Your adventure begins with a game of poker (not playable) which does not turn out to your advantage at all. Despite a royal flush in hand, you are forced to concede victory to your mysterious adversary who, once out of the shadows, turns out to be… a wolf! Poker cards have become tarot cards, and here you are at the service of this strange humanoid canine. The price to pay is the following: to travel all over the United States in search of multiple little stories to peddle. The fixed but attractive 2D visuals then give way to a global map of America represented in 3D. The traveler that you are is represented by a giant skeleton with a backpack, and the time has come to make your first trips. Even if your avatar advances by leaps and bounds, the walk remains relatively slow because the country is huge. Fortunately, there are several ways to make your road trip easier, which also injects a little gameplay into a game that has very little in the end.
The first of these means is to whistle in order to increase walking speed. To do this, simply hold down a trigger and then rhythmically press the controls that appear on the screen. It is also possible to hitchhike near a road axis, so that a car takes care of us for a while, the end of the journey being decided by the driver and not by the player. For longer distances, it is better to find a railroad depot and illegally climb into a cattle car, at the risk of being caught and manhandled by the railroad police. Or take a perfectly legal train seat from a city, which will cost money. The game has a mini “survival” aspect, since you have to manage your money, your life and your sleep. In big cities, some vaguely interactive menus allow you to earn a few coins, buy food or rest. All of this is still quite rudimentary, and the punishment when one of these gauges drops to zero is almost negligible. No doubt is allowed, the heart of the adventure is indeed in the management of stories.
TELL ME A STORY
Represented by an icon on the map, these stories can be collected with a simple click. Then follows the display of a few lines of text and a few visuals to illustrate the point. From time to time, a choice of virtual action to be carried out makes it possible to orient the mini-narrative, the same story then being able to become terrifying or amusing depending on the path taken. The real goal of the adventure is then to tell these stories to sixteen main characters scattered in the different states of the country, according to their wish of the moment. They can ask you for a funny, frightening, hopeful, tragic or even thrilling story. It's up to you to draw as best you can from your inventory of stories, in order to improve a kind of confidence bar. Failure is not at all disabling since we will cross paths with these characters as many times as necessary. We regret all the same that the theme of certain stories is a little complicated to guess. It is not uncommon to suggest a story that we consider funny or tragic, and that ultimately our interlocutor considers rather frightening.
In any case, telling a story allows it to circulate later in the country. On the principle of the Arabic telephone, we can then collect, elsewhere and at another time, an embellished version which will make it possible to advance the confidence gauge more effectively. Once the complicity is fully established with one of the sixteen main characters, the story of the latter also joins our inventory. It then acts as a sort of joker, since it can be used to automatically fulfill the desires of another interlocutor. In other words, these particular stories correspond to all the categories at once. The game will display, for example, a message such as "you are telling so-and-so's story emphasizing its amusing dimension" if you are asked for something entertaining.
HISTORY-GEO: IN PROGRESS!
While everything related to story management is quite pleasant and very original, we are still far from perfect. Most of the stories are well written, but far too short and vague. The game has the merit of presenting 237 different anecdotes, but it would certainly have benefited from offering fewer and developing them in more depth. Since the gameplay takes second place anyway, it would have been wise to further strengthen the literary aspect of the adventure. This would also have reduced the repetitiveness of the game, which clearly lacks variety. We travel around the country, we collect a few new stories and a few modified versions, we meet an important character, we tell him two or three well-chosen stories… and we start this loop again and again! Fortunately, the soundtrack that accompanies our wanderings is of high quality and fits the bill perfectly since it evokes the soundtracks of westerns as well as country music. The game is also a very beautiful tribute to America, in particular to its history and its geography. In addition to entertaining you, the adventure will certainly lead you to remember the exact location of certain states and other large cities, even of certain rivers and major roads, since you will have to learn to find your way around correctly, in order to to optimize routes and avoid going around in circles unnecessarily. In the end, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine is a game apart, which will certainly not suit everyone, but which will still appeal to players looking for an out-of-the-ordinary experience.
