ranzware
Mandragora: Whispers Of The Witch Tree is a 2.5D Soulsvania from Primal Game Studio, in which you electrify, bisect or incinerate handsome, ravening night creatures in a world of heaped skulls and burning spires. Yes, I’m well aware that “2.5D” and “Soulsvania” are nonsense words, woven by pestilent market forces. Samuel Johnson is turning in his grave, I expect. He has risen from his grave and equipped himself with an ironbound dictionary and is even now making his way through the layers of the English language, hellbent on slaughtering every ‘vania yet coined.
But never mind Samuel. Oversized rodents and spiders aside, Mandragora is notable for being written by Brian Mitsoda, writer of the original Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines and the former narrative lead for its sequel at Hardsuit Labs, which lives on in the hands of The Chinese Room. Primal have just announced a release date – 17th April. Here’s a trailer.
Some plot from the Steam page:
“Mankind has surrendered the world to the monsters. The people of Faelduum hide away behind walls of brick and palisades of ignorance, constructed by their leaders. Joy and delight are coveted jewels, out of reach of the masses. This is not the world you were promised. Travel by night and take it back.”
Ooh.
You get a choice of classes and a set of nodular skill trees which look like blood spatter from a recent murder. You also get a travelling caravan you can populate with artisans who’ll craft your kit. While some of the bigger munsters seem a bit spongy in the footage, I find them appealingly diseased and frenzied. I don’t get the impression you’ll be duelling many proud knights in armour. I also like the specific gradation of rotten beauty they’re going for with the “painterly”, seeping backdrops.
As for Mitsoda’s contribution, you will “make devastating choices in a sinister and immersive story”. He joined the project back in 2022. Here’s an interview from 2023 in which he breaks down what a narrative designer actually does, and offers some advice to game devs on “how to introduce a new world in a way that feels organic to the player”. An excerpt:
“Don’t wholesale copy something else, but feel free to mash up a bunch of influences. Figure out what you can do to make it different from other games in its genre while also appealing to fans of that genre. Focus on the characters – you can have a cliche plot, but the characters will keep people interested and keep the story relatable. Don’t “magic” or “technobabble” for a solution – try to make sure everything in the game follows rules that are established and the player understands.”
Perhaps you’d like to wash that down with one of our own interviews with Mitsoda about the craft of writing video games, from way back in 2009.
Kurt Indovina
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