I'm a storyteller by my nature. I love a good story, love hearing them, making them and telling them. So when an indie RPG about stories came up, I was enthusiastic to give it a go. I love RPGs and stories, so it seemed a good match.
The game in question is Torn Tales by TwistGames and published by Chilled Mouse. The game follows a team of three storybook protagonists as they venture through a landscape mashed together from many different tales and corrupted by a jealous storyteller who was jealous of his own works not getting the attention he felt they deserved. Now the three fight through the obstacles ahead of them to return to their own stories.
The three protagonists are Robin Hood, who plays an archer archetype, Dr. Jekyl, who is melee, and lastly Snow White, who acts as a mage. The game is portrayed from a top-down view, with a minimap letting you sight ahead a little way as to what is coming. Movement is done by clicking where you want the characters to head, which eventually manifests itself in rapid-fire clicking to direct them. The path ways are fairly linear in the game and it's next to impossible to get lost if you pay attention. Enemies give experience which will then go towards a level up for characters, which will give skill points to be assigned and unlock new special abilities which can then further upgrade over time as more points are assigned to them. It is possible to switch your lead character as well, rotating between the three.
The game does have pickups in the form of assignable trinkets, which will improve some aspect of the character it is assigned to. There are also health pickups which help you keep your characters healthy, along with save points represented by stands with a book upon them.
The game itself is good fun to play and engaging. I certainly enjoyed playing it, and it was challenging in some aspects, requiring me to learn enemy attack patterns and strategise how best to take on a battle. I also feel the storybook and fairytale aspect is a big plus for the game, it's a unique little thing about the game.
However, I feel the graphics could have been a bit better although they're not bad. The best visuals are in the storybook-esque cutscenes and they're still images. However this is an indie so I'll let it off there. I also wish there'd been more characters to recruit and change but again, indie does mean limitations sometimes. They don't actively have a big effect on how much I really liked the game though in the end.
Torn Tales is going to be coming out on Steam in January. If you enjoy small, well put-together RPGs, you should probably at least give this one a look. It's worth your time.
8/10