What parents need to know
Asfalia: Anger is a children’s game that involves pointing and clicking items in order to interact with the environment. We control the character of Charlie, a child who wants to play with his dog who unfortunately lacks motivation. Charlie will then get angry and this will have dramatic consequences on his environment.
The player can click on many items in order to pick up objects, talk with characters, observe static objects, get stickers.
When Charlie picks up items, they are placed in his inventory. When these are needed, they are played automatically. There is no need to look for which object corresponds to which situation. You just have to find them in the environment.
Charlie begins in a familiar environment, his house and garden, and will soon be led to travel through an imaginary world, with many fantastic environments and creatures.
The game is built like a tale, a children’s book. It is made to be played alone by the child, or to be shared between child and parent.
It is also the first installment in a series of games. The story is not over at the end of this game. The next episode will be Asfalia: Fear.
The game is fully dubbed in French or English as desired.
Details
Release date: 23 January 2023
Developed by: Funtomata
Published by: Funtomata
Available on: PC (Steam) (tested version)
Game Type: Pointer et cliquer / Point and Click
Themes: Childhood, anger.
Average length of a game: 15-30 minutes
Total game lifespan: 1 hour. A little more if you want to complete everything.
Business model: Need to buy the game once.
Texts and voices available: French and English.
Number of players:
1 online
Available in digital format (download to computer)
Game provided by the publisher for review. It does not influence our opinion.
| Age | Neophytes | Intermediate | Experienced |
| 3+ |  | | |
| 7+ | | | |
| 12+ |  | | |
| 16+ | | | |
| 18+ | | | |
Violence, fear, nudity?
No problem.
Minimum reading level required
Little reading, but it is useful to understand the story and instructions. Dubbing can potentially compensate for the child’s inability to read.
Language level used
Childish.
Positive message
No problem. The main character helps the other characters by solving their problems.
Difficulty
Very easy. Characters constantly remind the player of the next objective, and are given one task at a time.
Minimum mouse execution level required
Don’t require a reflex. Just click where you want at the desired pace.
Additional costs ?
none.
Our opinion
Asfalia: Anger is a beautiful game and a very good start for a first game from the Funtomata studio and a series of games. It is respectful of your time as well, and it can be completed in one or 2 evenings with your child.
The watercolor art direction is very neat and remarkable. The animations are basic but more than enough. The puzzles to solve are simple, and when they get a little complicated, they are solved by talking to everyone, and interacting with all the elements. The player is constantly encouraged to click everywhere, because they are rewarded with nice stickers that they accumulate in their virtual notebook.
The dubbing of the characters is very neat whether in French or English.
Asfalia: Anger is a very enjoyable game that should appeal to children without any problems. We recommend it without any problem.
Our gamer opinion
There are a few small details that don’t spoil the appreciation of the game itself, but for the veteran that I am, I’d like to see these fixed in a future sequel, if possible.
The mouse cursor should change its icon depending on where it is. If it is on an interactive element, it should show it. If it is on a location that makes the player change zone, screen, he should show it as well. Indeed, the player is encouraged to click everywhere, but sometimes the clicks take him out of the screen, and it becomes very frustrating.
Another way to show interactive objects would be to highlight them subtly using a brighter color palette.
It would also take a button to be able to pass the lines of dialogue (already heard or not). Since we do not know where to click, we sometimes trigger the same lines of dialogue repeatedly unintentionally, without knowing that it was the same object.
The game is sometimes sold as educational, but I don’t see the educational value of it. At no point is the character guided in how to handle anger. There is no parental figure, or authority in the game. There are no lessons to be learned from Charlie’s adventure, and since the next episode will focus on the emotion of fear, there doesn’t seem to be a conclusion about anger.
Finally, some dialogues lead to suggest that Charlie will have to solve a lot of new problems, and suddenly everything is solved at once, we do not understand why. There are some inconsistencies, and absurdities in terms of the objects used and the way it is solved especially towards the end of the game. One has the impression that some links between the puzzles and the tables are missing.
As said, I’m nitpicking here, the game is very well done. The biggest flaw is not knowing what is interactive, and what makes you stand out of the screen or not.
More info about the game: Official website of the game
