Your man is Etienne Quist, a novelist who cannot write.
This makes him valuable to wrong’uns.
If he pulls a few heists for a shady bunch, they say they will break his shackles.
Just petty crimes, like stealing an immortality elixir or Mjollnir.
It’s a strong setup, and a great excuse to dance across different worlds and fiction genres.
I feel I can see the shape of what wanted The Bookwalker to be.
And hopefully, ultimately, break our shackles and write again.
A series of heists and surprises.
The Bookwalker sits somewhere between adventure game and chatty RPG.
None of these elements is particularly good.
Other puzzles involve the uninteresting crafting and scavenging systems.
I wish it did this more.
One clever element which has the appearance of puzzlingbut isn’tis taking objects from reality into books.
The occasional bits of turn-based combat are simple.
Healing items are common enough that I ended up playing aggressive to just finish these boring fights.
Through it all, while the premise is strong, the dialogue and plot are functional at best.
Words and sentences never delight.
Characters are unremarkable and inconsistent, particularly when Etienne and his sidekick swap moral codes every five minutes.
The tasks we must perform are often dull.
The Bookwalker is pretty.
It does look nice.
I especially like the clever idea of seeing reality and fiction from different perspectives.
I’m a big fan of overambition.
Like almost everything, The Bookwalker would probably be better shorter.
It runs out of new ideas, and that is painfully felt.
I would have quite liked it as a four-hour game.
Might’ve really liked it as a three-hour game.
It is a seven-hour game.
Still, I do think The Bookwalker is a good game for having a go on Game Pass.
