Minecraft: Story Mode

I'm sure you've all heard of Minecraft. If not, then you should quickly read up on your missing gaming culture, because TellTale Games have made their first episode of Minecraft Story Mode free of charge. TellTale have been doing the rounds with their choose-your-own-adventure style of games. They are very well known for the Walking Dead series. Since Minecraft also has its share of zombies, I imagine that creating an adventure based on the Minecraft IP was right up their alley.

In this first episode, we're introduced to Jesse, a lovely beta male and his pet pig called Rueben. Jesse lives in a forest biome which contains a relatively large and cosmopolitan city. Without spoiling much, we begin to follow his exploits right at the beginning of the current year's building competition. Jesse's team has failed to win the big prize for nine years in a row, but this time, things might get different.

Minecraft Story Mode has the same gameplay to which players of TellTale games are accustomed. Most of the time you will be following the narration and get to chose a response or action at crucial points in the story. At other times you will be able to move about the environment and interact with different objects of interest. Of course, you will also have to be on a lookout for quick time events during dangerous situations, as well as fiddle with crafting materials from time to time.

The game's presentation stays close to the rough look of Minecraft but strays by adding extra details to characters, which is understandable. The sounds and music follow along to what we know from Minecraft, but as with the choppy models, it fits quite well.

Minecraft Story Mode features a large cast of professionally voiced characters. The dialogues are believable, while also staying true to what one might expect Minecraft personages to reference in their speech.

Final Thoughts

The app suffers from graphical stuttering at points, and I have experienced muted dialogue for no apparent reason a couple of times, but otherwise, there were no problems. However, I can't say I loved going through this first part of a greater adventure. The visuals are nice and the action is okay, but the characters behave like they're in a Saturday morning cartoon. Perhaps that's only fitting with the setting of Minecraft, but if I desire quirky humor and lighthearted dialogue, I'll play Monkey Island.