Raw Fury / EggNut
Set in a dystopian Vancouver populated by anthropomorphic animals and
with an art deco aesthetic, I said in my first look it was more
interactive novel than I prefer, which is how it stayed throughout.
Stylishly and carefully crafted, its stock in trade are conversations
which produce branching narratives and drive the stories of each of the
four playable characters. Straight out puzzles are limited and easy,
save for a rather good if not immediately clear one around the middle of
the game. But if you like a set of well written tales and pontificating
about how best to progress each of them, you will likely be well
pleased.
The pixel art environment is incredibly detailed and while there is no
spoken word there are grunts and exclamations that work rather well to
provide a sense of a conversation going on. A varied and moody
soundtrack plus some ambient sound effects round out the aural side of
things.
Each of the four playable characters are varied in age, background and
species. Their tales take part independently of each other; their
connection is the lore and world building of the Vancouver future. They
also have their own timeframes, some playing out over many years, others
a much more truncated period of time. They don’t interact with each
other, or cross over, so think of each as a separate book occurring
within the same game world.
I
enjoyed each of them, and they are all very different. Howard is a
photography major, experiencing college alongside his roommate Larry.
Clarissa is heiress to a mafia boss and who will never be good enough
for her father. Renee is a journalist, grappling with her relationship
and confronting the lack of agency in her life, and Eli is a scientist,
researching in the wastelands but beginning to question if what he is
doing is really for the greater good.
I
liked some more than others. Eli and Clarissa I enjoyed the most, the
tension in their respective stories being progressively palpable. Renee
was probably the most impactful, being more relatable than the others.
Howard was the (comparative) low point for me, a bit too frat boy
although you could ameliorate that with your choices. None though was
disappointing or dull.
You don’t choose which character to play, rather the game’s chapters
take you back and forth between each of them. Your choices will
determine various traits, how relationships progress, and branching
dialogues and randomized events will determine the path/s through the
game. A 'branching tree' keeps track of your choices, and your dialogue
remains reviewable throughout. The last part of each tale will give you
a ‘how things worked out’ final entry in your story tree.
Disappointingly, I couldn’t review my ‘tree’ at the end (or at least I
couldn’t work out how), but I was largely happy with where I ended up.
Your game screen scrolls left and right as you move your character with
the arrow keys, or whatever keys you choose to assign. Ditto to interact
with the environment. You can use the mouse to do that if you want but
will need to make that change in the settings menu. As you move around,
hotspot bubbles will pop up, and you can interact or not as you see fit.
You don’t have to do everything, but it may have an impact later or
effect whether or not you gather all the Steam achievements. Relevant
icons will indicate what can be done each time (e.g., look, talk, use
etc.). As you explore, the conversation bubbles of those NPCs in the
environment will also appear. Linger and read or move on as you choose.
As indicated, there is no spoken word, and when engaging in
conversations a dialogue panel will overlay the right side of the
screen. Choose your various responses with the mouse and scroll back if
you want to revisit what has gone before. Given it is a very talkative
game, the ability to scroll back over what has been said is useful.
The game autosaves but you can also save at will, and just click
continue in the menu to pick up where you left off. I didn’t play the
earlier game so I can’t tell you how this fits with what came before but
I didn’t feel my enjoyment was compromised as a result. My playtime
clocked in at around 5 hours, and while I wanted more to do than
talking, these Tales/Tails are a polished and well written enterprise.
I played on:
OS: Windows
10, 64 Bit
Processor:
Intel i7-9700K 3.7GHz
RAM: Corsair
Dominator Platinum RGB DDR4 32GB
Video card:
AMD Radeon RX 580 8192MB
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April 2023
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