
There are links in the book to videos of the authors discussing the content and this is incredibly useful, especially if you prefer consuming video over text. Sometimes the way something is presented can make you understand it better, and this book did a brilliant job of putting points across in a slightly different way to usual, which made it a pleasure to read. As someone who loves reading books about writing, there wasn’t a lot here I didn’t already know but there were many times when I read something that made me pause and think. On the other, it understands the horrific potential of language, its capacity to evoke terrifying and hopefully alien situations that live in the mind long after the words have finished.This is an engaging book, written in a friendly, chatty manner. On the one hand, Inkslinger is about the ambiguity that exists in writing as well as the pitfalls of interpreting others-how messy and imprecise this can often be. This, I think, is why I’m digging it so much. I won’t spoil exactly what happens, only that it involves typing through a ritual that would make even Dionysus wince, and that each keystroke lands with precisely the weight the subject matter demands. The approach bears greatest fruit in the last section of the game. Møller and Jacob Hvid Amstrup, show what can be achieved with just a few carefully chosen elements rather than the deluge usually found in bigger titles. Alongside the haunting soundtrack which sounds like vintage ballroom music slowed to a drone-like crawl, the two-person team, Lucas A. The Christen Købke portraits used for most of the characters help make Inkslinger feel pleasingly grubby and lived-in, tweaked just a little so they look almost like etchings. A monochromatic color palette is used to compellingly eerie effect alongside paintings sourced from The National Gallery of Denmark's open database, SMK Open. As a player, you don’t do much in the text-adventure sections except soak up a story which is complimented by the game’s evocative minimalist visuals. You type these linguistic triggers out too, but it almost feels unfair to do so, as if you’re making the young scribe relive a grim and harrowing set of events she’d rather forget.

#Inkslinger reviews zip#
It’s relayed with zip and flair, but also economy, gesturing towards a world beyond the stultifying office that the protagonist Yearnmore (I told you the names were great) finds herself in.Īt various points, Yearnmore is yanked from reality into a flashback by what some of her clients say.

As you might expect for a game about words, the writing is excellent.

You’ll meet Smoothie, a cockney-accented teenager who works in the fishmonger, Tetherheart, mother to an estranged son, as well as various members of guilds whose stories interlink in satisfying and unfortunate ways. Inkslinger is all about the art of understanding-finding the right words for thorny and often delicate subjects.īrassknee’s so-called wordshop is also the perfect place to encounter the residents of the brilliantly named Isle Shammer, a coastal town located in the wider (also excellently titled) region of Nomania. You type these out just as the inkslinger would, but the game isn’t interested in asking you to do so quickly, or at great volume like other typing games. The actual game stems from interpreting their needs, and then selecting a specific word that you think best corresponds to their brief. Your job is to type, firing out words in the form of letters, poems, and songs for clientele who walk into Brassknee’s wordshop, your place of employment.

At first glance, the setting seems like a straightforwardly dour Victorian city, but as the above uncanny detail suggests, this is a stranger place than you’ll find in history books.
