Epistory - Typing Chronicles
This game was quite touching at times. This is an indie game where you control a woman that rides a large fox and you explore a world that represents the woman's internal world. There's a University-themed level for instance with challenging puzzles that exposes you to the woman's conflict with self-doubt during this era of her life.
The gameplay is predominantly executed through typing. You use the WASD keys (Steam allows a remapping to the ESDF keys, you'll see why in a moment) to navigate, but alternatively, you can also use RFJI for diagonal movement. Going clockwise, I moves you diagonally up-right, I moves you diagonally down-right, etc. I've never seen this movement system before so I thought I should mention it.
Interacting with the world is also done through typing.
You press either the Space bar or Enter key to enter into a special state from which you can interact with the world by firing energy balls at objects and enemies, however you must type the word associated with the object/enemy.
Have you played or heard of typing games? When I checked out the comment section on YouTube for trailers of the game, some people seemed unimpressed, calling the game's design dated. I never knew typing games used to be a thing supposedly, so perhaps I'm being unnecessarily detailed about an old, dead genre.
So yeah, if you see an object of interest or an enemy approaching, the procedure I would take is to hit the space bar and type out the word that's fixed above the object or enemy. Very simple concept. I did enjoy the typing challenges, but what I really enjoyed was the environment and story.
It was like a glimpse into another person's life, the highs and the lows, and it was all presented very cleanly. I noticed as well, the word choices could be selective, depending on the environment. A monster with the word "fat" above its head might appear.
The art direction was 3D origami. It's very pretty. The colour choice was typically quite bright and vivid. I really liked it. There was one level that really reminded me of the "Card Castles in the Sky" level from Alice: Madness Returns that I thought was particularly beautiful.
The game also has a Gallery. If you try to open all of the chests in each level (you select levels by entering into them from the Overworld), you collect all of the "fragments" and that reveals a picture that embodies what the level is about - what memory of the woman's l
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