“The writer’s voice, the honesty and candor that is present in that voice, is what must be written upon the page.” – Edmond Rostand
What is the LudoNarraCon 2021 Supporter pack?
Overview
The Supporter Pack is an exciting new addition to LudoNarraCon 2021, designed to give fans an opportunity to show their love and appreciation for indie narrative games, and to help support the event.
Fellow Traveller will put the proceeds from this supporter pack towards the costs for running LudoNarraCon. The more money they raise the bigger and better they hope to make future events. They also express interest in using any money raised above their target to create initiatives that support narrative game developers all year round. These initiatives include things such as a podcast focused on narrative games and their development, a newsletter highlighting interesting indie narrative games and a program to help emerging developers get their narrative games on to Steam.
Factsheet
Publisher: Fellow Traveller
Developer: Various
Released: 23rd April 2021 (for a limited time)
Format: JPEG, PNG, MP3, FLAC, EXE
Available on: Steam
Price: $6.99
LudoNarraCon 2021 Supporter Pack Contents
Art and Music
The LudoNarraCon 2021 Supporter Pack comes with a veritable treasure chest of wallpapers featuring beautiful art from over twenty exhibiting games as well as the poster art from all three LudoNarraCon events. The pack will include a mix of desktop & mobile wallpapers in a range of resolutions.
In addition, several exhibitors have contributed tracks from their games’ soundtracks in order to create this amazing compilation exploring the diverse sounds of LudoNarraCon. The album includes music from Haven, Genesis Noir, Not for Broadcast, Teacup, Paradise Killer and many more and includes both MP3 and FLAC files.
Exclusive Game
Possibly the main draw of the supporter pack is an exclusive game! Fellow Traveller and LudoNarracon commissioned Popcannibal, developers of Kind Words, to create a brand new short game especially for LudoNarraCon 2021. The result, Cyrano, is an hour-long point-and-click narrative adventure based on the classic stage play, Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand!
Cyrano Review
Overview
Available for a limited time and only as part of the LudoNarraCon2021 Supporter Pack, Cyrano certainly is an exclusive game! This interactive adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac invites players to fight with both blades and wits.
Developer: Popcannibal
Released: 23rd April 2021 (for a limited time)
Price: $6.99 (as part of the Supporter Pack)
Platforms: Windows, Linux
Available on: Steam
Engine: Unity
Narrative
Starting in Paris and set in the 1600s, Cyrano’s story takes place as France and Spain are at war. The titular protagonist is about to set off with his comrades to assist a siege. He is well renowned to be the greatest swordsman and wordsmith in all of France but also possesses the largest nose and the fiercest temper!
Cyrano finds himself hopelessly in love with Roxane, his companion’s wife, and even though he has stood alone against a hundred soldiers and could best the wits of any poet alive, he fails to see how anyone could ever love such a ridiculous beak and so writes love letters on behalf of her husband, wooing her by proxy.
The game’s writing is very loosely befitting of the time period and feels sufficiently old fashioned without feeling forced or being laborious to read. The dialogue helps to give each of the characters a distinct feel, with a great diversity across NPCs and different scenarios. The rhyming sections of dialogue and combat were especially charming.
Gameplay
After the story and characters are introduced, the party, (consisting of Cyrano, Le Bret and Christian) set off on their journey. Players control the party with the arrow keys and manoeuvre them to the next campsite whilst fighting enemies such as wild animals and bandits along the way – this can be toggled off but removes a fun aspect of the game and limits the characters’ ability to gain XP. All other controls simply use the mouse. Like the rest of the game’s combat, these simple fights are turn-based. All of the party can fight, heal or retreat but Le Bret can also attempt to steal playing cards and Christian can throw them.
Cards are obtained via the aforementioned theft or by defeating enemies and also have sentimental writing on the back. They can also be lost if a character ‘dies’ during a fight but the entire party’s health is replenished at the end of each scuffle! Once the party make camp for the night Cyrano sets about writing his love letter, this first involves looking at the playing cards earned throughout the journey and making the best poker hand possible. Following this, the writing on the cards chosen is used to compose the letter. The player can choose what order to use them in, how many times to use them and what to fill the blanks in with. The letter aspect is mainly for fun and can be entertaining in a variety of ways, but the poker score is then converted to XP making the party more powerful.
In addition to the party combat, Cyrano also duels alone, with linguistic options such as confident, bold or pointed stanzas for players to choose from as attack options. However, I hit the opponent every time during these encounters and never took damage giving the impression it is impossible to fail at them. Similarly, outdoor enemies do not seem to improve at the same rate that the party levels up, giving the game a kind of reverse difficulty curve with the combat getting progressively easier.
Styling
Cyrano has a delightful hand-drawn artwork with a mix of pencil and printed aesthetics and a warm, autumnal colour palette all combining to give it a unique feel. The various characters are drawn with simple but distinct designs that have a somewhat cute look overall.
The music in Cyrano fits it really well, featuring instruments that seem befitting of the game’s 17th century setting including lutes and harpsichords amongst others. The tunes aren’t especially catchy but they blend well with the experience and add to the overall sense of immersion. This is aided by the well-executed sound effects and background noises such as chickens, people and fires crackling that all help to connect the player to the game.
Conclusion
Cyrano utilises a variety of game mechanics, none of them is used to great effect on their own but the combination is fairly unique and makes for a great accompaniment to the entertaining narrative. The combat is potentially too easy for a lot of players but the short playtime of around one hour means that it remains fun nonetheless. The writing and narrative, along with some aesthetic elements are the strong points of this title, and anyone looking for a decent story with casual gameplay will enjoy Cyrano but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone looking for a challenge.
LudoNarraCon 2021 Supporter Pack Summary
The LudoNarraCon 2021 Supporter Pack includes a compilation of wonderful, original music and a gallery of stunning artwork and wallpapers for fans to enjoy. It also includes the exclusive game Cyrano, with its ambitious mix of mechanical and narrative aspects. However, most of all it is a great way to support a brilliant and unique event that is growing year on year, providing a platform for talented developers and their narrative-focused games and that alone makes it very easy to recommend!
Looking for more games that integrate gameplay and narrative? Check out the following:
Unravelling Her Story – Brukel – The Personal History of a WWII Survivor – Avoid being ‘Left on Read’ in this Emotional, Free Game!