A Written Sequel, An Unresolved Cliffhanger

It is some time after the gnomish wanna-be mage Wilbur, adventurous elven princess Ivo, human skyship captain Nate, and fuzzy alien Muppety-thing Critter saved the world from the evil Arch-Witch and her brattish son, the evil wizard Munkus. For a time, the four friends stuck together, but now they are scattered. Ivo has returned to the Elfburrow, and her overbearing mother, the Queen, is intent on marrying her off before she swans off on another adventure. Nate is off on a heist seeking a magic lamp, so Critter as Nate’s pound shop Chewbacca is coming along. Wilbur is doing his bit to rebuild society after the tribulations of the war against the Arch-Witch by serving as the first professor appointed to the reconstituted school of magic in the city of Seastone.

However, all is not well. Political skullduggery – and perhaps even assassination – is afoot in Seastone, and Wilbur is becoming entangled in it. Ivo has mysteriously become pregnant, despite having neither had sex nor undertaken the more magical method by which elves begin that process, and is intent on finding out why. And a chunk of the flying island that Nate and Critter were visiting as part of their heist has exploded, leaving Nate plummeting towards the ground at tremendous speed…

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 is the third point-and-click adventure in the series by King Art Games, following on from the original and the prequel game, The Critter Chronicles. As you might expect from my plot outline above, Book of Unwritten Tales 2 revisits all the playable characters from the original series – Critter Chronicles, being the story of how Nate and Critter met, restricted its playable cast to just those two – and takes the opportunity to progress the timeline a bit, creating a chance to give most of the characters a makeover. Critter remains Critter, Wilbur is now dressed in proper wizard robes (owing more than a little to Rincewind – who, of course, starred in the first Discworld game – just as Arch-Mage Alistair’s robes feel a little like a tribute to Simon the Sorcerer), Nate has a beard now, and Ivo dresses more like an (increasingly pregnant) elven princess and less like a bikini model.

The Prequel To Unwritten Tales

In The Book of Unwritten Tales two of the playable characters are Captain Nate, a Han Solo-esque rogue airship captain, and Critter, his decidedly Muppet-esque buddy. The Book of Unwritten Tales: The Critter Chronicles is a prequel to the original game, in which you get to find out how Nate and Critter met. Nate has just won the Mary, his flying ship, from a rival in a card game, and is being pursued by Ma’zaz, an orcish bounty hunter. (In the original game, you first meet Nate after Ma’zaz has captured him and Critter.) Crashing in the frozen north, Nate just wants to get to safety.

Meanwhile, Critter and his people have a problem. See, it turns out they’re aliens, here to study this interesting planet. Critter, however, is more interested in the nascent romance between himself and Layla, the chief critter’s daughter, though the chief thoroughly disapproves of the match and isn’t shy about saying so. Still, you can’t blame the chief for being on edge. You see, Munkus – one of the villains from the original game – is responsible for the alien ship being stranded at the Pole anyway, due to Munkus’ theft of the Heart which powers their systems.

When Nate and Critter cross paths, there’s every reason to expect they can help each other out. If Nate can lend his cunning to a bid to steal back the Heart, the critters won’t have to accede to Munkus’ demands that they produce war machines for him – and the critters are handy enough with technology to make the necessary repairs to the Mary. Still, this is an adventure which will lay a bunch of temptations in the path of Nate – will he and Critter be able to stay the course and save the day?

The Game of (Mostly) Well-Designed Puzzles

Once upon a time, millennia-old elf princess Ivo is strolling through the woods when she notices a commotion at the home of Mortimer McGuffin, a gremlin archaeologist. As it transpires, McGuffin is being kidnapped by agents of the nefarious Arch-Witch, ruler of the Army of Shadows, who believe he has information which may prove crucial to their victory over the forces of good in a war which has ground on for years by this point.

Ivo intervenes to attempt to rescue McGuffin, who despite her best efforts only manages to get free momentarily before being recaptured. Before Ivo mounted her risky rescue plan, McGuffin urges her to go back to his house and retrieve a crucial book he has hidden away in his basement, and get it to the Arch-Mage. In his brief window of time away from his captures (whilst Ivo herself is otherwise caught up), McGuffin encounters Wilbur, a young gnome who dreams of becoming a wizard; McGuffin gives Wilbur a ring to take to the Arch-Mage with important information on it.

Eventually, Wilbur and Ivo cross paths – and along with the unreliable human sky-smuggler Captain Nate and Nate’s buddy, the muppet-like Critter, they must foil the plans of the Arch-Witch. Yes, The Book of Unwritten Tales matches an astonishingly generic-sounding title with an astonishingly generic plot premise, but this is kind of the point; the game’s a point-and-click adventure which is very deliberately spoofing the fantasy genre, making fun of clichés is part of that sort of deal.

Then again, a point-and-click adventure taking a parodic approach to its subject matter is sort of a cliché in and of itself; such games often default to humour. A good chunk of this is down to the influence of LucasArts and Sierra; both companies did occasionally produce more serious-minded games (Loom and The Dig would be the major examples on the LucasArts side of things, the Phantasmagoria and Police Quest games on Sierra’s part), but it’s fair to say that their output skewed towards the comedic. Another reason could be that if you go comedic with a point-and-click adventure you can justify somewhat more convoluted puzzle logic.