I gripe about the lack of three-act narratives and brag about how easy stories can be if you just spend enough time developing them. A good chunk of filmmakers don’t these days, which generally equals out to a crappy movie (looking at you Venom). Anyway, if you have read any of my movie reviews, you know how passionate I am about storytelling in general. The story is the essence of an entire film. Without it, the film is just random artsy pictures that have no meaning, except for the filmmaker. Everyone wants to see those films, right? Very Citizen Kane. Less Paddington 2.
Okay, we could be on that subject forever. Let’s get right back on track here.
What I’m getting at is there are a lot of wannabe filmmakers out there that truly believe that if you create a pretty picture, it can make up for the lack of story. It’s like jingling keys in front of a toddler at times. Sure, it’s pretty and distracting, but wouldn’t you like to know about those keys? What do they go to? Why are there so many? Is that a beer bottle opener on them? Why would you put that on keys? Isn’t that a safety hazard?
Keys aside, and to the point, storytelling is important. I know it. You probably know it. And Annapurna Interactive and Daniel Benmergui know this as well. The latter know it so much that they have released a game called Storyteller this week that is purely about putting together the pictures with a given situation that equals a competent story.
Let’s get into our third draft of this story.
Short stints of storytelling
Imagine that you’ve been given a situation, such as arresting the butler for shooting his employer. You are given three rooms to work with, three characters to use, and six panels to get a butler jaded enough to find a gun, take the life of his boss, and then get caught by a detective who happens to be on the premise. This is exactly how Storyteller works.
In the game, you are given certain elements to put together a competent three-act narrative and you have limited space to do so. Sometimes it’s an easy-going experience, other times it’s incredibly complicated. Going back to the above example, you have to think about what is going to piss a butler off with his boss, probably the boss’ indecision on a drink he wants to be made or maybe how many times the boss sends back the made drink and works his butler needlessly. You would create a panel starting with a room, place the butler and boss in there, and create a scene that is just that – a boss who doesn’t like what the butler is doing.
The next scene could be the butler going into a gun room to acquire a pistol. From there, the butler can go back to the previous room and shoot his boss dead. Once the boss is dead, you can create a fourth scene where the butler puts the gun back or is caught by the detective. This is how the gameplay works. Trying to piece together a cause/effect/climax in restrictive panels with finite elements. That’s a challenging and unique way to create an engaging puzzle game. Trying to guess the next logical storytelling step in the process is a blast. If you get it wrong, you could confuse characters or just outright not get the ‘YOU WON’ signal with the game. For those of you who enjoy cognitive logical engagement in your game, and I know more than a few of you enjoy the Phoenix Wright series, then this is a puzzle game for you.
To say this is a strange way to do a puzzle game is an understatement, but at the same time, it’s a genius way to do one. Who would have thought that proposing a scenario and then logically having to build it out based on every type of story structure we have been exposed to over the years would be so much fun? It’s entertaining because it puts your brain to the test with easy-to-build visuals. It’s essentially a multi-panel Pictionary game that is broken down into little pieces and parts and asks you to find an order to the chaos that best matches the situation proposed. Even right now, typing that out and reading it (for editing purposes) makes me want to launch the game and continue the journey. It’s that much fun and it’s a casual type of experience because you can come and go to it as you see fit. There is no pressure to complete the multi-story book you work within.
Staying with that last sentence, the book features 13 stories containing 3-5 chapters within each story. You will certainly get some play out of this game, as it contains multiple scenarios to accomplish. And accomplishing scenarios truly isn’t as easy as it might seem. The progressing difficulty is cleverly arched upwards each time you complete a chapter. Some of the later scenarios become more specific, which makes for a tougher time trying to figure out what the game wants. For example, there is a chapter that has a wicked witch that is supposed to put a character in danger. Another character has to save the potential victim in this scenario, but the number of panels to do so is very limited (four in total) the possibilities and trying to decipher the general request is maddening. While the game isn’t impossible, it does have some head-scratching moments. When you get to those moments, the game allows you to stay as long as you would like on that puzzle or skip to the next one and come back. You can start with whatever story you would like which is strangely non-linear for a puzzle game. It’s a welcomed design to the gameplay, but unusual for this type of gameplay structure. The game just seems to want you to enjoy the experience. I can dig that, and I did.
Getting back to the stories, each chapter comes with a scenario to fulfill, while some contain optional scenarios that go along with the main one. For example, there is a chapter that requests you perform a double execution. You’re given a king, a queen, and a mistress. You have to get the king to meet the mistress while the jealous queen gazes on. You can choose to allow the queen to execute the mistress and king, or, and this is the additional/optional scenario for this chapter, you can get the king to seek revenge on the queen by executing her. Double execution and the king wins. It’s fun to figure out puzzles like these and then try to figure out the twist with the additional scenario. I was given only three panels to do all of this within and it was difficult as hell. There was some juggling of panels for about 20 minutes.
All of this is the crux of the gameplay. The game itself is easily understood and engaging to play around with, especially when you get in the groove of understanding how stories are supposed to be put together. Will all of this experience last long? I think I’ve been playing for two days and some change and have nearly completed a good portion of the chapters. While they’re difficult at times, they still have a good flow to them which doesn’t’ create massive stopping points of frustration. That’s a good thing for making puzzles fun but might be so-so for longevity. Regardless, this is a clever way to do a puzzle and it certainly gets you in the mindset that stories, when done properly, are fun to organize and build. Anything that promotes storytelling is a good thing.
How about those visuals?
Oh, they’re clever. The visuals help to create the humor for this experience. You have some 2D animated characters that would be included in a daily newspaper if this were the 80s. They’re whack-a-doodle, fun, and feature flat personalities, and they are gorgeous because they’re so personality-driven. More importantly, the visuals fit the scenarios given, which means there is plenty of visual playfulness to go around.
Now, a huge plus to the entire experience is the soundtrack. It features a cornucopia of classical pieces that help push the multiple narratives. You will get a huge soundtrack of good classical music from Beethoven to Edvard Grieg. Audio always helps push a story and a moment, and Storyteller doesn’t trip up in this area.
On that note (pun intended), let’s wrap this sucker up.
Conclusion
Storyteller from developer Daniel Benmergui is yet another feather in the cap of Annapurna Interactive. It’s a cleverly designed puzzle game that does a superb job of pushing the importance of visual storytelling as it relates to a narrative. While its longevity might be in question, the journey through the game is good enough to forgive that is even an issue.
