Sadwick goes for a walk in a nearby forest and meets Bobby, a Chaski, messenger of the King. Bobby is heading to Corona, the royal castle, to deliver a powerful artefact, the Whispering Stone, to the king. He claims the end of the world is near and that the land is already breaking apart and that the Asgil, a hideous horde of underground creatures, are surrounding Corona. He tells Sadwick he has been unsuccessfully seeking an oracle named Shana who may have advice on shortening his trip, and he asks Sadwick to help him find her. Sadwick believes that maybe she could interpret his nightmares and convinces Bobby to give him the Whispering Stone to activate a secret passage that could lead him to Shana. Shortly after Bobby gets scared away and disappears in what Sadwick believes was an Asgil attack. Sadwick manages to locate Shana and finds out that his destiny is to destroy the world.
Shana directs Sadwick to a nearby island to find mysterious Kalida who eventually takes him near Corona. There Sadwick comes across the Asgil hideout and manages to listen in to the plans of Asgil leader Loucaux but gets captured and thrown in a jail cell. After successfully escaping, he manages to board a flying train to Corona, where he meets Bobby again who tells him he is too late and the king has locked himself in his quarters. Exploring the castle, Sadwick finds a model of a planetary system linked to the flow of space-and-time itself. He meets the royal astronomer who tells him that the Whispering Stone represents the planet Silentia in the model of 5 planets and the king must repair the system to restore the balance, but he has fallen ill, and only when the system is repaired can it activate the fountain of the Water of Life that can wake the king.
Upon repairing the mechanism himself, a blue sphere from Sadwick's nightmares appears saying that Sadwick is inevitably ending the world. Trying to prevent that, Sadwick jams the planetary system's mechanism stopping time itself and breaking all of the world into pieces. The Asgil occupy what is left of the castle, but Sadwick manages to trick Loucaux and reactivates the planetary mechanism again, restoring the cadence of time. He escapes and arrives at the king's quarters to wake him, where he instead finds familiar settings and a large mirror. Upon looking into the mirror, a boy in a hospital gown drags him through it into a black, empty room, with the mirror he was pulled through, and a mirror opposite it. Looking into the other mirror, Sadwick sees the boy in a hospital bed with his eyes closed, while a man reads a book next to him. The boy explains that in reality Sadwick is this boy lying in a coma while the blue sphere is the man, who is his father, reading him stories. Sadwick then breaks the mirror he came from and wakes up in the real world.
Development
The game's development began in 2004 as Marco Hüllen's diploma work for Rhein-Sieg Academy of Realistic Visual Arts and Design (German: Rhein-Sieg-Akademie für Realistische Bildende Kunst und Design). He was then hired by now defunct Bad Brain Entertainment and a demo was released in 2005. Bad Brain Entertainment went out of business in 2006 and the game was discontinued and offered to the community to continue as (and only as) a freeware adventure. However, in 2007, the relatively new Daedalic Entertainment acquired the rights to the project and re-hired Marco Hüllen and the game was subsequently finished and released in 2009.
Reception
According to the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, The Whispered World sold above 50,000 units worldwide by August 2010. The paper considered this figure to be a success. The game received 70/100 rating from Metacritic and 71.40% from GameRankings score aggregators. Overall, the reviews gave the game above average scores, criticizing puzzle design and voice acting, yet praising hand-drawn artwork and emotional story.
Brett Todd from GameSpot deemed the game as average. He praised the game for "gorgeous .." and "beautiful painted scenery and cartoon characters", "dreamlike storyline", and "some good, logical brainteasers." However, he criticized it for "erratic voice acting, including a whiney, nasally protagonist." Although acknowledging "detailed script", he criticized "excessive dialogue" and pointed out that "some of the charm of this dreamy fairytale is lost because there is too much dialogue." He also noted that ".. many puzzles .. defy logic" and "common sense is trampled on much of the time."
Darryl from Gaming Union praised The Whispered World as an undoubtedly "beautiful game" with ".. a wonderful cast of characters and some lush scenery..." However, he criticized its gameplay ".. in terms of puzzle plausibility", deeming progression as being ".. down to dumb luck instead of logic."
