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jp's Storyteller (PC)
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| [November 2, 2025 10:50:59 PM]
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I started this last night, finished it today - all the trophies and everything which was a surprise to me. As in, I wasn't expecting I'd be able to do that - or that I'd even do it.
It's a strange game - strange in that most of the time I'm breezing through and clearing levels, and then I get stuck. Stuck real bad, and it takes me a while to figure it out. And then back to breezing.
My first time getting stuck was literally on the 2nd level. I assumed it was a "easy this is kind of the tutorial" and it probably was - but there I was stuck like a fly on honey. It was quite frustrating!
As you'd expect the game has it's own logic, and you really need to lean on the prompt to figure out what to do. I think that where it kind of breaks the most is when there are different expectations for different characters. And the only way to find out what they are (for some, others have a name that helps) is to try out different characters in different scenes to see how they react. A different reaction from the rest means this character has some additional rule in place you don't know, but need to assume or figure out. At least, I think that's how it works based on my playing it...
So, it's weirdly a game where it can sometimes be quite hard to get to a solution just from the characters and the scene - because there'll be something that won't work and you won't know why. For example, there's some scenes with a queen - if she's kidnapped, she loses her crown and the kidnapper can crown themselves! But, if you then kidnap the kidnapper - the queen doesn't automatically let herself be crowned. She often has to go to the throneroom to see the crown there before you can do "queen actions" (like execute someone). This didn't make sense to me - but at least this difference in behavior seemed consistent. I don't know how it's encoded behind the scenes - maybe the original kidnapper has a desire/goal to be crowned, but the queen doesn't implicitly? I don't know.
So, the game's short - but it is fun - with the best part probably being the alternate stories you're sometimes encouraged to figure out, the devil levels you unlock once you finish and the stamps (which you also unlock). I could have sworn I had done some of the stamp requirements during my first playthrough, but perhaps I was wrong? Those were a bit annoying because I wanted to have the requirements to look at while trying to figure out which story page might work...and some only work with the devil as well!
In separate work I've written (with colleagues!) about game goal hierarchies (the goals you achieve on the way to achieveing a game's ultimate goal, e.g. winning, finishing) and how games have a parallel narrative goal hierarchy which is how players make sense of the meaning of the game goals they're achieving - e.g. moving your character to a certain location on the screen is how you can "rescue the princess" (or whatever). This game is a really strong example of a game where the puzzle/challenge is figuring out what the game goal hierarchy is in order to achieve a narrative goal you're given! I'm excited to dig into this game a bit more - at least in the context of the goal hierarchies and academic stuff I'm working on!
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jp's Storyteller (PC)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Saturday 1 November, 2025
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