Storyteller review: Charmingly re-imagined tales of yore that leave you craving more

Coming from Daniel Benmergui and Annapurna Interactive, Storyteller is a nifty puzzle game that perfectly embodies the age-old adage of "a picture is worth a thousand words." You are greeted with the eponymous book, divided into several chapters containing multiple scenes. Each of these narratives needs to be told through picturesque tiles that you will have to arrange.

Apart from those who love solving puzzles, Storyteller will also resonate with literary aficionados. The mini-stories it wants its players to craft echo enchanting fairy tales and iconic texts like Hamlet and Dracula. The difficulty lies in narrating the yarn without any words while using a limited number of resources.

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Dracula, Hamlet, and more await in the rustic pages of Storyteller

As you launch the title and the music creeps in, the eponymous Storyteller book will appear in the middle of the screen. Before diving into the gameplay, I would like to focus on how the book is visually presented. The rustic pages sport a sepia hue that perfectly suits the narrative tone.

The design on the book's cover and the borders of the title pages further drive home the notion of a vintage storybook. Click to open the book, and you will be greeted with a quick introduction. It tells you that a crown awaits you at the end of the book, provided you prove yourself to be the finest storyteller by filling up the following blank pages with fantastic narratives.

The first chapter (Image via Storyteller)

The first chapter is titled Life and Death, with three subsections: Love, Heartbreak, and Afterlife. The page on the left has an illustration consisting of two figures, a tree, and a snake wrapped around it, harking the well-known Biblical scene. Revolving around Adam and Eve, Chapter 1 shows you the ropes of the game.

The prompt at the top of each story's page marks the conclusion of the mini-tale. The page contains multiple blank tiles. Beneath that, you will find various scenes and characters that you will have to use to construct the tale in such a way that it comes to the conclusion mentioned in the prompt. How the scene and character of a tile are designed will influence what the same characters act like in the next tile.

While the earlier stories are much easier and straightforward, the later chapters often prove to be quite difficult. Given that you need to get every tile properly set and in the correct sequence to complete a story, you can struggle with those that have a large number of characters and scenes to play with.

The sequence of the tiles is paramount to your solving the scenario. If you showcase that someone has died in an earlier tile, that character will appear as a ghost when used in every subsequent tile unless revived. One of the characters will turn into a wolf when put in front of a moon and, consequently, will only appear as a wolf in later tiles.

One minor gripe I had with Storyteller's gameplay was based on this point. I wish the title told me when I got a tile correct. That would have streamlined the process of solving these stories quite a bit. But then, I am merely nitpicking.

The correct solution (Image via Daniel Benmergui)

Confusing characters (Image via Daniel Benmergui)

Apart from solving towards the end prompt, making absurd combinations and seeing the characters confounded is also fun.

Putting the pieces, weaving the narrative

With 13 chapters to complete, the entire game will likely take most players around two hours. The gameplay is akin to filling the panels of a graphic novel as you try to paint or flesh out the prompt that you have been given. While recognizing the story that the game wants you to enact is fun if you are already acquainted with it, it also provides clues as to how you can solve the puzzle.

Waiting for Godot (Image via Storyteller)

I was pretty excited the moment I noticed 'Godot' in Chapter 12, with the prompt cheekily stating, "Tiny and Hatey Wait Forever." The scenario refers to Samuel Beckett's iconic text Waiting for Godot. The existential crisis of the original play can be perfectly depicted by filling the six vacant tiles with a tree and the two characters, Tiny and Hatey.

In a further nod to Beckett's narrative, the hidden objective of 'Godot' is to ensure "both leave and return." While there are cues to Bram Stoker's Dracula and Sophocles' Oedipus, my other favorite story that is featured in Storyteller is 'Mini Hamlet.' The prompt read, "Tiny Murders Uncle to Avenge His Father."

Referring to Shakespeare's work of tragedy, I was given four possible scenes: Family, Wedding, Cliff, and Seance. The story also gave me five possible dwarf characters to play around with. To solve this scenario, I needed to demarcate the relationship between two male characters, Hatey and Bluey, in such a way that it is clear they are brothers.

One of these brothers, Bluey, has to be both married to Peaches — the only female character available in this scenario — and also be the father of the remaining male character, Tiny. The other brother, Hatey, gets rebuffed by Peaches and ends up killing Bluey.

Tiny learns about the murderer from Bluey's ghost at a seance and then proceeds to murder his uncle to avenge his father. It is quite clever how the developer pushes you to figure out these stories with the limited resources at hand. Once you are done crafting "tales of love, ambition, intrigue, and vengeance," throughout the 13 chapters, you are awarded the title of Storyteller, and a crown.

Conclusion

Storyteller's gameplay and puzzles make it an intriguing title for players to pick up, especially for those who love to read and tell stories. The interactive tales provide excellent opportunities for players to exercise their creativity and imagination to find the correct possible sequence of events.

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Storyteller also doesn't handhold players, which makes for a rewarding player experience as you try to solve the puzzles. The characters' animation will provide you with little clues regarding whether you have missed a vital piece of the action, like not providing a character with a motive for killing off another character.

I wish the game was longer, with a few more chapters sprinkled in, as it felt like it ended right when the stories were starting to gain momentum in narrative layers and complexity. Furthermore, Storyteller could have worked better with an overarching narrative that tied together the largely disjointed experiences within the book.

For now, I will proudly wear my Storyteller crown as I patiently wait for more pages to be added to this visually gorgeous title, hopefully sometime soon.