![]() “There's a theme in the game, of hexagons. ![]() Even the language’s visual form is aligned to a recurring shape that can be found in the architecture and environments in Tunic. “I wanted it to look like an amalgamation of a few different things that would be immediately recognisable in as many languages as possible as not that language, if that makes sense.” This is done without sacrificing the language’s linguistic structure about how its strokes and components are laid out, such as its position, semantics, and other rules. ![]() At the same time, Shouldice was adamant about making sure that the language looks sufficiently alien, that it doesn’t immediately resemble any modern language used today. One key consideration is to have all these written text-whether they are present in the manual, or within the environments and dialogues of Tunic-to be informative enough for puzzle enthusiasts to begin figuring things out, like “a tip in the right direction” to get them on the correct path. The folks who have delved more deeply into seem to have had a good time sussing things out.”īut that doesn’t mean that Shouldice wants this process to be too arcane for players to discover on their own. “In this day and age, if you see in a set of glyphs in a game, you are probably going to assume that it's got some sort of meaning, and maybe we'll try digging into it, and if it were merely a letter by letter cipher, that would probably be less interesting for people. And so because of the graphical treatment of the glyphs, it was not until much later that it was like, “Oh wait, though, like all of this has meaning,” and that was sort of a revelatory moment.” “But many players-myself included-did not realise that was even a thing. ![]() “The glyphs exist to make the player feel like they're in a place that they don't belong, and were they to mean something, it would be important that it not simply be a letter-to-letter cipher to English, because people are primed for this, like we're in a post-Fez world by a long shot now, and the beauty of how Fez did its language was that it was not especially tricky to figure out,” says Shouldice. And it’s this mystery that makes up a substantial part of Tunic’s appeal, as it becomes a throwback of sorts to the outlook of video games from that decade: one that’s filled with unknowable secrets, and in which clues and answers are hard-earned and feverishly discussed over with friends. But equally lauded about is Tunic’s in-game instruction manual, which is presented in a cryptic, runic language-one that’s almost single-handedly crafted by developer Andrew Shouldice.ĭespite appearing somewhat similar to logographic systems like the Chinese and Korean language, this fictional script is otherwise largely shrouded in mystery there’s no Rosetta stone in the game that would allow players to quickly decipher its characters. ![]() Evident in its features and blockish aesthetics, Tunic bears a passing resemblance to classic Zelda games, while the oodles of hidden passages and easter eggs tucked in its nooks and crannies a knowing nod to some of the most beloved games of the 90s. The 1990s is making a triumphant return in the form of Tunic, the RPG which feels like a pastiche of video games from that era. ![]()
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