HORROR TALES: The Wine

About HORROR TALES: The Wine

HORROR TALES: The Wine is the first game of Carlos Coronado's Horror Tales saga, made by one developer and released on Steam for Windows on 30 July 2021, and the same day on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X|S and Nintendo Switch, with JanduSoft publishing on PlayStation and Xbox. You play Martí Vermelló, who steals a boat and sails to the capital of a fictional archipelago. A pandemic of fevers and delirium, the Devil's Fevers, has killed the islanders, and rumour says the red wine made by the Banydebosc family can cure it. Your loved ones are sick, and one unopened bottle would be enough.

The city looks like a summer postcard: sea breeze, sun, canals and terraces under the mountains. Inside it is a quarantine that failed. Families were sealed in their homes without food or water, and their skeletons are still beside the dining tables. There is no one to talk to; the story of the outbreak, the riots and the wine family that ran the town comes from notes, posters and the rooms themselves. You climb through an interconnected, vertical city, solving environmental riddles and physics puzzles to open the way to the winery.

You are not alone. A stranger in a wide hat, a mask and a long coat, carrying a gun, is obsessed with you. At first you only hear a whistle or a shot, or glimpse a shape behind a window. Later he finds you, and you cannot fight him: there is no combat, so each encounter is a flight, and some puzzles have to be finished while you are being hunted. The city itself is not to be trusted either. Reviewers describe corners and stairways that lead somewhere they should not, and a stretch of the game far stranger than the sunny streets.

Against games like Outlast or Amnesia, what stands out is the light: most of the horror happens in daylight and in beautiful places, and the scares build slowly before the chases begin. The maker is open that the game has jumpscares and promises they are not cheap ones; critics were split on them, and on puzzles that some found fiddly. A first run takes about three hours. It suits players who want a short, good-looking first-person horror game with a pursuer and puzzles and no combat. More than twenty accessibility settings and a photo mode, which also reveals secrets, are included.

How to play HORROR TALES: The Wine

1. Buy it on Steam, the PlayStation Store, the Xbox store or the Nintendo eShop and start a new game.
2. Check the accessibility menu first: it has more than twenty settings, including one to turn off flashing effects.
3. Leave the boat at the Banydebosc dock and explore the estate and the city in first person.
4. Read the notes and posters you find; they tell the story of the outbreak and often point to the way on.
5. Solve the environmental riddles and physics puzzles that open each area.
6. When the stalker comes for you, run: you cannot fight him, and you have to finish what you are doing and get away.
7. Keep heading for the winery and a bottle of the red wine.

Tips

• Learn the routes out of each room before you start a puzzle; the stalker can arrive while you work.
• Use the photo mode as you explore: the store says it unlocks secrets.
• If a corridor or stairway takes you somewhere you did not expect, that is the game's design, not a bug; keep going.
• Play with headphones: many of the early frights are sounds, a whistle or a shot somewhere in the empty streets.

Questions