Lern Island Letters is the shortest game I’ve ever played, and I love it
Lern Island Letters, a short experience about sorting letters on a remote island, might be the shortest game I’ve ever played. While I’d gladly settle in for a much longer experience doing the same thing, this 15-minute game is sweet, engaging and well worth its $2.99 asking price.
It’s the work of two developers, Tom Duchene and Dorian Riberio, who going by the name River and Oak set out to create a cosy game that’s respectful of players’ time. That it is: you’ll have finished this even before your cup of tea goes cold. You can play it twice while dinner is cooking, or squeeze it in before getting ready for work. You can’t get more respectful of time than that — but its seriously short running time does leave you wanting more.
In Lern Island Letters, you take on the role of a temporary postman, tasked with the role of sorting mail for the five residents on a remote island. You’re only there for a week, so while you don’t have the time to get to know each resident personally, you will quickly pick things up about them. Some of them may even send you personal notes, introducing themselves.
Naturally, you can’t go opening their mail and reading it for yourself — there are laws against that, even on Lern Island! — but you can pick up clues about who they are based on the envelopes they receive. You’ll soon learn that Bella Legoff has multiple dogs, for example, and that despite being married, Bernard and Ginette live in separate houses and send each other daily letters. Hey, whatever helps keep the spark alive, I guess.
Despite its short running time, Lern Island Letters still manages to squeeze in a bit of a mystery: you’ll learn early on that plans to build a waterpark on the island are underway. Most of the residents aren’t happy about it, because it’ll ruin their gorgeous, peaceful surroundings. But it seems that at least one of them wants it to go ahead. And you, as the postman, actually have the power to change the fate of Lern Island, just by choosing where letters go.
That’s right: there are multiple endings to this short but very sweet game, and depending on how your last day plays out, you’ll get one of three different endings. Either the waterpark goes ahead, a conspiracy is revealed but it’s too late to stop the construction, or you manage to stop the waterpark being built altogether. I won’t tell you how, but it turns out that purposefully delivering letters to the ‘wrong’ address can sometimes have beneficial effects.
I loved my time with Lern Island Letters, so much so that I immediately played through the last day again to get the ‘best’ ending before playing through the entire thing to see if I could make any more changes to the outcome (I couldn’t). But it did leave me disappointed that there wasn’t more. This is the type of cosy, lovely experience that could easily stretch out for several hours and still keep me interested. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that River and Oak have something more in mind, and Lern Island Letters simply exists to test the water.
Well, the water’s been tested, and the results are in: I will gladly and happily lap up more. Who knew sorting letters would be so entertaining?
Lern Island Letters is available now on Steam for £2.99/$2.99.
