Daily iPad App: The Wolf Among Us turns the comic into a "choice and consequence" game thriller
If you enjoyed Telltale Game's masterpiece (and 2012 Game of the Year) The Walking Dead, you're going to want to check out its latest "choice and consequence" game thriller, The Wolf Among Us. Like The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us is not an original property. It's also based off of a comic book by DC/Vertigo called Fables. And like The Walking Dead, the game's brilliance lies not so much in its action or gameplay, but in the choices one is forced to make and the consequences that result.
In The Wolf Among Us you play Bigby Wolf, the sheriff of Fabletown, a fictional city much like New York except that characters from classic fairly tales live among normal human beings in a disguised form. In a game where the story matters leagues more than the game mechanics -- not to mention the story changes based on the choices you make -- it's hard to talk about the plot without ruining it for those that haven't played it. Given that, let me just tell you that the game starts with Sheriff Bigby being called to a run-down apartment by Mr. Toad because something is going on in the upstairs apartment of the Woodsman of Little Red Riding Hood fame. Then things get weird...
The game eschews 3D graphics for cell-shaded animation that works perfectly in this creepy world where things just aren't quite right. But it's the voice narration on the writing that make this game a serious contender for Game of the Year.
The Wolf Among Us, again, just like The Walking Dead, is not a one-off. The entire game will consist of five episodes, the first of which is called "Faith" and is available now. The remaining four episodes: Smoke and Mirrors, A Crooked Mile, In Sheep's Clothing and Cry Wolf will be made available on a sequential basis throughout 2014.
The Wolf Among Us is a universal app and costs US$4.99 for the first episode. Each following episode will cost another $4.99 via in-app purchase, or you can buy the Multi-Pack purchase which includes Episodes 2-5 for a total of $14.99, or 25 percent off the individual price.
