The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales

The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales is a narrative adventure game set in a dystopian world of writers who can jump into their books and essentially create their worlds from the inside out. Our game follows writer Etienne Quist on his journey to work off his “writer's block” sentence of 30 years. 

In this game, you start out from a first person perspective in a dingy apartment building with almost no personal items to your name. After a brief look around the cramped space, you receive a phone call from a mysterious voice asking you if you would be interested in “working off your sentence”. This job, as you may have gathered from the title, refers to becoming a thief. But not just any thief—a Bookwalker. Becoming this bookwalker means that you, as Etienne Quist, dive headfirst (literally) into the pages of a book to steal whatever items that you have been contracted to steal for our mysterious “collector”. 

Once you arrive in the books, you take on a new third person top down form to explore the pages of the books as if they were real, physical locations. From a Spaceship lost on it’s course to a desolate desert where sand is the currency, these locations are as beautifully drawn out as any game, regardless of its small design. 

Now, I am a lover of almost all puzzle games, and this is no exception. The level design is small but not overcrowded with explorable places, which makes getting from point A to point B of the level relatively simple. At only one point in my 10 hour playthrough did I need to look up a guide, as I was confused about what my next step should be. Most levels are Castelvania-esque in the manner of finding something in room one that you won't need until room three, but once in room three, you find the key to unlock door two, and so on. I found this easy and enjoyable, as I am no genius and I don’t enjoy puzzle games that are meant to be frustrating. 

The story of the game is also compelling and doesn’t open itself up (pun intended) initially, but you discover more about our character as the chapters progress. Also, having a quippy sidekick on the journey is something I enjoy and adds more depth to the mystery. I won't go into spoiler details as the story is short, and I do wholeheartedly believe it is worth the playthrough. Also, if you are an achievement hunter like my husband, this is another easy 1000 points to add to your gamer score, as I had unlocked 21 of the 37 achievements just by finishing the game. 

All in all, I believe this is a cute, fun, easy distraction of a game to break up the FPSs that might be dominating your GamePass home page, and I hope everyone who has or will play it enjoys it as much as I did.