A Rock's Tale

With strong and amusing writing, an interesting cast of characters, along with plenty of charm and whimsical humor, A Rock's Tale was certainly fun to play.

Well, you're a rock. Along the way, plenty of people will stop by. You can choose to say nothing, like a real rock would, or engage in some funny conversation. Lots of these people have all sorts of different problems, and along the way, you'll find out that some of these problems are interconnected as you try to solve them.

Still, all that glitters is not gold. There will also be times where you might presume a connection and try to solve someone's problems, only to realize that you misunderstood the situation and everything is now backfiring spectacularly. Plus, some folks here just seem irredeemably lazy when you try to get them to help another.

There are no complex stat systems here. What really stood out for me was the dialogue and writing.

There are twenty endings, and I unlocked about six before I started writing this review. Nevertheless, the game was really fun to read. Even if you don't finish it, there is also plenty of fun in a partial playthrough.

This was a fun game. You play as a rock on a wilderness path. You are a talking rock.

At first, all you can do is have random encounters with people, at least one of whom definitely does not like talking rocks. Eventually, you learn more about the people and their inter-connectedness, and you gain the ability to call them to make them come.

The game has 20 endings, and you can accept any of them. There is an 'ultimate' ending you unlock by getting the others and a 'true' ending that happens if you've played long enough.

I played twice, because I ran out of time in the first one and accepted an ending. The second time, I skipped a few things, and I think that made it impossible to collect all endings, because several endings seem to only be offered once (specifically one of the florist's endings).

I also had big trouble finding out what the Freak's need was and how to solve it. I ended up looking into the code to figure it out, where I also read the final ending.

Any ending is fine. If someone plays this and finds five or more endings, as well as an ending that reveals more about your nature, that's the bulk of the game and you could probably comfortably stop there.

The writing is whimsical and goofy. There is a lot of absurdism, but the setting is consistent enough to make the absurd parts stick out and be funny instead of being a jumbled mish-mash.

It didn't stir my soul or change my life, but I was entertained while playing and enjoyed looking for endings.