the ballad singer

The Ballad Singer reaches Kickstarter goal

Narrative RPG/visual novel reaches target with four days left.

the ballad singer screenshot

For anyone who hasn’t heard it yet, TBS is a 2D animated adventure, inspired from vintage game books and heavily influenced by role playing games. The goal of the development team is to convey players an engaging experience, halfway through reading a book and portraying several characters within a world that reacts to their own choices.

A particularly interesting feature is that the game will be completely narrated both in Italian and in English. According to Curtel Games, this characteristic will noticeably help players engage, allowing them to follow along the narrative path, without having to read the over 350,000 words which make up the videogame.

The structure of the game spreads like a huge tree, where every player’s choice doesn’t just affect the current storyline but also those of other playable characters and the whole world of The Ballad Singer altogether.

This new title introduces several new gameplay mechanics. The concept of game over has been revised. Upon the death of one of the heroes, the adventure won’t simply be over, the experience will continue with another character, in an environment which has been heavily influenced by the previous hero, not just for the choices which have been taken, the consequences of the character’s death will also be felt through the whole the gaming world.
TBS has been designed envisaging several playthroughs, as each campaign will allow players to reach up to 4 endings (one per character), out of the 40 available ones. All this unravelling through 10 chapters and hundreds of narrative branches, fully narrated and illustrated.

If you’ve not contributed to The Ballad Singer Kickstarter campaign it’s not too late, as the developers have set stretch goals to improve on the game even further, with extra visuals, 50 extra gameplay hours and even a PS4 port.