Storyteller

A short but sweet puzzle game about building tall tales.

The puzzle genre stretches far and wide. While they all share similarities as they test your mental capacity, they do this in a number of different ways. A new style that has surfaced is the visual puzzler. Games such as Gorogoa and Framed, allow you to piece together images to progress the narrative. The simple but innovative premise is the foundation for the Storyteller but will it do enough to keep you hooked until the final page?

For those more than happy with a brief game with a singular-though-solid concept at its heart, Storyteller serves up a pleasant, though far from extraordinary, take on the art of narration. A premise, though novel in its approach and easy to grasp from the word go, that sadly stops short of anything radical or surprising to help this leap off its figurative pages. Even so, a familiarity in presentation that lasts right through to the end, short and to-the-point its offers may be, there's a sufficient sense of delight to be found in the way Storyteller hones in on the allure of storytelling as ...

Nevertheless, the game is undeniably gorgeous and clever, and easy to drop in and out of. The stories and characters are fun to experiment with as well, and Storyteller ultimately does a great job at establishing itself as something wholly unique within the puzzle game space. It’s worth experiencing for the chance to get to see everything that could ever happen in a story — from what goes right, to what goes terribly, terribly wrong.

Storyteller is a delightfully different indie puzzler, and its accessible tale-telling is well worth settling down with for a few hours.

Telling stories isn’t always the focus in puzzle games, but Storyteller makes the story itself the puzzle. Players become a sort of narrator, having full control of all elements of the story. The goal is to tell the tale, but it’s not always as easy as you might think. Players have control of everything from the setting to the characters and the events that transpire as you build the narrative. The story takes shape through its archetypes and building blocks, with a mere title being the o...

One of the best feelings in puzzle games is that ‘Ah-ha!’ or ‘Ohhhh!’ moment when a solution that seems obvious but continually remains elusive, suddenly becomes evident. Storyteller has these moments, but altogether entirely too few of them. It tries so gallantly to keep that feeling, but it ultimately stumbles due to its short length, disappointing ending, and low difficulty. Still, there is enough charm to the game that some will seek to complete the stories that Storyteller wants to tell.

Though Storyteller's premise might be creative, its repetitive puzzles and lack of challenge quickly make the game feel stale.