A twist on the typical puzzle game, Storyteller asks you to pen a tale or two. It gives you the plot, settings, and characters, but really it is up to you how you want things to play out. In the title’s Steam Next Fest demo, I played around a little bit with expectation to see how much it would let me get away with. And while Storyteller did push me to follow certain rules to appropriately fill out the plot, there often seemed to be more than one way to spin a yarn.
I’ve played a lot of demos this week — some creepy, some challenging — so, Storyteller’s straightforward, low-pressure gameplay gave me a nice moment to unwind. This bite-sized experience let’s you work through three chapters of a virtual book, called “First Love,” “Story of a Heartbreak,” and “Monsters.”
My novel debut was short and sweet. The game gave me my protagonists, Albert and Juliet, my setting, a proposal, and a narrative direction, “First Love.” Easy enough. But as the chapters flipped by, the number of elements increased, complicating my story and giving me more space to invent.
At one point in the game a character named Edgar, with a striking resemblance to Edgar Allan Poe, pops up. My stories didn’t end well for him. One section directed me to construct a drama of love lost and love regained, but instead of letting ol’ Edgar get the girl, I had the two female protagonists get the happily ever after. If I’d had the option of a raven, it would have dumped a nevermore right on his grave for a little irony.
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