Where the Water Tastes Like Wine

If, for any reason, you sometimes feel like your projects are going nowhere tell yourself that, at least, you are not the creator of Where the Water Tastes Like Wine.

Not because this game is bad or because its creator is flawed in any particular way (that we are aware of) but because this title apparently sold less copies that it currently has followers on Twitter (around 4K) and because it made 0$ in revenue to its creator for a total development cost of 150K$. A financial disaster one can learn more about from Johnnemann Nordhagen himself in an unexpectedly honest blog entry: https://medium.com/@johnnemann/where-the-water-tastes-like-wine-postmortem-211a1f9d791a

Now, WWTLW is not what you would call a stellar gameplay experience and its release was met with mixed reviews for this exact reason. Going from one point of the map to another by foot (the least expensive and most often used mean of locomotion in the game) takes a lot of time. It quickly becomes tiresome due to the constant back and forth a player has to do to find all the important NPCs. The whistling mini-game introduced to break this monotony can quickly get repetitive or even frustrating. Combined with a somewhat capricious camera and a main character who appears to move independently of the player’s instructions, heading in one direction is often more difficult that it has any right to be. The possibility given to the player to hitchhike on they way is no more satisfying as it is somewhat cumbersome to understand how and where to stop once you are inside of a car. Traveling by train becomes available after reaching the first big city but requires either money you very often don’t have (by design) or to try your chance at train hopping with the risk of losing health if a cop got his hand on you. Realistic and annoying at the same time.

Heading in one direction is often more difficult that it has any right to be.

All this need to be put into perspective, though, when you realize that Nordhagen was the sole designer, programmer and manager for the project and had never released a game before this one. With a microscopic indie budget and a team of contractual artists and writers behind him, he still managed to create what amount to a very interesting narrative title unlike anything done before. Indeed, for all of its shortfalls, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine brings a refreshing approach to storytelling in games. And it does so with the help of a fantastic artistic direction and an amazing soundtrack. It might be lacking in the mechanics department but it sure doesn’t mess with its atmosphere. All things that saddened me to no end when I learned how it fell behind its original objectives.

For all of its shortfalls, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine brings a refreshing approach to storytelling in games. And it does so with the help of a fantastic artistic direction and an amazing soundtrack.

WWTLW takes place during the Great Depression in the US at a time when finding a job was as difficult as finding food or a place to sleep. By 1930 there were 4.3 millions unemployed. By early 1933, almost 13 millions were out of work and those who managed to retain their jobs often took pay cuts and a series of dust storms was brought by a drought in some states like Oklahoma (https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/rise-to-world-power/great-depression/a/the-great-depression). In such a context, numerous were the individual throw out on the roads and the street of the country, eager to find any place or any way to survive and escape the poverty created by the financial crisis. Such is the fate of the game main protagonist. A man with his clothes and a bunch of stories as his sole riches.

You begin this game by meeting a strange wolf figure of an auguries sort. It preaches to you the central role of stories in the human existence and encourages you to meet new travelers to learn their anecdotes before you can spread and exchange them for other narratives of different categories. You goal, or so it seems, is to find the place where the water tastes like wine. A paradise of a sort where no suffering exists anymore and everything is bountiful.

You goal, or so it seems, is to find the place where the water tastes like wine. A paradise of a sort where no suffering exists anymore and everything is bountiful.

But before reaching it, you need to meet and entertain different characters or spirits of the road by earning their trust and listening to their personal story. Each of them has its preferences and you can’t tell a story twice. You need to spread it a bit around you before it comes back to you in a renewed form that will interest one of the big players. All this by learning more about the strange stories and the sad lives of people during this most depressing of time.

Consequently, the writing, the art and the music are where WWTLW truly shines. The hand-drawn characters, the beautiful colors and the high quality of the dialogues compete to offer a plausible and historically accurate depiction of this great American tragedy. Each story is short enough to be easily remembered but has sufficient impact to leave a lasting impression. The way a tale get transformed over time to the point of being almost unrecognizable illustrates how humans passes information and how the core of a story changes with each iteration as new preoccupations replace old ones. All while being accompanied by beautiful folk songs reminiscent of the era during which this game takes place.

Each story is short enough to be easily remembered but has sufficient impact to leave a lasting impression. The way a tale get transformed over time to the point of being almost unrecognizable illustrates how humans passes information and how the core of a story changes with each iteration as new preoccupations replace old ones.

Isn’t it ironic for this game to end-up as another cautionary tale? To reflect the harsh reality of the life as an indie developer in a highly concentrated and capitalistic market? Are not all of those creators looking for their own version of the land of wine and honey where money would cease to be a necessity? Where stories could buy a meal?

Hopefully, they will find it.