“A Juggler’s Tale”, a pretty gothic tale where you really pull the strings
In this video game that shines with its sometimes bucolic, sometimes disturbing atmosphere, you lead a puppet that has escaped from a circus. Its graphic beauty will forget you its mechanics a little too classic and its too short duration. From 8 years old.
In a medieval tavern, a traveling puppeteer gives a performance of his last show. Once installed behind his chariot and the curtain raised, he is telling the story of Abby, a juggler. Gifted in her discipline, she is nonetheless captive within her circus troupe subjected to a particularly despotic Mr. Loyal.
This quick contextualization done, the player controlling Abby helps him take the key to the fields. It is not to the taste of Mr. Loyal who likes the services of thugs to track her down. Fleetingness, frantic flight and environmental puzzles to be solved will therefore be the price to pay to taste this freedom so long hoped for.
Few video games have placed the figure of the puppet at the heart of their central device. Which is quite astonishing, because the heroine-avatar that we control can be compared to a modern variation of the puppet. The newcomers of the German studio Kaleidoscube have approached this problem literally in A juggler’s tale, since Abby is an authentic polichinelle there, visible threads included.
Controller in hand, A juggler’s story is a series of environmental puzzles assembled in a two-dimensional platform game. The player must move Abby to the right of the screen. Only, he must deal with the cords stretched from the top of the screen, connected to each member of Abby. Reconfiguring the course then becomes imperative to prevent the strings from getting caught in the elements of the decor and stopping the juggler’s progress.
The voice of his master
For rest, A juggler’s story draws its inspiration from more adult titles, such as Inside and Little nightmares, while removing the scariest aspects and the most complex mechanics. Simple, the environmental puzzles are tailored for a young audience. And if it is difficult to resolve, the puppeteer, at the same time narrator, poet and commentator of our actions, will not hesitate to share clues to resolve badly engaged situations.
We will be less lenient in front of the platitude of mini-sequences of flight, when the brigands give chase, due to a lack of respondent in the controls. Likewise, the short duration ofA juggler’s story (two hours, at the most) could slow down the enthusiasm of some. However, the latter would miss a pretty Gothic tale with splendid and magnificently illuminated panoramas.