Bookwalker: Thief of Tales
Summary
Bookwalker: Thief of Tales is a reality-shaping adventure game from TinyBuild Games. In it, players take on the role of Etienne Quist, a disgraced novelist serving out a thirty-year writing suspension. After a “Client” comes to Quist with an offer — enter novels and steal special artefacts from the story to bring into the real world, then they’ll break his “shackles” and allow him to write again — he takes them up on it. Using both the mechanics of a standard first person RPG in Etienne’s real world and an isometric, point-and-click playstyle in the novels, Bookwalker takes the player on a journey through imaginative novels of various genres and tones, all the while hinting at Etienne’s complicated past.
Assessment
Bookwalker: Thief of Tales is a mind-bending trek through multiple dimensions and multiple moral crises. Utilizing atmospheric storytelling with a detail-rich and distinctive art style, the story pulls few punches looking at the concept of personhood and the morality of various criminal and unethical activities.
The biggest, surface-level concern in a moral context is the fact that the entire game is built around the idea of theft; each novel Etienne enters with the goal of navigating the story to steal its most significant, powerful, or prized possession. However the player can make choices to guide Etienne towards or away from good moral decisions and the story is many ways is a kind of redemption arc. Etienne often wrestles with what he is doing with his sidekick, Roderick. The story is not lacking good morality, but it is taking the perspective of someone who has obviously gone astray and is struggling to find their way back.
In terms of cleanliness, the story does have some cussing, however, most of the worst stuff is censored. There are several intense themes, including ones about hope and despair, as well as some action and violence, but nothing too grotesque or gory. The player is forced into some interesting moral and ethical decisions, which may be intense for some players.
Light-o-Meter
Overall — 6 out of 7 Little Lights
Mechanics: 5 out of 7 Little Lights
Story: 6 out of 7 Little Lights
Artwork: 7 out of 7 Little Lights
Music: 5 out of 7 Little Lights
Quality: 6 out of 7 Little Lights
Theological Message: N/A
Age Appropriateness — Appropriate for teens and adults due to cussing and some intense themes and thematic elements.
Talk
Ohhhhhh ohohohohoh this was a lot of fun. Perfect? No. Engaging and an absolute blast? Yes.
Starting with the good: this game has an absolutely fantastic style. It’s this delicious combination of moody noir with a dash of dark academia. I also loved the reality-folding kind of mechanic it has going on where you can enter and exit books and both realities kind of play off of each other. It led to not only interesting gameplay, but also a really cool story with a few layers of meta going on. I also really enjoyed how those layers of meta were able to carry the game’s heavier topics with ease.
Also, the ending was really, really good. A wee bit twisty and perfect for the story.
Next the bad: I did feel like the game often railroaded the player into only one outcome, no matter what dialogue option that chose. Now, this did not ruin the game’s story for me. I really enjoyed how the story played out, but as I was playing the game, it felt like there was only ever a single outcome. All dialogue options lead to Rome, so to speak.
There were also some things in the novels Etienne entered that could be tricky depending on a person’s personal convictions and the convictions of the Holy Spirit. One novel is the obviously Harry Potter inspired magical high school type of setting and in another there is worship of an Artificial Intelligence (although even in the novel it isn’t necessarily seen as a good thing). Given the meta of “I’m playing a video game pretending to be someone inside a book” neither of these things gave me a lot of pause, especially because Etienne was growing and changing as I played the game.
Overall, I think this game was a ton of fun from start to finish.
Where to Enjoy
Epic Games: The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales | Download and Buy Today - Epic Games Store
PlayStation Store: The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales
Steam: The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales on Steam
Xbox Store: Buy The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales | Xbox
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