Mini Review: Zauberwald Kendell

Last week, I might have irritated everybody by first tweeting that I just beta-tested the best role-playing #VoiceFirst game I know, and later revealing that it’s only available in ze biutiful German tongue. In order to share with you why I’m so excited about this game, I offer you this mini review. :)

The fairies searched everywhere for a hero, and they found you! Are you ready?

• Game Story (Spoiler alert!)
  The fairy Alexa brings the protagonist to the magical forest Kendell (this is what the German Skill name translates to) as a candidate to be its warden/protector. Playing as either the magician Baldur or the elf Lyria, the protagonist has to prove himself worthy by retrieving a powerful wand and solving a few tasks along the way. The game introduces Kendell’s history, the inventory and the spells that the player can use, and ends with a final ‘puzzle’ for which the player has to use the right series of spells.
• Game mechanics
  ‘Zauberwald Kendell’ is a linear interactive story with a mix of single-option choices, fake choices, progress choices and loops (I’m currently building a glossary for terms like these, but right now, you can read up on them here).
  The game has inventory items and spells, but you cannot use them proactively, but only when the situation calls for it (like ‘Oh no, the bridge is broken! Which spell do you want to use to get to the other side?’).
  One of these situations is when you made the wrong choice at a progress node. Typically, this would result in your game being over and resetting, but if you have life potions, you get another try at the current node.
• Narration
  The fairy Alexa guides and accompanies the player through the game from her second person character point of view. This is one of the aspects of the games that I particularly enjoy, because the producer succeeded in using and extending Alexa’s character to organically fit her into the game. Here’s a translated example: ‘Did you hear that sound? I’m glad I can fly, because if a monster comes out of that cave, I’ll be off onto a tree. Please don’t be mad that I can’t save you!’.
  But it’s not only Alexa talking: The entire game is an audio drama, with rich sound effects and every character having their own voice-talent-recorded and matchingly distorted voice. Interestingly, there is even an abstract second person (text-to-speech) narrator telling you things that fairy Alexa might not be interested in, like items that you find in chests.
  One rather exotic participant is the player character themselves: In a few cases, they take the liberty of answering to Alexa on their own, typically to build atmosphere with light-hearted banter. Personally, I’m not a fan of this, but it’s probably a matter of taste.
• Audio effects (more spoilers ahead!)
  ‘Zauberwald Kendell’ makes excellent use of audio effects. I already mentioned the ‘distorted’ voices of non-player characters, and on top of that, there’s the typical sounds of footsteps, birds chirping, crackling fire, opening bottles, activated spells and such.
  The most impressive use of audio effects is when they substitute ‘epic’ scenes (that would have a cutscene in a video game) like seeing the view on the valley from a mountain pass, fairy Alexa dancing with her sisters, and riding on a dragon’s back: In this case, the game offers sound clips of about 20 seconds, which convey about the same sentiment as the cutscene would have. Pretty nice, right?
• Retention factors (spoilers, again…)
  The current version of the game ends with the player character obtaining the wand and being appointed warden of the forest by the dragon, which makes me feel like I just finished the tutorial, got engaged with the game world, and can now start actually playing. So if the game is well received, it’s quite likely that there will be expansions — Maybe even premium ones. Especially if expansions come out in a rhythm that is not so long that people loose interest in the meantime.
  Within a given version of the game like the current one, the primary source of retention is to explore other storylines — Either play as a different character, try a different solution (like taking the short instead of the long path to the cave) or even ignoring Alexa’s hints and seeing what happens.
• Ease of use
  I would say the game is pretty much as difficult as it is designed to be. You can easily go through the entire game by just following fairy Alexa’s cues — Until you come to the final puzzle, where you have to find a sequence of applying your six spells to two items, which is the only part of the game where you need to do some thinking.
  I can imagine that in future versions, there will be combat scenes, which add an element of tactical/probabilistic difficulty, but the current version doesn’t have it.
  Quite typically for interactive stories, you can make your choices by phrasing them, like ‘prepare for the night’ or ‘find ingredients’. Less typical, and somewhat subotimal, is the approach that if the user’s answer doesn’t match the scene’s options, the entire scene (and not only the prompt) is repeated.
• Summary
  Even in its current version, ‘Zauberwald Kendell’ is both impressively large and has a very dense atmosphere, which is a rare combination. What makes it particularly outstanding is the level of engagement that it creates, especially with Alexa as a companion character, and the brilliant use of sound effects. I think it has a lot of promise for future expansions, especially if some less linear aspects are included, like combat and different regions to explore (like in ‘The Magic Door’).

Again, I’m sorry if you can’t actually experience this gem of a #VoiceGame because of the language barrier, but I hope I could convey why I am so excited about it: I share Amy Stapleton’s vision of #VoiceFirst interactive stories having the potential of enabling a new, interactive and deeply engaging generation of (audio)books. Even with great voice games like ‘Mr Robot’, ‘Select A Story’ or ‘Zauberwald Kendell’, we’re not there yet, but this game pushes the boundaries in this direction.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this — Either here, by email, or in Twitter! :)