For some time now, and this is good for any adventurer, we have been witnessing a great return of graphic adventures, that videogame genre that saw its golden period during the 80s and 90s thanks above all to companies like Sierra and LucasArts.
Also known as point and click, for some years they have carved out a niche space, far from big productions but very solid and often with real examples of videogame genius such as The Last Door, the disturbing and excellent Dead Synchronicity, Broken Age ( project behind which none other than Tim “Maniac Mansion” Schafer is hidden) or the Deponia series, to name but a few.
A phenomenon made possible thanks to that extraordinary financing method called crowdfunding, which allows even small developers to directly bypass those large companies characterized by huge budgets but often limited artistic visions.
In 2009 a half-known German company named KING Art Games he took the most classic mechanics of point and click, combining them with a pleasant plot but with quite mature implications, he put in some healthy Monkey Island style jokes and a lot of quotes that would tickle the culture of any geek. The result was The Book Of Unwritten Tales, which arrived two years after its release in Teutonic land, and the first episode of a successful saga which has now reached its second episode even if, to be honest, in 2012 there was a sort of spin-off entitled The Critter Chronicles.
Funded with one of the luckiest Kickstarter campaigns, which in a short time allowed KING Art Games to raise 170 dollars in a short time, the development of this The Book Of Unwritten Tales 2 was supported by a few months of early access on Steam to allow users to test the mechanics and developers to file the initial structural problems.
Already released for almost all platforms in circulation today, the latest adventure from KING Art Games arrives today on the touch screens of iOS and Android systems, two platforms that immediately proved to be excellent for managing the mechanics and the control system of this videogame genre.
ONCE UPON A TIME, BETWEEN PRINCESSES, GNOMES AND ADVENTURERS
Our surreal adventure starts from the remote kingdom of Anastasia, where we will find the same protagonists of the previous episode. After saving Mortimer MacGuffin, the enterprising gremlin who had set his mind to no less than end the eternal struggle between good and evil, from the clutches of the ogre Munkus, our heroes try in vain to enjoy the fruits of their labors. The adventurer Nate continues his reckless adventures in search of legendary treasures (the mention of a certain title of Naughty Dog is quite evident) together with his partner Critter, saving himself every time from the worst situations thanks to his monumental chutzpah. Chutzpah that will not prevent him from ending up as a prisoner of a famous pirate who will force him to continually tell him epic adventures, in a sort of endless "Thousand and One Nights".
While the gnome Wilbur finds himself no less than a teacher of magic in the prestigious University of Seastone, completely unaware of the plot that is being organized in secret to bring down the rector of the institute and place a girl with dubious mental stability in his place.
Even worse seems to go to Ivo, a charming elven princess and Nate's only great love, who finds herself in the golden prison of her family castle, now bored by a life that doesn't feel hers, prey to some minor health problems (whose origin will then be much more natural than you think) and watched over by the all too efficient mother, firmly intent on marrying her pupil with a wealthy, albeit boring, elven prince.
In an attempt to understand the reasons behind her illness, the princess decides to turn to Alastair, famous archmage and old acquaintance of the previous episode, moving away from her golden kingdom to embark on an adventure that will lead her to meet her old companions. , at the same time facing an enemy who seems to be returning from a buried past and, while they are there, resolving the intrigue in which poor Wilbur found himself, unjustly accused of killing his mentor.
Although this new episode, embellished with numerous and tasty cinematographic and literary references, contains various references to the past of the three adventurers, it is perfectly usable even by those who have not yet had the opportunity to face the previous adventure.
The plot of The Book Of Unwritten Tales 2, which we do not go into further for fear of spoilers, therefore turns out to be one of the best sides of this KING Art Games adventure, where behind humor and irony, surrounded by a fairytale setting, are hidden themes much deeper than it might seem at a superficial glance.
PORTABLE ADVENTURES
As already mentioned in the past on the occasion of other similar titles, after the canonical coupled PC-Keyboard (which saw the birth of this videogame genre), touch screens are the best control system for graphic adventures.
After a short and nice tutorial disguised as opening titles, where a Wall-E clone will introduce us to the main commands, we will end up with one of the most classic and intuitive interface. At the bottom right we find the icons of the magnifying glass (from the same functions as the space bar on the PC version) which automatically highlights all the hotspots on the screen, eliminating the infamous pixel hunting problem present in other graphic adventures at the root. The second icon is represented by the backpack / inventory, inevitable in every self-respecting point and click, in which to perform the classic functions of examining, using and combining objects. In the third icon we find instead a fairytale book, which contains the various game settings and saving options (which also happens automatically at pre-established points of our adventure).
By clicking on any object or element of the scenario, the action most suited to the context is automatically carried out, while holding down the use and examine options will appear. An elegant and quick way to replace the two mouse buttons.
In The Book Of Unwritten Tales 2 there are no events that change according to the answers, nor sequences stuffed with QTE, but only the mechanics firmly anchored to the purest school of point and click, with loose and simplified commands, including the double click that allows you to immediately reach the areas already visited. A perfectly successful attempt not to distract our attention from the excellent puzzles and the main plot.
The latter, which is rather unusual for a graphic adventure, runs for about twenty hours of gameplay, partly due to a considerable amount of brilliant dialogue (which can be accelerated by simply pressing a button), partly due to numerous puzzles and the presence of five chapters, during which we will take control of all four protagonists Ivo, Critter, Nate and Wilbur.
The same puzzles, in most cases, are far from the now abused mechanism of using the right object in the right place, with nuances that are sometimes rather complex but always intuitive (provided you enter the bizarre view of the developers) and interesting variations, such as using a particular object while one of the PNGs (often as well characterized as the main characters) performs a certain action.
The care taken by the developers in the game mechanics has also eliminated the most classic of the tricks of the long-standing adventurers: that of trying to combine, in the event of a stalemate, all the objects together and use them at random on the elements of the scenario . In the KING Art Games adventure, in order to use most of the objects we will first have to understand their actual usefulness by examining them carefully and contextualizing their real functions, as well as carefully following the numerous dialogues and observing the actions of the various pngs.
A realistic mechanism, quite new for a graphic adventure, which allows you to arrive at the solution in a more complex, intuitive and rewarding way than the classic “Use everything with everything”. The mechanics themselves, on closer examination, are designed in such a way as to make us understand well what the objectives of our adventure are from time to time, thus eliminating any wandering around in circles.
The puzzles, which only towards the end of our adventure show a slight decrease in originality, together with the plot are one of the strengths of this excellent title: never banal, well balanced between difficult but never frustrating puzzles, and others much simpler .
There is no lack of pleasant twists when, now convinced that we have reached the solution, the adventure offers us a new enigma that is linked to the previous one, in a difficult but stimulating chain.
Given the presence of four protagonists, it is possible to dedicate yourself to solving multiple puzzles at the same time (does the name Maniac Mansion tell you anything?) And even to some parallel stories, whose resolution does not affect the progress of the main adventure, but allows you to acquire special items and reveal other elements of the excellent storyline.
THE BEAUTY OF THE POINT AND CLICK
The favorable reaction of users to the crowdfunding campaign, which in a short time has collected a figure well above all expectations, has allowed developers to invest time and resources also in the technical sector.
Except for a certain woodiness in the movements of the protagonists, a defect that unfortunately seems inevitable in graphic adventures, the title of KING Art Games presents itself with a respectable graphics, characterized by fascinating, colorful and beautifully defined scenarios,
The level of detail extends to the most minute details: from simple leaves to the most distant elements of the horizon, passing through the faces of the protagonists to the individual objects to be collected.
But beyond the excellent purely technical realization, what is particularly striking are a very inspired general design, sometimes brilliant, and the fairytale atmospheres that draw heavily from the best folkloristic and narrative tradition (in which, as we said, the numerous literary and cinematographic citations).
Although subdued when compared with the purely visual one, even the sound side is very well cared for, with well-characterized dialogues and orchestral music, the work of the young Benny Oschmann, pleasant and never intrusive.
The Book Of Unwritten Tales 2 is a wonderful adventure made of a rare mix of poetry, irony and comedy, which sometimes hides much deeper and more mature themes. The work of King Art Games takes up and improves the canonical mechanisms of the old school graphic adventures of the 80s and 90s, enriching them with a large amount of stimulating puzzles, sometimes quite difficult but never frustrating. The mechanics of the genre themselves are refreshed by a respectable technical sector, by an atmosphere that sometimes touches peaks of excellence, by the presence of four playable protagonists, by the lively dialogues and by the numerous quotes that will delight any cinema lover, reading and any adventurer.
