Rosewater
Like a grizzled cowboy with a sudden surprise second wind,
Rosewater punches you round the chops with a whole host of choices. In this entertaining point-and-click pixel art jaunt through the Wild West set in an alternate 19th century, you can pick your friends, your enemies, and even your puzzle solutions. Playing as pugilist-turned-freelance writer Harley Leger, the demo saw me arrive in the so-Western-it-hurts town of Rosewater looking to speak to the editor of the local paper, a seemingly simple task that eventually leads to being assigned to help in its search for a missing scientist's fortune, while encountering a whole heap of trouble along the way.
To find that fortune you'll end up making five travel companions who'll form part of your posse, a few of which I got to meet (or deeply annoy) in the demo. Developer Francisco Gonzalez of Grundislav Games tells me that later in the game we'll be given companion-specific quests too, two for each companion but only one you can access, depending on how well you're getting on with them. Whilst the demo wasn't voiced, Francisco says the plan is that all fifty-plus characters will be by the time the game is finished. And there’s plenty of interaction to be had with the town's eccentrics; from the local pickpocket to the man you “meet” after he comes flying out of an upstairs window, a variety of colourful tropes of the Wild West are all here in beautifully rotoscoped animation.
Whilst Francisco says there will be some slight crossover with his previous adventure,
Lamplight City, including the return of one or two unmentioned characters from that game, one thing that won't be returning will be the lack of inventory. Instead, this time players will see a streamlined take on the system. Basically this means that objects that can be used with an inventory item will be highlighted, whilst ones that can't, like signs, will not. This is to try to stop the “use everything on everything” approach that desperate adventure game players resort to when they don't know where to turn next, and it seemed to work pretty well in the demo.
That's not to say there won't still be puzzles, though, all of which will apparently have a few solutions. I was told that even the demo has plenty of ways to solve the main challenge, including an “extra extra jerk” path, which, my being such a nice person, obviously never presented itself. But as well as giving you lots of extra choice,
Rosewater will, in a sense, also take some of that away in the second act of the game. There, as you make your way to your treasure goal with your ragtag gang of misfits, players will be presented with “random vignettes,” says Francisco. These will be chance events and quests you can participate in, so you won't encounter every one of them in one playthrough. The aim apparently is to make it feel like a road trip with your mates (though I'd suggest abandoning your trip if some of these people were your pals in real life).
However, rest assured that whilst your changing relationships and quests will add a different layer to big story moments, if you're only planning to play through the game once, you'll still experience the full story, just not see everything a replay would have to offer. Judging by the sheer number of people to meet and things to do in
Rosewater, however, you'd have to be a few pints short of a jug of moonshine not to want to give it at least one extra go when it comes out at some point in 2021. Yeehaw!