Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree is a 2.5D Soulsvania from Primal Game Studio, in which you bite, raging nocturnal beings that you electrify, biect or burn in a world of accumulated skulls and burning towers. Yes, I am well aware that “2.5d” and “soulsvania” are nonsense words, woven by pestilent market forces. Samuel Johnson turns in his grave, I expect. He got up from his grave and equipped with an iron dictionary and is now even his way through the layers of the English language, hellbent about the slaughter of every ‘Vania who was still devised.
But let alone Samuel. Oversized rodents and spiders aside, Mandragora is remarkable because he is written by Brian Mitsoda, writer of the original vampire: the masquerade – bloodlines and the former narrative lead for his sequel in Hardsuit Labs, who lives in the hands of the Chinese room. Primal has just announced a release date – April 17. Here is a trailer.
A plot of the Steampage:
“Humanity has surrendered the world to the monsters. The people of Faelduum hide behind walls of brick and palisades of ignorance, built by their leaders. Joy and pleasure are coveted jewels, out of reach of the masses. This is not the world you were promised.
Ooh.
You get a choice of classes and a set of nodular skills trees that look like a blood splash through a recent murder. You also get a traveling caravan that you can populate with craftsmen who will make your kit. While some of the larger Munsters seem a bit spongy in the images, I find them an attractive sick and insane. I don’t get the impression that you dubmer many proud knights in armor. I also like the specific gradation of rotten beauty for which they go with the “picturesque”, seeping backgrounds.
Regarding the contribution of Mitsoda, you will “make devastating choices in a sinister and compelling story”. He joined the project in 2022. Here is one Interview from 2023 In which he breaks down what a narrative designer actually does and what gives advice to game developers on “how to introduce a new world in a way that feels organic for the player”. A fragment:
“Do not copy anything else, but feel free to stamp a number of influences. Find out what you can do to make things differently than other games in his genre, while you are also attractive to fans of that genre. Focus On the characters – you can have a clichéplot, but the characters keep the story relatable. “
Maybe you want to rinse that with one of our own interviews with Mitsoda about the craft of writing video games, from far back in 2009.