no variation in pace and I’m not sure how successful its outcome is.
The Town of Light is a fascinating if unsettling story that is seen through the eyes of a sixteen year old girl. The visual style is unique if not fantastic, with a thick atmosphere that is held back by limited gameplay. This is an adventure game that can fall into the walking simulator category for the most part, which allows you to explore - but at a pace that is going to be too slow for some gamers. There is some payoff here however, for the patient who are willing to survive not just the tale, but some technical challenges along the way as well.
Whilst The Town of Light remains an atmospheric experience from start to end thanks to its fantastic yet harrowing location, the narrative elements don’t quite match up in quality. Renée’s tale has a lot of potential to offer an emotional trip through the treatment of mental patients back in the 1940s, but instead feels slightly fragmented and convoluted. Don’t get me wrong, it has its moments where it shines and you’ll genuinely feel absorbed by what’s going on, but then it’ll quickly move to another scene that’ll leave you a little baffled. I wouldn’t say The Town of Light is a bad game by any means, but I was left a little underwhelmed by it. There’s so much potential here thanks to the genuinely disturbing subject matter, but instead The Town of Light feels like just another average ‘walking simulator’ to add to the ever growing selection.