A Rock's Tale

I’ve gone to the Star Trek well several times through this year's Comp reviews, so now that we’re nearing the end of the Comp, let’s do so one last time by recalling the objections leveled against Deep Space Nine when it was announced. The fourth series in the franchise (you didn’t forget the animated series, did you?), it departed from tradition not just by failing to be centered on a ship called the Enterprise, but by failing to be centered on a ship at all. I recall all sorts of naysayers arguing that Star Trek was all about discovery, “seeking out new life and new civilizations” (admittedly, the naysayers had some textual support in their favor), so having a show where nobody went anywhere and they just sat around on a space station waiting for the new life to come to them wouldn’t be that interesting. As it turns out, though, they were wrong – after the inevitable season one growing pains that’ve plagued every show in the franchise save the original series, DS9 turned out to be great, by the simple expedient of the writers putting the station in an interesting place that interesting people kept on visiting.

A Rock’s Tale is a fantasy choice-based game rather than a sci-fi television spinoff, but save for that small detail, it’s basically DS9: the game, and succeeds on the same terms. The setup is bizarre but compelling: you’ve been teleported into a new world and transformed into a talking rock, and escaping your predicament will require you to meet, befriend, and problem-solve for a variety of colorful characters who wander across the forest path where you’ve wound up. Given how high the concept is, everybody is remarkably down to earth, and the robust cast is a major highlight of the game: there’s an artistic lumberjack, an anxious florist, a lovelorn cobbler, a fisherman too young to have fully twigged to his family’s poverty, and more. Meeting them is fun in of itself – you can jump-scare most of them, because who expects a rock to talk? – and it’s even more fun to peel back the layers of the game’s onionskin design: befriending them will give you a sense of what they need and what they can do, and allow you to call for them at any time rather than just wait for them to stumble across you at random, which then allows you to start tagging them in to solve problems for each other or otherwise figure out how their lives can be made to intersect.

Gameplay-wise, this is all carried out through a simple set of dialogue menus, but structurally, this is an ending-chase game; there are 20 distinct outcomes, and you’re meant to collect them all in order to unlock a final resolution. But that makes the game seem more intense than it is; you can immediately rewind to the previous decision point upon reaching an ending, so while there are some endings that are mutually exclusive, to see everything you’re looking at probably three of four replays rather than 20. For another, the “true ending” didn’t feel, to me, that much more satisfying than any of the others. I enjoy being a completionist, but I think A Rock’s Tale would work just as well for a player who felt like they’d had enough after seeing ten endings – in fact, possibly more so, as there are a bunch of branches that require you to be motivelessly mean to the characters, which I didn’t really enjoy.

What I did enjoy was the way that each ending wound up in the same place. In some you’re brought home by a cherished friend or are given a new job appropriate to your talents as a rock, while there are a few that seemingly put you in danger of life and er, non-limbs. But in every case, it works out fine after all, and the last line is always “you decide this is not so bad.” Now that’s positive thinking! In fact, the writing throughout is pleasant and grounded, without feeling overly twee. The forest is a generic fantasy forest, but there are still some nice details to savor:

"As you sit alone the sky above you begins to darken. A couple precursory droplets hit your head before thick raindrops descend in droves. You realize that getting stuck in a rainstorm is not so bad for a rock. Through the cacophony you start to discern what sound the rain makes when it collides with certain objects. Before long you have your own personal percussion section, playing to an arbitrary rhythm."

The characters similarly each have their own manner of speaking, and are all sympathetic in their own ways, too – with the possible exception of the overly-mercenary Ringmaster. I admit I did start clicking through their dialogue on repeat play-throughs, but the conversation trees aren’t especially broad, so it didn’t feel especially onerous. Getting the full suite of endings is likewise made easier by two levels of hints for each one, with the first giving some vague direction and the second directly telling you what to do; I did enjoy my time with the game but was getting a bit tired of lawnmowering by the time I got to about ending 14, so I appreciated the touch.

Rocks may be hard and unyielding by way of stereotype, but contrary to all that I found A Rock’s Tale a gentle, upbeat experience. It’s more of a pleasant hangout than a directed experience – to stick with the DS9 comparison, definitely think of the seasons before the Dominion War metaplot kicked in – but stopping to smell the flowers can be lots of fun when they give off such an inviting aroma.