Serena is a freeware horror adventure game developed by several video game development companies, including Senscape,

CBE Software CBE Software is an indie video game developer based in the Czech Republic. It was founded in 2006 as Cardboard Box Entertainment (CBE). The first released title was an adventure game ''Ghost in the Sheet''. The studio was then inactive for a few ...

, Infamous Quests, Digital Media Workshop and Guys from Andromeda. It was released for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

and

OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

. The game previews the Dagon Engine that was supposed to be used in Asylum. The main characters are voiced by

Josh Mandel Joshua Aaron Mandel (born September 27, 1977) is an American far-right politician who served as the 48th treasurer of Ohio from 2011 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he previously was the Ohio State Representative for the 17th distr ...

and Sarah Wilson (

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

blogger PushingUpRoses), as well as a cameo from Guys from Andromeda's

Scott Murphy Matthew Scott Murphy (born January 26, 1970) is an American entrepreneur and politician. He represented parts of New York state's Capital District (excluding the city of Albany) in the United States House of Representatives for a portion of one ...

. Gameplay is first-person perspective, with fixed background screens and a point-and-click interface.

Plot

The game tells a story of a man (voiced by

) who is waiting in a cabin for his wife, Serena, but cannot remember anything about her. As he explores more of the cabin and examines the varying items throughout, his memories about her and their relationship begin returning, evoking multiple changes in his emotion.{{cite web, url=http://kotaku.com/a-disturbing-gift-for-fans-of-adventure-games-1512623141 , title=Impressions: 'A Disturbing Gift For Fans Of Adventure Games.' , publisher=Kotaku.com , date= , accessdate=17 October 2016

Background

The title character is named after ''Serena Nelson'', an advocate of adventure games funded by

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...

. For her activism, she has often been referred to as the "Hero of the Adventure Game Revival Movement". Following an incident where Nelson was outed for being a

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

person by a studio executive, the game designer Agustín Cordes made the game "Serena" in response to the perceived bullying of Nelson, and in support of her. The game neither involves Nelson's participation nor does the plot revolve around her treatment.

References

2014 video games Adventure games Exploration video games Freeware games Horror video games Video games developed in Argentina Video games developed in the Czech Republic Video games developed in the United States Windows games Linux games MacOS games