Rover’s Tale is the delightful adventure of a robot with the consciousness of a dog. There were lots of things to discover and places to explore. So much fun!
The Backstory of Rover’s Tale
I played as a LAIKA, which is a program that transfers the consciousness of an old dog into a mechanized Space Rover, allowing the dog to live on forever. All the Rovers in the game are actually based on the dev team’s dogs. How sweet is that??
Rover’s Tale began with graphics that looked like they were messages on a computer screen. There was lot of red (oh no – danger!!) and phrases like “memory corrupt” and “multiple errors”. Obviously, something had gone wrong somewhere.
Then the actual game began with my robot and a very brief introduction to the controls, teaching me how to move the robotic dog. After I used each control once, the graphic instruction went away, and I was off on my own!! I thought that was a great little tutorial; it taught me exactly what I needed to know. I soon detected an SOS signal and tried to find what was sending it.
I rode around a bit and found who was sending the SOS signal; it was a stranger, maybe an astronaut? He was locked in what he called an escape pod. He told me his spaceship had crashed, and he managed to get into the escape pod and survive. I helped him get out of it, and when he emerged, he said he was looking for the rest of my “team”; there should be 7-8 more robots around. I didn’t know what he was talking about. I didn’t remember any other robots. But I was told that since I had helped him, he was now my friend. Neato! He needed my help with some quests, and I was happy to help out my new friend. So the adventure began!
The Look and Feel of Rover’s Tale
The demo for Rover’s Tale took place in the first biome of Terra II. It was a lush green environment filled with water elements, caves, unusual critters, flying insects, food items I could pick, trails and oh yeah – lots of important cargo that was lost when my friend’s spaceship crashed landed. At one point, my new friend needed to bring out the box containing his landing kit which was very heavy. The sound effects of him dragging the heavy box were really cool and a great touch. The mechanical sound I made as I rode around was subtle but really added to the feel of the game. Another nice detail was the tire tracks my robot made when it rode through mud. I love it when games have those extra little details. I think they mean a lot. There was a great soundtrack to Rover’s Tale, too. At times it was soft yet peppy, and at other times it was quiet and pensive. It changed to suit the environment I was in.
My new friend used his landing kit to build a Homebase and connected it to a terminal. It was a really cool space, and whenever I entered it my battery recharged. Handy!! My new friend ran some diagnostics on me. It seems I had some memory issues. He needed to find his workstation, which would help him diagnose my issues further, so I set off to find it. Because after all, I am man’s best friend!
The Gameplay in Rover’s Tale
I played with a controller, and it was seamless! I’m always a terrible driver in games (not IRL!!) and Rover’s Tale was no exception. I learned that if I drove off the path and into the water, I ended up right back where I went off the path. The only penalty I faced was that I lost some of my battery power. I also learned that if I completely ran out of battery power, I would wake up in the home base with no other penalty. For example, I did not lose any inventory. That’s nice, it makes the game so much more chill.
I had a really nice time just exploring my surroundings though, it’s all so lush and beautiful. I particularly loved the bridge, which was very realistic and truly lovely.
As the game progressed, I was given a net to catch the local creatures and insects. Once I caught some, I took them to the Research Store within the Homebase. There they were analyzed and I was given Research Credits in exchange for my work. I could use the Research Credits for upgrades, decorations and more. After being analyzed, the creatures were safely returned to their home environment, which I thought was a great touch.
Some of the critters were harder to catch than others! Sometimes I would catch a critter, but then have to play a mini game in order to keep it. If I lost at the mini game, the critter got away. That was fun! Some of the critters had special powers which aided me in my quests, such as eliminating a thorn bush with a flame power. That opened up new areas for me to explore!
Features That I Loved in Rover’s Tale
Rover’s Tale had an excellent and very complete quest log. I loved how the entire conversation regarding my quest was included, so I could refresh my memory. There was also a map showing exactly where I was in relation to my current quest, as well as an inventory system, a “factopedia”, my stats and customization options.
Another feature in the demo of Rover’s Tale was the ability to “ping” using radar. Pinging is neat because when I press the button, it tags things that are of interest to me. Those can be creatures, objects and object markers. In the screenshot below, my ping highlighted the object on the right-hand side of the screen. What is it? I’d better investigate!
Final Thoughts
I didn’t have any issues playing the game, but I did have a question, so I reached out to the devs on Discord. I received a great reply very quickly. I’m always impressed with game devs who are very responsive to players. To me, it indicates that they are committed to developing an excellent game and want to make sure the players have the best possible experience with it.
The demo for Rover’s Tale is supposed to last 1-2 hours and has an autosave feature. It’s an open world, Metroidvania creature collector and is a real blast to play!! I played for over 2 hours before writing this article. I’m going to play even longer because I’m still discovering new things to do. But I’m going to stop writing now to give you the opportunity to discover some things yourself! There’s a lot to this game! Yvonne also wrote about it and noticed things that I did not. You can read her article here.
Rover’s Tale was developed by Observer Interactive, a dev team based in Northern England. This is their first game as a team. I think the full game is going to be something special and I look forward to its release.
Do you like our content?
Support LadiesGamers as a member on Patreon!
Or buy us a cup of coffee or tea on Ko-Fi!
