You open a Steam bundle page and scroll down to read a bit about what you're thinking about purchasing, looking for something simple and maybe a bit clever to help cement your decision. It's called the I <3 The Narrator Bundle, so it ought to have three, well-told narrative games, you think to yourself, living up to the image of a well-informed gamer in your head. And then you realize that someone is narrating your thought process to you as you read this on the page, making your breath catch in your throat as you realize the narrator for the I <3 Narrator Bundle has so effortlessly identified your sophisticated taste.
Are you a gamer who buys titles sight unseen? Just off the key art? After watching the first few seconds of the Steam Page video? Of course not, you're reading this. You possess something rare among your kind-- taste. Which is why you're smiling to yourself reading this narration, wondering when we might talk about the three games on offer.
You have, of course, seen Beacon Pines' storybook charm. Little furry children with big, expressive eyes, bouncing through their pop up world, trying to solve a cute and creepy mystery. The art certainly grabs your attention, lush and vibrant, but it's the little quirks of its gameplay that truly tempt you. You begin to realize that-- despite its insistance on a familiar aesthetic, it's got just the unique grasp of innovation and intrigue that you're after.
Innovation and intrigue that seems to be on full display when you click through to Cryptmaster. A game altogether completely new and yet, strangely familiar, like someone took a horror fantasy novel you read once when you were a teenager and turned it into a delightful, award-winning gaming experience. One where your fantasy RPG gives a whole new meaning to word play. So long as you're willing to tolerate a sardonic necromancer with a far more caustic disposition than other narrators you've met recently.
Thankfully, the narrator for In Stars And Time happens to be far more forgiving. You see that this particular narrator is perhaps more beleaguered than the others from narrating loop after loop after loop of Siffrin's timeloop RPG adventure. Even with their found family of intrepid adventurers, you notice, Siffrin still must pray to the Change God for good fortune as they quest through hostile lands designed to gruesomely crush them again and again. Perhaps, though, you are just the gamer that Siffrin needs to help them break free of the cycle and finally achieve salvation.
Coming to the bottom of the bundle page, you realize your decision has already been made, helped tremendously by the narration that's guided you through the process of coming to understand all three games. Luckily, the need for that narration has come to an end because your cursor is already hovering over the "Add to Cart" button just a few inches below this final word.
