Fairy tales are staples of childhood. Whether warm or dark, they are always familiar. They are a place to return to: to tell and retell and retell once more. But what happens when they’re twisted? When the fables that form your comfort zone are not quite what they seem? What happens when the enigmatic force behind the fairy tale… is you?
Let me tell you a story.
From developer Daniel Benmergui, Storyteller is a puzzle game centred around fairy tales. The twist is right in the title: the player is the one telling each story. With a limited number of panels and pieces, each prompt must be fulfilled. Sometimes you’re creating a murder, other times a love story. Whatever the tale, it is yours to figure out.
The central mechanics of Storyteller are simple. You have scenarios—weddings, affairs, ballrooms, poison cellars, and more—and characters to put in them. Drag and drop a setting to a panel, then place the right characters in the right order to tell the story that’s at the top of the page. These modest mechanics allow all of the game’s efforts to focus on its puzzles. This works to great effect: each and every story is delightfully clever.
Prompts are short one-liners. Things like “Story of a Tragedy,” “Heartbreak,” or “Somehow, Palpatine has Returned.” One of those is fake. Moving on. Straightforward as the prompts may be, fulfilling them is not always as clear as first glance suggests. You may see two characters clearly drawn like a couple, only for the princess to find her frog prince is on another lilypad. Getting the story wrong is half the fun. Recounting what’s been asked of you requires a bit of thinking, and it’s incredibly engaging to mix and match scenarios and characters to get to the right answer.
Even the process of trial and error tells a story. Panels that you may initially place for exposition, to get character A to motivation B, might not end up necessary. Yet, the exquisitely animated characters will still react to where you’ve put them. They’ll emote in each panel based on the story told in the ones before it, and provide context clues as to where your tale has derailed. Storyteller empowers the player to live up to the titular role at every turn.
Adding to the experience is the ambience. Storyteller leans into its cutesy concept by taking place entirely in a storybook. Each story prompt takes place across one double page spread, with a maximum of eight panels to use. The music is light, the characters are cute and reactive, and the feedback loop is sublime. Getting the right solution will cause a glittering trail to dance across your perfectly placed panels, while a little ding accompanies the crown that pops up to signal victory. Certain scenarios, like a coronation, will have their own unique sound effects too. It’s all just impeccably crafted.
The fun doesn’t stop there. A few of the stories have more than one ending, and will reveal them once you find the first. From there, it’s up to you to figure out how to fulfil this new twist on the prompt. Plus, though technically a single player game, Storyteller is also great in groups. Bouncing ideas off one another is hilarious, especially when nobody manages to get it right. Eureka moments also hit harder with friends. The simple nature of gameplay here makes it easy to pick up, even for people who don’t usually play games. I introduced Storyteller to my mum about halfway through, and we had a whale of a time figuring things out together. For this game to intrigue my decidedly non-gamer mother, it truly is something special.
That said, nothing is perfect, and there are always areas to improve. For Storyteller, these areas are fortunately far and few between. One gripe you could have is its length. This is a very short game, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. For how fun it is to play, though, I would have enjoyed spinning some more fables. What’s more, the classic fairy tales it apes and plays on are all decidedly Western. There are elements taken from things like Cinderella, The Princess and the Frog, and a smattering of story beats from the Brothers Grimm. I would love to see other folklores get their moment to shine in Storyteller. Experimenting with the ingredients of One Thousand and One Nights or the Romance of the Three Kingdoms would be a delight. Something like Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh is ripe with tropes to toy with. There’s so much potential with this unique formula, and it’s a shame that it is as yet unrealised.
At the end of our story, however, I am left with nothing but joy. Storyteller is creative, cunning, and utterly delightful the entire way through. Daniel Benmergui outdoes himself, and offers us a literary puzzler that is most definitely one for the books.
Sarim played Storyteller on Nintendo Switch with a code provided by the publisher. Storyteller is available on Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam.
