In a screen-dominated world where games fight over which has the most content or longest campaign, Land of Screens was a breath of fresh air. Land of Screens is a charming point and click/visual novel. The story starts off with the main character, Holland, getting dumped by her boyfriend of five years, Brian. Holland is having a bad time relaxing once she finds out that Brian has posted this break up on social media. In an attempt to make herself feel better and distract herself from the comment section, she calls her old best friend from High School, Cody, and the adventure begins from there. From being somewhat of an anti-phone/screen person myself, this game really hit home for me. The gameplay in itself is pretty simple, all you really need to do is move the main character around and interact with the people around you. After Holland’s anxiety peaks from social media and losing her phone charger, she decides to find ways in every scenario to get people off of their phones.

The presentation is great, and the art design is great in its simplicity. The character design really sticks out as they are flat images on a 3D background. It almost reminds me of a more modern looking Paper Mario game. The characters move fluently and the animation is top notch. There is a fixed camera angle perspective where you can only go left, right, forward, or back somewhat like an old beat ‘em up game. As far as the story goes, I thought it was really well written. I was laughing out loud at some of the things the characters were saying and I was into it for the entire two-hour anti-phone adventure. The quest of finding ways to lure people away from their phones in each chapter is very endearing. For example, at one point in the game you end up at a concert where you have to convince fans of the band to put their phones away or the band won’t play a very special acoustic encore! You even get to settle an online battle on a message board for the band that is happening between two people only a few feet away from each other! It’s really interesting how they get you into a situation in each chapter where you have to separate people from their phones.

The major negative (or maybe positive) thing about the game is that the length is fairly short. Some of my favorite games are 100+ hours and I find it very hard to finish any of them because of that. Sometimes games of that size can overstay their welcome, but Land of Screens feels just right. The price of the game fits the size at its budget price. For me, every chapter was the right length and felt important to the story. It was a great modern tale of trying to find human connection again after everyone in each scenario has been taken over by their screens, which feels like it’s becoming a fairly universal theme.

Should you find yourself looking for something to take you away from your own mobile screen (not the Switch screen, of course), give Land of Screens a look. It is on the short side, but the story is heartfelt and incredibly charming. You can play through any of the chapters a second time if you so choose, even though there isn’t much of a reason to do so. I could only think of a couple of times where you can make a choice in the game and the only thing it would affect is a handful of dialogue responses. As far as I know there aren’t any alternate endings, so there isn’t much of a reason to play through it again. It did leave me interested in the other games from the publisher already available on the eShop. If you are looking for a chill, short, impactful game with a great story, Land of Screens comes highly recommended.