MindGames

As a kid, my only real exposure to puppets was through the joyful “sooty show.” That is one of the most niche references I have ever made on this site, but it was a puppet show targeted at young children, starring a yellow hand-puppet bear called sooty and his friends. They had a TV show and everything. Small Caitlin loved it. Marionette’s (stringed puppets) always felt a bit… uncanny valley to me but the engineering part of my brain was fascinated by them. The ability to manipulate and study individual sections of the puppet as it moved, to see the ripple effect it would have on the rest of the joints – it was remarkably educational.

Despite the interest in puppets and marionettes that has followed me since early childhood, I absolutely detest mascot costumes. Seriously, they could be hiding anything in there. Part of my anxiety against these people who are just doing their jobs is the fact that they are hidden from sight deliberately. I am a naturally paranoid person due to my anxieties, so when I cannot see someone’s eyes or face to read social cues from, I am immediately uneasy. This distaste for mascots was very visible to the Game Junkiez gang at EGX when I fled from a Fall Guy mascot who I was fairly sure was targeting me directly (nearly mugged by a bean, that would be a new experience).

This weird love of puppets, fascination with marionettes and hatred of mascots, has more often than not warded me away from games that include any of the above. You often do not find one of the trios without the others following close behind (ready to steal your soul, I SEE YOU MASCOT BOY). However, whilst at EGX in October, I followed my friend Kerry over to try a game called “A Juggler’s Tale” that they had been extremely excited to try out. We got to play the opening level, which followed the player meeting the protagonist Abby, a young juggler in a circus, forced to perform during the day and locked away at night. You learn to maneuver through the world, learning how to avoid getting your strings tangled up in obstacles. Needless to say, I was intrigued.

Once Abby escapes the circus, she goes on the run through the wilderness, trying to avoid the hunters that the ringmaster has sent to track her down. These bandits, led by the fearsome Tonda, are a constant threat to Abby – forcing the player to think ahead, move stealthily and be bold in order to escape their clutches. Like Abby, they are connected to the world via strings and are under the control of Jack – the puppet master, storyteller, and creator of the world that we are exploring. He narrates the events in rhyming couplets, providing the player with key information of upcoming hazards and clues to puzzles. At least to begin with.

Based in southern Germany, kaleidoscube, the developers of the game, were unable to be there in person at EGX but we got to speak to them via Discord to ask about what inspired to make such a unique game. One of the publishing team explained to us that dark fairytales (such as Brothers Grimm) and puppet shows are incredibly common in Germany, being a staple of German children’s childhood experiences since as early as the 1950’s. An example of this is the “Augsburger Puppenkiste,” a famous marionette theatre in Augsburg that has been putting on performances for decades. Given these cherished childhood memories shared by the development team, it is no surprise that the amount of love and care put into A Juggler’s Tale is visible in every frame.

This is a beautiful game. Honestly, any frame of this game could be put up as a painting in a gallery and I would not bat an eye. Every environment is alive with detail and beauty, be that the gentle swaying of the crop fields as you run through them at sunset or the view of the town from the rooftops as you dance across them. The environment is a clever mixture of painted set pieces (I mean that most literally) and fairytale backdrops, maintaining a careful balance between a puppet show’s artificial stage and a storybook. Nothing is wasted, everything has a purpose. Something creeps in the background? You will meet it later on. Is that a hunter is scanning the forest with his lamp? Tonda and his bandits must be getting close.

As Jack tells his story to the eager tavern of listeners, their reactions to events as they unfold function as ambient sound. They cheer when Abby escapes, grow quiet in moments of tension and shout warnings when danger looms – helping maintain the live puppet show atmosphere that the game has been building from the beginning. Jack’s rhythmic weaving of his tale pairs nicely with the music as you hop across streams and clamber over walls. Ignoring the tense moments where you sprint away from hunters, swearing profusely and praying to uncaring deities for assistance, it is a remarkably relaxing experience.

Available on Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo switch and PC, A Juggler’s Tale is a story of freedom. It is about overcoming obstacles – both those thrown at you from others, and those that have been set upon you by the world. I highly recommend that you play it yourself, it is a short experience that you can knock out in an evening. I am going to go into detail about some story points that I connected with, so if you want to be completely spoiler free, run away! Bookmark the article and come back once you have played the game through. Still here? Good. Let us chat.

Putting aside the chase sequences, puzzles and platforming that make up the core gameplay of A Juggler’s Tale, this game is about freedom of choice. In the first few chapters, Abby’s flight from the ringmaster is a series of scripted events, carefully crafted by Jack to tell his story. Your strings are an ever-present reminder of your powerlessness against the grand tapestry of fate that Jack has weaved for Abby. Her capture and return to the circus appear inevitable, with Jack able to pick Abby up by her strings and maneuver her if he chooses to. Yet, there are brief moments of rebellion that indicate a deviation from her fate.

Shortly before you encounter the hunters, you come across an old wolf – whose strings are attached to some sort of post. Jack demands that you abandon the creature to its fate and keep moving but you can choose not to. One way of solving the puzzle of the cart blocking your path is to attach the cart to the strings and allow gravity to pull the cart out of your way – snapping the strings tethering the wolf to the world at the same time. It is a moment where Jack loses his patience with you, pulling you into the air and demanding that you obey him, or he will retract his help. It seems odd at first why would the storyteller need to bargain with those he controls? Unless… he does not have complete authority over them? If you can snap someone else’s strings, why not your own?

This train of thought comes to fruition at the end of the third act, when all hope seems lost. Abby’s locked in a cage, waiting to be taken back to the ringmaster. Jack laments her last moments of freedom, only to be stopped by Abby breaking free of her imprisonment, setting the barn she was being kept in ablaze. When her strings get caught on the doorway, it seems that it was all in vain – poor Abby is trapped as the blaze creeps towards her. Jack holds her strings in place as the flames lick at her feet, proclaiming the so called “story’s end,” only to watch in rage and horror as Abby refuses to go quietly.

One by one, she snaps the strings that tether her to the world, ripping the control of her fate from Jack’s hands and taking it into her own hands for the first time. The moment he loses control over “his” puppet, Jack becomes the antagonist, with the rest of the story focusing on Abby thwarting Jack’s desperate attempts to regain control of her autonomy. Then again, to a protagonist of a story, the storyteller is the true enemy. After all, they are the one who holds your fate in their hands. When you regain control of Abby, the lyrical nature and pre-planned lines of Jack have vanished along with her strings. Everything is new and unpredictable. Sure, the world may be of his creation but now Jack has no influence over what path Abby takes through it.

Abby’s lack of strings quickly becomes her strongest asset (that and her remarkably good throwing arm), allowing her to duck under obstacles and slip away from her pursuers with ease. They are still tied down by their strings and restricted by her old limitations, limitations with which she is intimately familiar. Eventually, Tonda is defeated by removing all of his strings, severing the control that Jack has over the world entirely, allowing Abby to free the residents of the world she calls home from their bindings and reunite with a dear friend.

There are so many lenses that you can look at this story through. I do not know whether the developers intended it but the idea of casting off the strings that tie you down is a refreshing one. To me, it feels like the story of someone choosing their own path in life, rather than the one that had been set out before them. To others, it could be a tale of acceptance, accepting who you are and carving out a new identity with your newfound confidence. To you, it could be the tale of someone escaping a toxic relationship or friendship, removing the ties that kept you together and working through the negativity they left you with. Art is subjective.

This got remarkably profound, didn’t it? Guess that is what happens when I write an article by lamp light. November will be a tad chaotic for me, as I am finalizing the purchase of my new flat and moving in, as well as my job and cats. so, not much different from our normal upload schedule to be honest.

Hope you enjoyed and be sure to check out the game, as well as support the developers (kaleidoscube).

CaitlinRC