The lights and shadows of an adventure
The interior was an old cathedral filled with mice, if possible even more than the exterior, and colored glass windows covered the two side walls to immerse themselves completely in the setting of the game. At this point we let the words lead us to the presentation, visually supported by a hands-off demo that turned for the occasion on a PC, probably high-end considering the size.
The incipit consisted of a clarification that framed the game of these French guys in a well-defined category, namely Action-Adventure for consoles and PCs in third person, highly narrative and exclusively single-player. Basically, we will dress a girl, Amissia, and her brother, who in the gloomy medieval France affected by the plague, will simply have to survive. Simply in its quantitative, non
-qualitative meaning, because they will find the tragedy of the epidemic on the one hand, and on the other, the drama of human terror incarnated in the inquisition, the desperate search for a scapegoat of the inexplicable plague.
We tend to anticipate that the story does not want to be faithfully historical, but not overly fantastic. As part of the work, as learned from the interview with the group’s level designer, it was decided to abandon an incarnate antagonist in some magical miasma that could break the world to leave room for something more concrete than mice, which between the other in addition to the very important role on the narrative stage will have one equally important on the mechanical one.
On the role of mice within history has added, though not unbalanced in too eloquent statements, which will have a much more weight and dynamics than we can imagine. We admit that this has intrigued us a lot, for the affirmation leaves open all possibilities on narrative developments of the story, which seems very deep and dramatic.
Mors your life mea
The gameplay side all runs around the light-dark dichotomy. In enlightened places mice can not act: staying within the range of a lamp or a brazier can be the only way to be safe. However, in the shadow, the rule of your mea life, with the hunger of mice swallowed by one prey at a time, is the rule of life , so that it is possible to pass unharmed into dark areas, provided there is already someone under the rodent fangs.
The unhealthy animals, after the aggression, leave a sticky substance as a sign of their presence. Certainly, this aspect will have an impact on history, but ignoring it totally will not go into further speculation.
What he says goes to create a partially stealth gameplay and partly focused on the puzzle solution that is useful to go undetected in maze or inquisition areas. The only “weapon” is a sling with which to hit, more than the enemies, the lanterns that carry behind them and cause the dark to catch them. The little brother, age and size, will often help us because he is able to crouch and go to places we can not reach.
Plague Tale: Innocence presents a few elements of truly innovative gameplay, and bets on a set of consolidated mechanics that can support the narrative front but must aspire to excellence in order to convince us when it is definitive.
Looking at the technical side, we can only appreciate the level of detail achieved with the Unreal Engine 4 engine as, while turning on a high-end computer, there is a wide margin of improvement, relying on the forecasts that give the title to the market in Late 2018. The goodness of the technical sector is also tangible thanks to the realization of the mice, which by means of particular algorithms, really creates a feeling of fluid mass, while still possible to distinguish every single animal.
