Review The Library of Babel: ambitious as an eternal library but with the coldness of a robot without purpose

The Library of Babel from Tanuki Game Studio is now available with its Borges-inspired story and stealth mechanics. We tell you what it is about, below!

The Barcelona developer Tanuki Game Studio an ambitious goal was set: to turn a Borges story into a settings videogame. that’s how it’s born The Library of Babel, an independent 2D title where we will have to control Ludovik, a robot that returns to Earth millennia after the death of the last human. Our hero will have to investigate a murder in Mesopotamia, in a data mining post, and follow the killer’s tracks in a hostile world that he will want to do so that every step we take will be the last.

Describe The Library of Babel it is more or less difficult because of the number of things that it combines. We are facing a title that at first glance may seem like a 2D platformer with a side view, but instead of shots or skill sequences it has elements of stealth and will force you to avoid enemies. Finally, very much Flashback either Another World adventure elements are also added where you can stop to talk to some characters and do quests for them.

So, you’re going to progress through certain screens as the story progresses, but then come back with new items to unlock new corridors on previous screens where you teleport to.

“The Library of Babel” of Borges, the one that gives inspiration to the game world, imagines a bookstore where a series of interconnected hexagonal rooms exist. These endless rooms contain books with random letters, and they presuppose that eventually and if you stretch out far enough within it you will eventually come across the sum of all human knowledge, past present and future. This eventually causes the people within to become suicidal or exhibit cult-like behaviors because while the promise of all knowledge exists, finding it will require overcoming countless walls of nonsense – hell. This environment permeates the game, in a way.

Years after the extinction of humanity, the robot ludovik he returns to Earth and finds a colony of robots answering to a mechanical matriarch. What starts as a simple task of making contact and investigating ends in having to solve a murder that will take us all over Babylon that is full of androids, with characters and backgrounds drawn by hand. The main mechanic for moving around will be platforming combined with stealth elements so you’ll need to get past when enemies are looking the other way or hide behind objects in the background so they pass you by and don’t shoot you.

Although this element is fun, the other great attraction of the game that should be the adventure is not so remarkable. The hub-style areas are quite separated and many times you will be left wondering what you have to do to progress, because the quests solve themselves as you explore and find things. The times it doesn’t, the results are confusing.

For example, one of the first puzzles is to wake someone up with the sound of darts (which is already weird) but you have to make them, and for that you need syringes and feathers. You can get the syringe somewhere, but in the case of the feathers we spent a long time to realize that no, we can’t use the feather that Ludovik wears in his hat. We also can’t get the pen that the bartender has in the same place where the dart board is. Actually, you have to go outside, crouch in a nook of a platform and get inside to reach a nest where there are feathers that you can use.

The most interesting part of it is the world it poses. While the dialogue is cold and looking at these sci-fi androids can come as a shock when thinking about Borges’s work, the super stylized reimagining has a unique charm that combined with the art style (which we can’t help but to highlight it, it’s beautiful) they make a combo with a lot of personality. The only thing that might have been nice to see is a little more variety in the use of color, but we understand that this is also a choice and the browns, grays and dark tones are purposely chosen to give atmosphere.

In conclusion

The Library of Babel not a seamless experience with its 2d stealth component lite of adventure and controls too millimeter. However, what he proposes is so unique that it doesn’t look like anything else. Its setting is inimitable, the references delightful and the production values ​​enchanting. From then on, the key to how much or how little it resonates with the player will be in each player’s unique sensibilities and how patient you are with their imprecise control.

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