The Book of Unwritten Tales: Die Vieh Chroniken (The Critter Chronicles) archived preview

Written by
Jan Schneider — September 21, 2009

When we met [Producer] Egbert Latza from HMH and [Lead Designer] Jan Theysen from King Art at a pub on Tuesday before gamescom, we were hoping to get our hands on new information and maybe even some pictures of the latest project from the team that already released one of the best adventures in recent times. However, we had to wait until our appointment at the convention on Wednesday for that.

During that appointment, we were introduced to a concept that is rather unusual for the German retail market. Die Vieh Chroniken [translated loosely as “The Critter Chronicles”] is not a full game on the scale of The Book of Unwritten Tales, but rather an all-new “chapter“.

“An episode?“ HMH already hears the outcry from Telltale’s critics. No, not an episode. First of all, the game's story will be self-contained, and even gamers not familiar with King Art's last game will be able to understand it. Secondly, there are currently no plans for further “chapters“.

The publisher also made clear that Die Vieh Chroniken is not The Book of Unwritten Tales 2. Instead, it will be a prequel that tells the story of how Nate and the merry furball Critter ended up with each other. This story begins as Nate wins his airship 'Mary' in a game of cards and is forced into a battle with Orc bounty hunter Ma'Zaz, who has been hired by the airship's former owners. While the protagonist is able to escape alive, he does end up crashing in the Northlands.

Once there, not only does he meet the Critter, who gained quite a number of fans as the sidekick in The Book of Unwritten Tales, but a whole tribe of Critters that is being threatened by a warlock and in desperate need of assistance. Soon, Nate and Critter, who has fallen in love with the daughter of the Critters' chieftain and could use a helping hand, realize that they could help each other out. And that's how their mutual adventure begins.

Some fans of the original game may be worried that spending a whole game with the pink Critter will get annoying pretty fast. HMH has two answers to this. One is that the player won't actually spend the whole time with Critter. The game consists of five chapters, and players will spend one chapter as Critter and another as Nate. In the remaining three chapters, they will be free to choose which role they want to play. Additionally, Critter will be “tweaked“ considerably until release. His vocabulary, if you want to call it that, will increase, as well as his variety of gestures and facial expressions.

One thing that we liked in particular was the developer's promise to include two difficulty modes. The “normal“ level will be similar to that of the game's predecessor, while the “difficult“ mode will be geared towards adventure game veterans. How exactly these two modes will differ from each other, we cannot say yet. The game's promotional material also promises the ability to interrupt animations, the option to quickly change characters, and the inclusion of more background animations, along with other improvements. In addition, players will encounter promising characters like a schizophrenic Yeti and the animal rights campaigner Petra.

Sadly, no in-game footage was shown at gamescom, leaving us to rely on information solely from the publisher. Still, the ideas sound promising, and if locations like the Escher room, which was revealed shortly after the convention, are used to their full potential, fans of The Book of Unwritten Tales won't have to worry about being disappointed. They will, however, have to be patient until the game is released in the first quarter of 2010.