If on a Winter's Night: Four Travelers is a point-and-click adventure game with classic mechanics. It takes place in February 1929 somewhere in Central Asia aboard a train where a masked ball is going on. Four characters meet there and they have no recollection how they ended up on the train. Each character then tells his or her story through a flashback played in a linear fashion.
In The Silent Room Carlo awaits his lover Patrick in a hotel room in Rome, Italy. They meet in secret as Patrick is married with kids and they are also afraid of the fascist regime. As Carlo prepares for Patrick's arrival, tensions gradually rise.
The Slow Vanishing of Lady Winterbourne is a much longer segment. Lady Winterbourne has lost her husband, but also her grip on reality. She cannot reach her staff and she keeps receiving letters from pretenders who are after her fortune. The lady has trouble getting up and is constantly drawn to her bed and the drowsiness of laudanum. In her clearer moments she attempts to piece together what is going on.
The Nameless Ritual is a dark tale of Dr. Jordan Samuels who is ridiculed by his professors and peers. He turns his attention to the occult sciences to find the knowledge he seeks, but this has him go through a sinister ritual.
If on a Winter's Night is about Laylah who enjoys her job, but goes against her bosses' rules for some small pleasure in her daily routines.
The game is strictly linear. The player controls the characters and uses the mouse to move around, examine and interact with the environment. Usually the number of locations is quite small with clear hints about what to do next. There is no inventory system, so when an item is picked up it needs to be used somewhere else right away. While talking to characters there are multiple dialogue options. Puzzles are a mix of straightforward actions and more complex ones that require a careful examination of the environment.
This game's unusual name is inspired by the late Italian author Italo Calvino's 1979 novel If on a winter's night a traveler (Italian: Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore).
Irving Berlin (1926), Jack Stillman & Orchestra, Restored mp3 transfer of original recording licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC 2.5 by the University of California - Santa Barbara Library
Irving Berlin (1925), Walter Scanlan, Restored mp3 transfer of original recording licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC 2.5 by the University of California - Santa Barbara Library
'Gnossienne No. 1':
Erik Satie (ca. 1890), Edward Rosser (Piano Performance), From public domain recording, Laura Hunt (Harp performance arrangement from MIDI file by unknown sequencer)
'Serenade for Strings Op. 22 - II. Menuetto':
Anton Dvořák (1875), Gerlüz, Performance licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
