The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales Reviews
The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales feels like a nice little adventure that can hold your attention for a couple of great hours, and yet the astonishingly bad console versions make little to no reason to even touch this game.
Review in Russian | Read full review
With a strong and engaging play structure, The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales is certainly an interesting game. The story impacts and gives value to the meaning of words and the essence of books. Too bad for some bugs, because it is an absolute must have.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales simply fails to deliver. It's probably a better experience on PC, but should be generally avoided on console without some updates to the controls and stability of the game. It doesn't take long to finish, at least I don't think so - a handful of hours to the final level. So at least it has that going for it.
Despite an interesting premise and an intriguing art direction, The Bookwalker fails to fully deliver its best.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The choices lose a bit of their variety as the story goes on and the combat can be a tad simplistic, but The Bookwalker is a beautiful exercise in exploring the humanity of fiction and why we, the audience, should feel for the characters on the page.
The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales relies on an intriguing concept, and for the most part is quite enjoyable. The adventure sequences are immersive and motivate you to push forward and discover more. The game becomes even more remarkable if we take into account that it has been developed by a team of four people.
Several stories in one game at once: the main one and those that are told in each individual book. Surely, it was difficult to make them all interesting, but the developers managed to do it. If you remove some technical flaws, you'll get a good and unique adventure which for the most part leaves a good lasting impression.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme
The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales is the typical game that could be underestimated at first glance and that, without warning, captures us in a gripping way and makes us want more. If it has its shortcomings in terms of battle and graphical composition, it makes up for it with precise design and a brave, bold and captivating story.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Players will find something special here, as the stories told in the overall game and the books you dive into are rich and well written.
Prepare to be tossed into the narrative deep end
The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales is a complicated read. It's got a fascinating story set in a series of engaging worlds, but actually interacting with it all is a little simpler than imagined. Its story focus is regularly undermined by unnecessary combat sequences that are functionally fine but a drag on the game's pace. But on the other hand, the story's surprising emotional resonance and relationship-driven experience are worth seeing through to the end. Like some of your favorite books from your youth, The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales has some nagging parts that hold it back from wholehearted recommendation, but the effect it had on me is strong enough that I'll fight for it anyway. DO MY BEST did their best — and came out the other end with a special kind of narrative experience that I think most people will find a lot to love in.
The Bookwalker especially has some lofty intentions. As a narrative explicitly about the creation and exploitation of stories, it naturally has a lot of pressure on it to say something. But it doesn’t, beyond a milquetoast message of “be nice to people.” I could look past that if it wasn’t for the creative setting or if the gameplay was better. But as it is, it all seems hollow. Despite all this, I still really like The Bookwalker. It may not live up to its potential, but it’s a fascinating concept executed competently. The puzzles are good, even if the RPG and crafting systems seem like little more than an afterthought. The story is sufficient to pull you through, even if it doesn’t have much to say.
The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales starts with a not so neat presentation, that evolves in a different game once we start delving into the narrative. Without a doubt the game tries to mix adequately and even if it doesn't do it well as often as I might like, the narrative as a whole helped to make the experience a lot better.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales is a refreshing combination of different genres and viewpoints with an epic story to drive everything forward. Everything from the strange but rich narrative to the characters comes together to give us something close to a masterpiece. The only downside is the minor issue that appears when trying to interact with certain objects. However, even with that tiny flaw, The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales is a must-play because of its unique take on the genres it embodies.
As a whole, the game looks very nice and solid. The exciting concept provides a lovely immersion into the book and allows one to experience what it is like to live its story. Switching between the two worlds is exciting and reasonably necessary for solving the puzzles, even if sometimes you won't understand what's happening. The solid and emotional story, which you do not so much influence, is unfortunately slightly disturbed by the audio, which is weak here. Still, it manages to stand on its own with its feet firmly on the ground, ensuring that you will question your morals.
Review in Czech | Read full review
Do My Best knows how to create a great game with The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales with a lot of original ideas and combinations of elements. The world and story is super interesting. You read all the dialogues here and you want to skip as little as possible here. The puzzles and gameplay is not super complicated, but this keeps the pace of the story nice. Each of the six books is about an hour of fun and this takes a little longer if you really try to check everything. A great game, especially when you consider that the studio is only two strong. Highly recommended and I'm really looking forward to the next game from this studio.
Review in Dutch | Read full review
There are a lot of cool ideas in this, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
Despite these issues, The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales is a fun experience. Getting to know different worlds through books, and learning about their stories while solving the puzzles makes you want these stories to be available in our world for reading, even if some are inspired by very famous books. For fans of point-and-click games, and good stories, this game is a sure choice, even more so when the aforementioned problems are fixed.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review