Lost Words: Beyond the Page | Review

Lost Words

If we asked you to choose between a story told by a video game and one told by a good book, what would you choose?

The video game format as a container of stories has been recognized and cleared for years, but the talent of certain developers, in this case authentic “storytellers”, allow us to always see new approaches and to cross new boundaries of gaming experiences. This is the case of Lost Word: Beyond the Page conceived by Rhianna Pratchett and developed with Sketchbook Games, which uses a refined platform seasoned by some puzzles to tell a story that goes straight to the hearts of the players.

Lost Words Beyond the Page, the power of words

Rhianna Pratchett manages to demonstrate how it is possible to tell a story as you would a good book, playing with a platform while still exploiting the power of words, developing a truly incredible concept in its simplicity. This is the real magic of Lost Words.

Rhianna Pratchett (daughter of the great Terry Pratchett), is a writer strongly anchored in the world of video games, being the author of the Tomb Raider comic: The Beginning with Dark Horse and the Mirror's Edge miniseries with DC Comics, along with many of his stories, but his connection with the world of video games is much deeper. In fact, she Rhianna has worked on titles such as Tomb Raider, Heavenly Sword, the Overlord series, 2k's Bioshock Infinite and EA's Mirror's Edge. The writer's role in the development of these works was to integrate game models with storytelling. And never before have we seen such a breakthrough.

* The story of Lost Words: Beyond the Page is that of a little girl named Izzy, who is about to live the tragic death of her grandmother to whom she is very attached. Also in this case, writing plays a decisive role, managing to exorcise fears, uncertainties and other emotions that are difficult to express. So, what's better than a diary? Izzy begins to write a diary where she tells her about her deep friendship with her grandmother, that is the person who taught her so many things in her life, but also so many fantastic stories. It is precisely for this reason that while Izzy attends the poor old woman's hospitalization, he decides to write a story for her.

The story invented by Izzy (and also by the player, thanks to the choices made) is about a girl who lives in the world of Estoria, a peaceful place ruled by magic and the laws of nature. The protagonist of the game will find herself protecting her village from a serious catastrophe, involving her in a journey that will make her understand the importance of things, people and, as often happens, the journey itself which takes on a higher value than the destination itself. .

Playing with words in an artistic painting

The game itself is much more than a platformer. Giorgia's mythical adventure (this is the name we chose for our protagonist ed) is a pictorial canvas in motion, accompanied by evocative and immersive music, but above all it manages to tie itself to the discomfort that little Izzy experiences.

In the diary you play a lot with words, with the visual effects recreated with great originality by the developers, creating refined and delicious puzzles. And the same happens in the world of Estoria, which alternating with the writing of the diary, proposes Giorgia's adventures.

During the adventure, the protagonist can use a magical book to interact with the environment, using the headwords such as destroying with rocks, repairing fallen bridges, burning to light torches and so on.

Sketchbook Games and Fourth State have introduced a truly incredible system to make the player interact with words, who will be fascinated by both as for the game mechanics, both for watercolor graphics recreated with Unity.

Reminiscent of what we saw with To the Moon, once again the orchestrated narrative surpasses every aspect of the work done. The player's curiosity and the emotions transmitted are really palpable and make the "playful" part a mere, albeit fun, expedient to support the story, which almost regrets having finished after about 4 hours of play.

We can't do anything else than congratulate Rhianna Pratchett, recommend the title and wait for her next work!

Directly on Amazon Music you can listen to the official Lost Words soundtrack. Beyond the Page!