Thank you Wood Cabin Games for providing us with a review code!

Letters of War tells the true story of a British soldier named Liam who fought in World War II. Liam is the developer’s great grandfather, and their grandmother is Liam’s daughter, Rosie. When World War II started, it got a little too close to home for Liam and despite his wife (Catherine) and daughter’s objections, he volunteered to fight to keep his family safe.

Whenever Liam is able, he writes letters to his family, and they reply back. Letters of War plays like a point and click adventure where your character can acquire and interact with various items. As you grab items and the story progresses, the option to read about their historical significance will become available.

Throughout the five acts there are several mini-games that are often war-themed. Liam will have to chop wood, mine ore, throw grenades, and shoot down enemy tanks/airplanes. Rosie has a few tasks to do as well, including baking some treats and mending a war pigeon’s wounded wing.

The 2D visuals are charming and colorful. Most of the animations looks good though there were a few rough edges here and there. For example, the lip syncing is a bit off.

The background music definitely shows the game’s inspiration from Valiant Hearts. The voice acting is hit or miss. While Rosie’s voice acting is great, other characters are not as convincing with their lack of accents.

From a technical standpoint there are some shortcomings worth noting. I recently got an ultra widescreen monitor and there’s a game-breaking glitch that the developers are aware of and are working on a fix. I got around the issue by manually copying my save over to my laptop. Sadly, there is no Steam Cloud support. Like many adventure games, the primary control scheme is mouse and keyboard. As a result, the Steam Deck may not be ideal for this title.

Since this game takes place during World War II, violence is a given. Blood is shown and violence is in self-defense. On the flipside, Liam is open-minded and kind to an enemy soldier. After hearing the German soldier’s story, Liam realizes that not all of the soldiers have a choice in fighting and they become good friends.

The asking price is a reasonable $6.99 for a little over three hours of gameplay. The story is touching and worth experiencing. However, I would recommend waiting for a patch before playing this game if you have an ultra widescreen monitor.