When I was younger I loved Goosebumps. Used to watch it on TV and I read all the books. It was horror for kids, and I always loved it. Why do I mention this? Because there were also novels called ‘give yourself goosebumps‘ which got me into choose your own adventure novels. The Ballad Singer looks to bring forward a choose your own adventure visual novel – of sorts.
Launching on Steam Early Access on the 27th of September, the game alleges to contain up to 1700 unique stories, each of them culminating with one of 40 different endings. All of this will be guided by your every decision, where every choice, even the smaller ones, count.
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Developed by Curtel Games, The Ballad Singer initially started as a successful Kickstarter Project in November, last year. It generated €33,472 of a €25,000 goal. Not a huge target to reach and, fortunately, the game reached it. It seems a low target for a game with such ambition, though.
With 40 hours of narration, over 400,000 words with over 40 musical tracks, it’s a game that seems like it was shooting for the moon. If the game comes even close to the ambition it’s set forward and the choose your own visual novel style works out, it could truly be a one of a kind title. Particularly if the ‘domino system’ works as intended, making every choice have far-reaching repercussions.
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Here are the features, as described by the the game itself:
- Four heroes with different narrative developments;
- Asymmetric stories intertwining one to the other;
- During a single run with a character you will never face two fights alike;
- Your choices really matter, you can completely change the fate of the heroes through your decisions;
- Three degrees of challenge: deceive death and repeat mortal choices through powerful artifacts;
- Replayability: only by replaying The Ballad Singer you will be able to discover the different decisional paths of each hero;
- Domino System: a choice in the first minutes of play could have strong repercussions throughout the course of the adventure;
- Fully narrated story, over 400,000 words and 40 hours of narration;
- More than 700 HD illustrations;
- Over 40 musical tracks;
- 400 different detailed deaths.
- Dying is part of the story, so there is no “Game Over.” When a character you’re playing as dies, you will play as a new hero, within the same story, in a different narrative path.
