The Book of Unwritten Tales
King Art Games
G.O.G version, 2012

It has been awhile since any reviews have been posted so I decided to give my take on this fairly new game. I suspect many have already experienced it but just in case you have not, I offer a bit of information. The G.O.G. version is D.R.M. free and runs flawlessly on Windows 7 64 bit without any tweaking. For those of you who do not know the style of the game is similar to that of Jack Keene.

Mechanics

The main menu has continue game, save game, new game, load game, settings and quit game. The menu screen is accessed during game play by the ESC key. You can adjust screen resolution, graphics quality, anti aliasing, music volume, sound effects, speech volume and subtitles selections. Saves are made by clicking on the empty saving slot, enter a name and click on save. Your saves can be overwritten. To switch from one character to another click on the picture of the character seen at top left of the screen. Right clicking an inventory item will provide a vocal description of that item. Look at items you pick up once in inventory. Often there is more there you need to find.

The game is standard point and click third person with cartoon style graphics. The rendering is quite well done offering crisp and clean visuals. I do not recall any dark areas hindering play or any pixel hunting. The space bar acts as a hot spot highlighter helping you to find areas for interaction. The cursor will change appearance from a magnifying glass for look to a hand for pickup and a small square suggesting a dialogue box affording you the ability to speak to another character. It also morphs to a wrench for doing something and a door where double clicking provides instant exit to the room indicated. A map is provided for instant travel to other areas saving excessive walking about. The game installs on Windows 7 to program files x86. Saves are stored in My Documents, again for Windows 7 users.

Saves may not be transferable from the Lace Mamba English version to games played in the GOG issue. I located a save on the internet from the English disc version and no matter what I did it would not be recognized by my GOG install. Without the ability to test further I do not have a conclusive answer. It may simply have been a faulty save. The windows key and alt/tab do not exit you to Windows making it impossible to access internet resources while playing. No easy access is provided to utilize a walk through. There were no crashes or stability issues at all with this version of the game. I noted Gremlin mentioned in his review,

“I did suffer from a couple of technical glitches (one particular dialog caused the game to crash completely, but it is avoidable) and there was one scene almost at the end of the game where the German subtitles have survived the localisation process.”

I did not encounter that issue in the G.O.G. version.

Game Play

As noted above this is a standard point and click third person two and a half D graphics Adventure Game. It utilizes all the game fare one is accustomed to. Puzzles are mostly inventory based where you mix and match items or apply a single item to what you are trying to do. There is a dialogue tree but speech for the most part is brief. There are no sliders, timed puzzles, action sequences or mazes. I did not encounter an interaction where your character could be killed. Now then comes the departure from your standard character presentation. The latest rage is to allow playing more than one character. This game provides this feature as well offering a slight twist. It presents as a spoof to Role Playing Games implementing several aspects of that genre. It sort of pokes fun at rpgs.

You play three central characters sometimes in isolation and sometimes as a team. They are Ivo, a female Elf, Wilbur, a male Gnome, Nate, a male Adventurer. Other characters you play on occasion are, MacGuffin, a Gremlin, and Critter, who is just that an unidentifiable critter. There are five chapters set in four different locations. Your task is to find an artifact which will enable the good guys to win a war that has been in stalemate for a very long time. To do so you must outwit, Orcs, ogres, zombies,termites, dragons, a mummy, a rather odd Paladin who is suggestive of someone not at all of the Paladin persona. It is yet another strange presentation. There is a character representing death and another who is an evil queen. You encounter swamps, graveyards, castles, forts, Mage school and other locales.

Chapter one, titled Prologue features MacGuffin the Gremlin being kidnapped by the Shadows, agents of the evil queen. You play as Ivo, the Elf in her attempt to rescue the Gremlin. You switch to Wilbur, the Gnome who wants to be a Mage. Ivo has a hilarious interaction with a mummy. I will not give away any more than that. Chapter two, In the Town focuses on Wilbur as he is drawn into the quest by a brief encounter with the Gnome. Ultimately Wilbur joins forces with the Elf and the Adventurer. Chapter three The Sunken Temple, focuses on our newly formed team as they begin the quest. Chapters four and five take place in The Wild Lands where our team deals with all sorts of characters.

The voice acting is stellar as in the background music. Accents are well done as is the translation from the original German to English. All too often in such cases the attempt at humor fails when translating from one language to another. Here the numerous one liners are spot on and quite funny. You will be spending considerable time laughing. The puzzles are not difficult and there are a few that will challenge you. All in all this is a delightful game that is quite long, complex and engaging. My only real gripe is the made for TV movie ending where it is so sudden you look for a more detailed conclusion. It is an abrupt ending in the aspect of leaving you to wonder why there was no epilogue. At least they did not leave you with a cliff hanger and unresolved questions. It was simply one of those, “look at the time, we gotta go” endings.

Minimum Requirements are
Windows XP SP3, Vista or Windows 7.
Pentium IV 2GHz / Athlon 2.4 GHz
1GB RAM Windows XP, or 2 GB RAM Vista or Windows 7.
6GB free disc space
Direct-X 9c compatible video card with 128MB RAM, PixelShader 2.0.

Marvelous look at BoUT, oldmariner. My complaint is your complaint, that it ended too soon, too abruptly, as if they had to rush it to the publisher if it was going to see the light of day at all. Other than that, it was a great experience.

You are really getting good at this!

Gil.

Thanks Oldmariner

I started this and then my computer blew up. I'll have to get back to it one day.

Thanks for your comment. My complaint is based on my liking closure and felt as if there should have been more. No issues with the game though, I really like it.

An excellent review! I agree:

The bit with the mummy was just about my favorite.

Great review thank you, oldmariner

Unfortunately, I haven't played through to the end yet. I was about two thirds into it when real life "stole" my Adventure time and the poor game got semi-abandoned

However, up to that point I had NO complaints and felt this was one of those well polished goodies that too seldom come our way.
And I'm certainly looking forward to getting back into it

Yup, apart from the ending seeming rushed this was an absolute classic (okay maybe it was too easy but still extremely enjoyable). Nice review!

I am considering this game, and enjoyed your review. Thank you

GOG has it for $19.99
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/the_book_of_unwritten_tales

Thanks Jenny100

Just started this last night. I really am liking this game. I just noticed that a followup is on the way. Looks interesting!

The followup game, Critter Chronicles, has already been released.

Here's one place to buy the boxed version:

Book of Unwritten Tales: Critter Chronicles