Everybody plays video games for different reasons, and I personally would say I’m someone who is focused more on substance over style. That doesn’t mean that some flashy games don’t regularly capture my heart too, but if you give me a platformer with tight controls and tricky obstacles then I’m in heaven. Once Upon a Puppet is not this, with much more of a focus on environments and storytelling. It undeniably has a lot of charm though.
There are two protagonists that you’ll play as simultaneously in Once Upon a Puppet: Drev and Nieve. Drev is a young naïve puppet just trying to get by as an actor, and Nieve is a disembodied hand that works as a weaver for the king. When Nieve is cast out for not making good enough outfits the fates of these two entangle, quite literally. With magic thread binding them these two unlikely allies work together to get untangled and ultimately save the kingdom from its overbearing king.
To do this you’ll need to make your way through various platforming stages of course, which are linear and 3D but with a fixed camera angle. Everything starts off very basic, with you able to jump and pull objects around. While it’s not the most action packed of openings, you’ll get to know about the characters who live in this theatre based world and the troubles they face.
After a couple of stages with basic puzzles and platforming you’ll start to unlock new abilities that spice things up. Some of these will be very familiar like the double jump, but others use the fact you’re playing as a puppet on a string to full effect. Using your strings to catapult you through the air is always entertaining, as is using the extra leverage at your disposal to pull open doors. Everything Once Upon a Puppet does is thematic to the world it’s set in and the characters that you play as, and it makes for a much more endearing experience.
Part way through the game you begin a quest to help the king see the error of his ways, by performing in plays that tell stories of his past. To do this you have to dress Drev up in costumes and take on a new role, and with this you’ll also get access to new abilities. Suddenly getting a bow you can fire at objects to clear the way is a lot of fun, and helps mix things up a bit when the game starts to get a bit stale.
The outfits you wear in these segments are collectibles, and while some of them are required for story reasons, others are just for fun. There are also other bits and bobs to find in each stage, ranging from theatre props to pieces of stained glass that come together to tell the backstory of this otherworldly setting. Although none of these are necessarily important to collect it’s at least fun to do so, so make sure you check all the dark corners for goodies.
Above all else, what really makes Once Upon a Puppet worth playing is the world. There’s a dark undertone to this setting that’s almost reminiscent of an animated Tim Burton film like A Nightmare Before Christmas. The visuals are gorgeous despite the darkness too, which really propelled me through the game.
That being said, Once Upon a Puppet does have its fair share of issues. The pacing of the game is a bit all over the place, with stages interrupted by slow paced cutscenes. If you die the checkpoints are often before lengthy conversations, which adds to this issue. Some puzzle sections often make it tough to know what to do next too, and they’re rarely fun enough to warrant the brain teasing. I also encountered quite a few bugs in my playthrough where I’d have to reload to actually progress, which made a couple of sections much more confusing than they needed to be.
Once Upon a Puppet is a stylish game set in an incredibly intriguing universe, but ultimately the actual gameplay just doesn’t quite cut the mustard. I enjoyed the story and characters that make up this theatrical world, but having to watch them have slow conversations every time things started to get interesting got old fast. Especially after the first few stages the game the action does pick up somewhat though, and perhaps for some that’ll be enough to make the journey there worth it.
