A Fisherman’s Tale puts you in the boots of a curios puppet-man named Bob who lives in a strange, recursive world centered around a dollhouse-sized lighthouse. Looking above, you see infinitely Big Bob. Looking below, infinitely Small Bob. It sounds like a trip, and it is: a quick trip into a super French storybook that’s begging to be fleshed out into something more substantial.

A Fisherman’s Tale Details:

Official Site

Publisher: Vertigo Games
Developer: 
Innerspace VR, ARTE France

Available On: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Windows VR, PlayStation VR
Reviewed On: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive
Release Date: January 22nd, 2019

Gameplay

A Fisherman’s Tale is a single-player adventure game built around a series of escape rooms that feature light puzzle solving and much more prominent story-telling elements.

It’s main claim to fame is the innovative dollhouse mechanic, which lets you not only see a smaller in-sync version of yourself in a perfect miniature representation of your lighthouse, but also a giant doppelganger towering above. The idea is to interact with the smaller/larger recursive copy of yourself by handing up or down items with an eye for tactically resizing them to fit the situation.

To be honest, it felt like the game only scratched the surface of what’s actually possible here. I could have easily strapped in for a more serious interaction with what you might call the ‘single player co-op’ mechanic, which lets you do things like pick up a giant anchor blocking a door, but what in the context of the game is also a pint-sized dollhouse item that you can easily lift away and use for something else.

Image courtesy Innerspace VR, ARTE

The story line skews pretty young, and feels more like someone reading a storybook aloud to you. While it might be perfect for kids ages seven and up, it personally seemed a little too simplistic to be truly enjoyable. The game’s well-realized environment and mind-bending infinity were the true stars of the show here, but I would have welcomed something a little more substantial, and a little less “we must give Mr. Fishy something to drink!”

At one point, the story does turn a tiny, oh so tiny bit dark when we learn that the lighthouse keeper’s father was a negative bastard who hated his son for not being a fisherman, but a few stern words from Dad was it. There was real potential there to create some character defining moments, flashbacks, anything to get us caring about the relationship, but like the game itself, the moment slipped away upon reaching the next room.

Image courtesy Innerspace VR, ARTE

Most of the puzzles were interesting in construction, although were fairly simple even without the narrator’s hints, which can be toggled on and off mid-game. There was one puzzle where the recursive puppet world doesn’t work in the same way as previously introduced, forcing you to stretch both your arms and your imagination a little bit to solve.

I desperately wanted more of these intriguing moments but sadly was only given one. As it is, there are only six or seven fundamental puzzles to solve, a true shame considering the high production value of nearly every aspect of the game up to that point. That said, there’s no filler here, no convoluted tasks for the sake of it, which is nice. But that doesn’t play a large enough counter balance to the overall lack of puzzles, and difficulty range that spanned ‘very easy’ to ‘slightly less easy’.

My personal gameplay time was about one hour, and that was playing without hints at a leisurely pace. Even if I had played all the way through with hints, I’m not certain the time would have changed by much, as I knew basically what to do immediately anyway.

SEE ALSO
'Blade & Sorcery' Early Access Review – Bloody Sandbox Battles Aplenty

Immersion

With the narrator voiced by the never-not-smoking French comedian Augustin Jacob, the game feels more akin to the sort of kitschy and experimental short film that comes on before a Pixar movie—charming for just long enough, but really only an appetizer to what should be a larger meal.

You’ll hear plenty of “zut alors!” and “sacré bleu!” to underline the fact that A Fisherman’s Tale is a French production made by people who care that you know this; it was after all co-produced by Franco-German cultural TV network ARTE France and Paris-based studio Innerspace VR.

Image courtesy Innerspace VR, ARTE

Anyway, the game’s voice acting is nothing short of awesome. The narrator’s raspy, smoky voice adds a degree of seasoned authenticity to an admittedly banal, but inoffensive storyline. Jacob’s performance elevates at every turn, pushing it in a higher direction artistically despite the low complexity both story and puzzle-wise.

Visually, A Fisherman’s Tale plays host to a number of well realized set pieces that change shape and function throughout the story, sometimes offering a different way to interact with the world thanks to the re-sizing mechanic. The visual style feels extremely cohesive, with everything in A Fisherman’s Tale tending towards the devastatingly cozy end of the spectrum. It’s easy to fall in love with the look and feel of the environment, but again, I only wish I could have had more play time to soak in what’s clearly the result of a collectively competent hand in VR game design.

SEE ALSO
Samsung Odyssey+ 40% Off as Steep Discounts on Windows VR Headsets Continue

Comfort

A Fisherman’s Tale features basically the full gamut of comfort styles, including standing or sitting modes, and room-scale or standing snap-turn for users with front-facing sensors.

Locomotion is based on teleportation, although the game plays out in such a small physical playspace that much of it can be traversed in room-scale.

However you slice it, A Fisherman’s Tale is extremely comfortable experience, making it ideal for VR newcomers or users that are sensitive to artificial locomotion.

REVIEW OVERVIEW
Overall
6
Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • gothicvillas

    Hopefully it is priced accordingly. I can’t see myself paying more than $15.. short games is a plague we need to tackle

    • Gonzax

      $15 is the price according to another review which said it was about 2 hours long. It’s a shame about these super short games but this looks very interesting.

    • Foreign Devil

      Older people with kids like me actually appreciate shorter games where everything is carefully crafted. (and suitably priced). I’ll never finish “Witcher” and all the DLC. . and it has too much repetition and filler.

      • gothicvillas

        I posted comment before even trying just based on the article. I bought the game on steam and oh my…after excellent first 40 min I am stuck at the mirror puzzle and it is only level 2 from 7 :) great game and no way I can finish it in even 3-4 hrs.. Yes I’m old :) well worth the money.

  • Zerofool

    The “Official Site” link at the top of the page leads to the Borderlands 2 VR page.

    • benz145

      Whoops, copy and paste error. This has been fixed!

  • iThinkMyCatIsAFlea

    Why would a VR developer want their game to look like a mobile game?

    • Blaexe

      Probably because high fidelity graphics are expensive.

      • namekuseijin

        and because they may be wanting to have a piece of the Oculus Quest market

  • mirak

    Sacrebleu ! C’est sacrebleu, pas sacré bleu !

  • Tommy

    Most reviewers are rating much higher. Looks like it might not be your sort of game, which is fine.
    Every person I’ve talked to so far loves the game.
    Also, it’s only $12.74 on PSVR and Oculus Store right now :)

    • HYZENBORG Hyzenborg

      Yeah this just doesnt sound interesting or appealing to me at all either :/

  • namekuseijin

    this game is too good to be rated this poorly. Short, yes, but very polished, with some nice mystery narrative and voice acting, plus the puzzles and the use of VR scale make it really stand out as a VR experience

  • John

    I disagree with the overall rating and a few things about the review. The main thing I disagree with is about the story. It isn’t simplistic and geared toward children. It is about a man who tried to live up to his fathers expectations of him and nearly died because of it. He decides to hole himself up in a lighthouse and build a safe little existence through his model building but he faces his fears in his dreams. Each of the interactions with other characters and the puzzles address his psychological issues. The gameplay is so fun that you don’t notice the deep meaning in the story unless you think about it for a while. If you rush through the game in one hour like the reviewer I can see how you would miss the great story.

  • KamE_AleX

    You are actually drunk.