Storyteller Review: A New Type Of Puzzle

We’re in a weird time for puzzle games. Recent years have produced some of the best-ever versions of classic franchises like Tetris and Puyo Puyo. However, truly original and interesting puzzle games have seemingly slowed to a crawl, with most of those that do still release coming to mobile instead of more traditional gaming platforms. It’s understandable. Many of these games play great on a touch screen, allowing them to reach the largest possible market, but it also leaves console and PC players with a limited selection. Last year I decided I wanted a great puzzle game I hadn’t played before for my Steam Deck and had a terrible time finding something.

That means Storyteller is releasing at a perfect moment, but it also makes it a somewhat strange release. This is a puzzle game that feels like it probably belongs on mobile, and I don’t mean that in a negative way.  While it’s certainly perfectly playable with standard controls, it works far better with a touch screen, meaning Switch players should seriously consider engaging with it in handheld mode. Still, it’s nice to see it available on platforms I prefer to play games on, and it’s one of the more unique puzzle games I’ve played in recent years, even if it’s not as satisfying as it could be.

Putting The Pieces Together

Each of the 51 levels in Storyteller has you trying to tell a story. You’ll be given anywhere from three to eight panels to effectively create a comic telling that story.  You’ll fill these panels with various situations and characters from a list that varies from level to level. For example, one level has you trying to get a certain character to remarry. The scenarios you can choose from are wedding, fight, poison, and wine, while you have three characters to choose from, including the one you need to get to remarry.

Getting them to remarry, of course, means getting them married in the first place, ending that marriage, and then creating another marriage. You have six panels to accomplish this, though you can accomplish many stories in fewer panels than you’re given. Many of these stories offer multiple potential solutions, however, and there are some which even offer a secondary goal to push you to try solving them in multiple ways.

The whole thing has a very fun look and vibe, as the characters have a ton of personality, and watching the various animations that go along with the stories can be a lot of fun. So can playing around with options that you know aren’t going to work just to see what happens. For example, putting a character who is already dead into a scene is rarely the right way to solve things and can have several different consequences. Still, it’s usually a great way to get an interesting reaction out of the rest of the characters. You can also move panels back and forth with a single button click to try manipulating the order of events. More than a couple of times when something wasn’t clicking, all I needed to do was slightly alter the order of things.

Ends Just When It Gets Good

At times, the puzzles here can also be rather clever, particularly later in the game. There were a couple that left me stumped for some time and really made me think through my options. Sadly though, that was only a small subset of Storyteller’s stories. Of the 51 stories, less than ten were truly challenging, and they’re mostly later in the game. Most of the early ones are obvious. Too many levels feature nothing but scenarios and characters you’ll need to use, making it hard for players to really get too stumped.

Some may enjoy that, but I want my puzzle games to tie my head in knots. That’s the only way I can get the adrenaline rush of finally figuring out that puzzle I didn’t think I’d ever wrap my brain around. There were times that feeling showed up in Storyteller but they were few and far between. Having some easy puzzles up front to get players used to the mechanics and make sure they understand the game’s logic makes sense, but they went on far too long, and by the time you’re past them, there’s not enough left. It leaves a game that just has too little content, which is really engaging. If there were another forty levels after this with a similar or higher level of complexity to those in the last few chapters, we’d be in business, but by the time things really felt like they were getting going, they were over.

Conclusion

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy my time telling these stories. Storyteller is filled with charm and offers interesting mechanics, which really do make it feel like you’re telling a story. Unfortunately, it just takes too long to get going for a game that ends so soon. I completed every level in the game, including the alternate challenges, in about two hours. For the right price, this is definitely a story worth telling, though, and those in need of a new take on the puzzle genre should have a good time.

Final Verdict: 3.5/5

Available on: Switch (Reviewed), PC; Publisher: Annapurna Interactive; Developer: Daniel Benmergui; Players: 1; Released: March 23rd, 2023; ESRB: T for Teen; MSRP: $14.99

Full disclosure: This review is based on a copy of Storyteller provided by the publisher.