Book of Travels is the latest work of the Stockholm studio Might and Delight, which has created such titles as the Shelter , Paws and Meadow series . It represents a fresh perspective on RPG games – TMORPG.
TMORPG?
It sounds familiar, but at first glance, the first letter definitely does not match. Everyone knows MMORPG, but what is TMORPG? Something new and exciting! Well, the creators stated that Book of Travels is absolutely not and cannot be a MMORPG, because, as the name suggests, it is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game . Hence the idea to forge a new, much more appropriate name TMORPG – tiny multiplayer role-playing game . And that’s what the Book of Travels is all about! This is a game in which we will not encounter masses of players on the servers. Meetings are rather occasional and therefore exceptional. Communication with others is somewhat difficult – we only have simple icons (e.g. heart, question mark, exclamation point, arrows, hand picking up an object, etc.), no chats. Some people will like it, others will like it, but it certainly helps to keep the interaction free from toxicity.
An adventure unlike any other
I ‘ve been waiting for Book of Travels for some time, there were two reasons. First of all – I love this studio’s games; they are original, interesting and very distinctive. Secondly – The Book of Adventures immediately reminded me of the game Journey from Thatgamecompany, which I love with all my heart and I come back to it from time to time, although I know it almost by heart. Book of TravelsSo it seemed to me a combination of everything I like – beautiful graphics, freedom and a calm pace of the game. And so it is! The very start screen of the game and the atmospheric music encourage you to start your adventure. We also have a quite extensive character creator, in which we can choose her archetype (there are many of them, as many as 12, each of which has its own, quite enigmatic description), origin, personality and skills. We can also draw the starting equipment and the name of our character. Before the very beginning, the game also asks us a few questions to determine what our hero was doing before starting our joint adventure, and therefore – where on the map we will appear at the start.
Braided Shore
This is where our adventure begins and, frankly speaking, during the first 15–20 minutes the player is able to tell if it is a title for him or not. Book of TravelsIn fact, it leaves us to our fate and we have to discover the beautiful land gracefully called Braided Shore. We have no overarching goal, no marker on the map, no highlighted NPC to explain to us what we’re actually supposed to do right now. None of these things. We have to set the goal of the adventure ourselves, discover individual parts of the map and talk to other characters who will sometimes have tasks for us. Interestingly, there is nothing like a “journal” in the game, we do not have any list of tasks at our disposal. So what are we to do in the face of the lack of what seems to be a basic tool? Reach for a notebook or a sheet of paper! Believe me, this “inconvenience” tremendously boosts the RPG experience we get from our Braided Shore journeys.
The gameplay is relaxed, sometimes even slow, so it may not appeal to fans of fast-paced action, but I think the Book of Adventuresthis is what it should be – relaxing, atmospheric and thought-provoking, but also often requiring a strategic approach from the player, because we can meet opponents on our way (note – in the game we can die and it is, unfortunately / unfortunately, permadeath). First of all, I recommend that you simply soak up the beauty that this title offers us … because it really is incredibly beautiful. The hand-painted elements of the background have something “familiar” about them, they are very pleasing to the eye and I stopped very often to look at a given scrap of the map just a moment longer. You also have the impression that the world around our character is teeming with life, it is especially visible in the villages and towns we encounter – their inhabitants perform various activities, talk to each other, we can interact with each other. It is interesting that playtime is real-time, so it’s time to sit down to play. The whole thing is complemented by great sound, which is so characteristic that you will not confuse it with any other.
What should you remember?
First of all, that Book of Travels is in early access and that is why you have to turn a blind eye to some shortcomings, bugs (the most common was loading empty maps, which forces you to log out and log back in), or not exactly good optimization. The creators note that the game in its current form requires many corrections – Currently the game includes the core gameplay elements but it needs further stability and polish . Might and Delight also intends to expand the world so that the player has even more boards to explore, and there are plans to add many new activities to the game. I believe that a lot should be expected from this studio, and their work on Book of Travels is and will be reliable and thorough.