I consider myself to be a pretty creative person. However, this is something I don’t think I could’ve ever come up with. I mean I’ve always wanted to live inside of a book and interact with the characters, but having a game with that premise seems mind blowing for some reason. Safe to say, I thoroughly enjoyed playing this game. Something about The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales had me glued to my couch.
My favorite part of the game is the story. A game based on books and book walking has to have a good story, and that it does. When I first pressed play, I was a little scared because it looked like a horror game. A quick Google search relieved any anxiety I had, and I forged forward. I quickly learned that Étienne, the main character, had committed some sort of writing crime and has been sentenced to 30 years for something. Whatever it is, it isn’t good, and he has these shackles on him at all times. He also lives in a super small apartment by himself, and his neighbors hate him.
During these first few minutes of gameplay, Étienne receives an offer to help with his 30 year sentence. And yep, you guessed it! It involves book walking and stealing! The player is given 6 tasks overall, which means jumping into 6 books. From what I gathered, there aren’t really any rules, but you can’t take things outside of the book because they’ll dissolve in the real world. I personally think it’s odd because you can bring things in and your job is literally to steal important things from the books, but I digress. It’s funny sometimes, especially since you’re constantly borrowing things from your neighbors and never returning them. Also, I’m pretty sure everything you steal ends up in the news because it gets sold by your boss. Either that or the news mentions your character showing up in the books, ruining it, and having it pulled off shelves. I think there’s a lot to digest in the story, and I found it fun interacting with everything and trying to piece it all together.
The next thing I’d like to touch on is the combat. I like that there’s not a lot of it, or that in some cases, it’s avoidable. To be honest, all of the combat is rather easy, but I’d rather explore and complete the tasks in the game. I did like that each book had its own enemies that had different abilities and varying levels of difficulty (though even harder enemies were quite easy to beat).
Another thing I found cool was that Étienne can upgrade his book walking abilities – only once every book though. However, you have to go out of your way to do it. It isn’t like an easily selectable option in the menu, and it’s something you have to physically interact with in the game. With that being said, the desk to do it is right outside of your bedroom, but as soon as you walk out the phone rings. Unfortunately, players like me who get distracted easily and lose their train of thought might forget about it – I know I did once or twice. Even though I did forget, I could still beat enemies with relative ease, so I wouldn’t worry about that too much.
The last thing I’d like to mention is the interactiveness of the game with the other characters and the environment. Étienne finds his partner for the rest of the game in the very first book. Its
name is Roderick, and it sort of acts as his moral compass and hint giver throughout the game. Players can talk to him whenever or if they ever need a tip to get through the book. Obviously,
players are also interacting with items/characters in the book throughout the game. I like the fact that you can select different dialogue options and get different responses out of the characters
and Roderick. It makes me wonder what could’ve happened if I had selected other options during my gameplay. You can also pick up items to aid you in your combat. I know I said the combat is easy (and it is, especially strategy wise), but the enemies often attack in groups.
Since the combat is turn-based and you only have 5 bars of health, the items picked up during exploration saved me from death a few times. Overall, I seriously enjoyed the concept of the game as well as its content (and I wouldn’t mind a sequel). The only complaint I have is about the movement, which is sometimes a little stubborn. Regardless, I highly recommend this game to anyone who’s considering purchasing it!
Rating: 9/10
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Related: Reviews by Maryanne Fadonougbo
"I've enjoyed gaming since I was little, playing games like Pokémon, Rayman, and Naruto every day. Besides that though, I've always had a love for writing. Now I am combining the two for the best of both worlds! My ultimate goal is to do narrative design for video games."
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