Walk through several books to retrieve powerful objects in The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales.
It seems to be a great year for the obscure or somewhat unknown to step into the light; one game development studio known as ‘Do My Best, Games’ falls under the unknown category. However, this studio was founded by Oleg Sergeev and Andrey Rumak around 2015, and it’s been smooth sailing for them so far. Things went great with their first release, The Final Station, which was released in 2016, and gamers incredibly well received this post-apocalyptic survival release designed with pixel art from all walks.
Do My Best, Games’ next release took a completely different turn in the form of The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales, which was released on 22 June 2023. The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales puts you in the shoes of Etienne Quist, a semi-renowned author and skilled Bookwalker in his world, but his tale isn’t one that’s so easily overlooked. Etienne got into some trouble with the Writer Police, and he can either serve a 30-year sentence in shackles or take a chance with some unsavory characters who want him to steal powerful objects from infamous books. You can already see where this is going, right?
To give a little background and context – Authors aren’t just writers of great books; they bring their stories to life and can travel into books to influence the worlds they create. Granted, with great power comes a great mountain of laws to obey, and our dear protagonist broke one of the more serious laws, which got him a serious punishment.
After thirty years in shackles made of a special metal that suppressed his power quite heavily, his life was basically over until he got a phone call from a mysterious benefactor who offered him a chance at freedom in exchange for some ‘off the books’ work. The supposed work in question involves Etienne using his power to enter books as a Bookwalker (Or Walker, for short) to steal powerful objects from their stories. The original bargain was to retrieve one item, but after a slight mistake during the retrieval process, that quota jumped up to 6 instead. Luckily, his adventure through several books isn’t entirely alone as Roderick accompanies him.
Roderick is technically a character from another book who was partnered with someone else until his partnership expired. Roderick isn’t just an interesting conversational piece since he lives in an amulet, nor is he great for conversation when things become stale…. He can also read the books and give clues as to your next move while you complete the task.
Your adventure in The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales starts in Etienne’s apartment, in first-person view, though this gets explained soon. At the start of each new job or book, you’ll receive a briefcase with the book you’ll be plundering, along with a quick summary of the item in question. From there, you’ll get to dive into the book… Literally, this is where things take a visual turn into a top-down semi-isometric view as you explore the book and live through the story contained within, though this is where the heart of The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales really comes out.
There are several things to keep in mind on your adventure in The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales, but the most important ones are your Health and Ink, though keeping both maintained is a whole other nightmare. Keeping your health up will require food; each food item will restore a different amount of health, but there are caveats. You can bring food from outside the book if you find any, but you can’t take food with you into the next book. So, some care can go a long way when it comes to maintaining your food stocks when you start finding any.
Ink is a little easier to come by in The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales; aside from starting a new book, you’ll have two options, which will give you a fresh stock of Ink to work with. Your first and easiest option is to use your Drain ability in a fight; the more difficult option is to make Ink bottles at any crafting bench. However, crafting Ink bottles requires you to convert junk items into Ink, and while these are easy to come by, bottles are not nearly as easy to find. However, bottles aren’t the only crafting item that’s hard to come by; more on this real soon.
With the basics done and dusted, you’ll need to venture into the books that will be presented to you, and each character in the book you’ll dive into is, in a way, alive. They might be part of a story that was written in a book, but they all have their own unique lives to live as well as conversations to have.
However, The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales doesn’t exactly make talking to characters as easy as it seems, as you’ll be presented with moral choices and sometimes a few puzzles as well. The decisions you make in each book can affect the outcome of your current mission and sometimes even the state of the object you need to retrieve. Your choices can also affect how Roderick will see you and the strange relationship between him and Etienne.
Next up, what will probably bring you nearly endless frustration in The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales crafting. Crafting is actually the easy part; getting the items you need is where life becomes a little tricky. You’ll need things like lockpicks, a crowbar, and pliers, though each of these has different crafting requirements.
You’ll usually start a new book with an empty inventory. You’ll need to look closely for containers, boxes, crates, and many other places where you might find useful or junk items to turn into tools or Ink. Sadly, crafting and progressing the story go hand in hand. Even more sadly, getting to raid any crates or containers isn’t as easy as it should be because there is the slight issue of the prompt to open them not showing up.
This is because Etienne needs to actually face the object and somehow also be a certain distance away but not too far away, or you’ll still be stuck floundering around and hoping the prompt will show up. A simple proximity trigger would fix this issue and make life much easier for this odd bug in The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales.
When you’re not running around and looting what you can or talking to random strangers for more information, you’ll also come across what really makes The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales shine, the unique and interesting puzzles. You’ll have to think outside the box and keep other details in mind, though the puzzles can also affect the story at hand and even affect the state of the object you need to get, but taking note of the world around you will also play a fairly big part in solving some of the puzzles.
To save the best for last, you’re not just running around and collecting items; you’ll have to fight for your life too. Combat has some give and take to keep in mind, though – You’ll have several abilities to use, like Slash, Drain, Stun, and eventually, Shield. The give-and-take part comes in with the fact that each ability except Drain costs Ink to use, while Drain will also deal some damage and give you some ink.
It’s a bit of a balancing act to maintain your ink levels while dealing damage, and it only becomes harder when there are multiple enemies. Luckily, this does get offset somewhat when you eventually upgrade abilities for more damage or further effects like adding Confusion to your Stun or healing to Shield.
With so much going on, The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales doesn’t just throw you into several stories; it also has a main story that might go unnoticed. However, the story isn’t quite as easily experienced because you’ll need to make a point of talking to Roderick when you can for a new dialogue between him and Etienne. It might not look like much, but they both have their own stories that unfold and grow as you progress, and you’d be surprised at how easy it is to miss some of the more minor details.
On the visual side of the world, The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales plays from two perspectives, first-person and top-down. While the slight variations in texture between the two sides provide life to the settings, the transition between the two helps distinguish between the two worlds and keeps things interesting. The first-person view features a mix of simple and complex textures to create the world around you, though this also makes it clear that Etienne spends more time in books than outside of them when you compare that to the visual detail of the books he visits.
When you’re inside a book, the top-down view takes on a much more detailed look and relies heavily on pastel colors, differentiating between the two views. While this side of The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales can give things a more arcade-like feel, the detailing in each world sets it apart from everything else, and each story’s world is as unique as the stories themselves. It’s refreshing to get the best of both worlds because it’s a nice mix of modern gaming and a blast from the past’s retro styling.
Things only seem to get better and better in the mysterious world of The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales, especially when it comes to sound engineering and background music. When Etienne is back at his apartment, you’ll have the ever-present and seemingly ominous background noises from other residents in the building. But that changes quickly when he’s in a book. With unique background music for each book and a mix of brilliant sound effects, the atmosphere and immersion are great in both views, and they just keep giving as you progress.
Overall, The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales is a refreshing combination of different genres and viewpoints with an epic story to drive everything forward. Everything from the strange but rich narrative to the characters comes together to give us something close to a masterpiece. The only downside is the minor issue that appears when trying to interact with certain objects. However, even with that tiny flaw, The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales is a must-play because of its unique take on the genres it embodies.
