TLDR: I really wanted to like this game - you are a cool mouse and stuff, but it's very frustrating.
This game doesn't respect your time.

You will juggle several quests at the same time, many of them you CANNOT EVEN COMPLETE because they depend on other quests- THE GAME DOESN'T TELL YOU THIS. Have fun searching for The Jailer all around the map, search for him all you want, you cannot complete the quest anyway. Same with the mushrooms, this happens frequently.

If you are not in the mood of getting chased, you can put on this heavy armor that tricks the rats - cool! It however makes you extreeeeemely slow. So slow you'll never want to use it, even after the speed increase (which is barely noticeable). Even if the speed was increased by 100%, it would've still been annoying. And if you don't use this armor, you'll get this annoying chase music playing every other minute, more on that later.

The game is very hard to navigate, with a maze-like level design. It's also very dark and the map is not very helpful. Why not at least putting out arrows and names on the map to show which path leads you where? This should've been a bare minimum.

At one part of the game, you need to open a gate by walking onto a button with your full heavy armor and while grabbing a chest ("you are too light to open the gate", it'll say otherwise). A few minutes later, you will meet a similar gate with the same message. This time however, even though it tells you you need to be heavier, YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO IGNORE THE MESSAGE AND JUMP ONTO THE ROCKS TO THE RIGHT OF THE GATE AND JUST BYPASS THE GATE. Why was there even a message to begin with!?

At another instance, a creature wants you to "meet him at the bell tower". What bell tower? I've never visited a bell tower earlier. Perhaps there could've been an earlier quests where you ring the bell, you know, so we actually know where it is? Hmm, could it be "The Far Tower"? Let's run there and look. Nope. Another 15mins wasted. Turns out its just around the corner of where you got the quest. How about just telling us to go up the stairs around the corner instead?

The music when getting chased is extremely annoying and will play ALL THE TIME. Being chased is OK, but the devs should've taken notes from Metal Gear Solid on how to make suspenseful music that can be played repeatedly. I bet if I just mod the MGS tune into this game, the game would get better instantly.

The mouse is cute and the writing is clever - the rest is just bad.

I found sneaking past the same guards over and over while playing a spot-the-hidden-object game tedious and gave up after an hour.
But I'm quite happy to give money to the only developers who made a beautiful game with mice and forests. I really hope they make something better and look forward to playing it.

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That's a really cute game, easy on the eyes just like on your computer, with so far a really cute story. The maps are really pretty and with an excellent sound design for everything, it's just a shame that there are so few of them. The game prefers us to move around and make a lot of round trips to progressively unlock everything on a map, which I found a little frustrating (perhaps it's on purpose.) Nothing is indicated and you must earn the help you can get, which is nice. There is a day/night cycle which is very important because some things can only be made during the day, other during the night, which gives a strong sense of immersion.

I'm not sure if the game tries to be a stealth game or a RPG one, and I'm not sure that the game knows either. It's some kind of hybrid between the two genres, where you have to constantly sneak and take detours to reach the same place for the thousandth time, but there is also this system of disguise with clothes that have stats, and a lot of lore for a universe and world-building truly made with love, but which really would have fitted more a full RPG. I'm in the constant frustration of not being able to explore this world in an open world - because the numerous items, clothes, armor, weapons, NPCs and side quests would have made an excellent RPG. At times, and even if it's justified by the story, having to sneak everwhere is a harsh reminder that you're in fact just playing a stealth game. A part of the game make you want to explore everything of it, while the other part prevents you from doing so. I think my frustration comes from this.

Don't get me wrong: stealth games are among my favorite genre and I truly enjoy them. But here, it feels awkward, like it was meant to be something else. Still; Ghost of a Tale is a really cute and lovely experience which I would recommend, if not for the graphics and story, for all its poetry.

I wasn't expecting a stealthgame to have lore. I am normally that guy that skips over dialog and it has been quite a while since a game actually made me want to read dialogboxes. The characters are witty and thought out and the world is graphically pleasing and consistent.

Don't expect a mechanically masterpiece. This is not what the game is about. Its not about the "i want to outsmart my enemies and win" part, but more about the "i wanna see what happens next".

A clear weakpoint this game has is: The maincharacter is a minstrel, but the songs you can play are not voiced. I like the parts where you have to play songs to progress, but playing a tune and just watching lyrics fly over your screen wasn't really satisfying.

That being said: This game was fun to play and told a story I can respect. I was hoping for a sequel, since the ending left so many open questions.
As a D&D DM, It was an inspiration in terms of worldbuilding.
Thank you.

Very nice game, worth a play. I've probably played more hours than most will, but I like the story and the world. There is a lot of thought and interest. I would really like to know what happens next.

This is not an "action rpg" or stealth game as it's advertised as. As there is hardly action, nor rpg mechanics and the barebones stealth dissapears 1/3rd in.
I'd give it a neutral recommendation if that were possible.

• aesthetically pleasing.
  
• Written excellently and full of character.
  
• Level design is very interconnected.
  
• Adorable.

• The stealth system is extremely surface level.
  
• The bare bones stealth is trivialized as soon as you unlock a mainquest armor set.
  
• Said mainquest armor set makes you move slow as molasses and is tedious to play.
  
• Many sidequests are fully or partially uncompletable before progressing the main story, the game will not tell you this and wastes your time looking for the 2/10 missing whatevers.
  
• Ending feels out of nowhere and not very satisfying.
  
• Doesn't offer any technical gameplay challenge.
  
• The game is less action rpg, more fetch quest.

Quite an achievement considering it's made by such a small team. Very cute. Also doesn't overstay its welcome.

One of my favorite indie games, it's really well made and with love, very interesting, runs well, has nice graphics, and good lore. 10/10

Super fun, little game! It (loosely) reminds me of Resident Evil with all the doors you need to unlock but more stealth and less zombies. The animation is also super cute, and the story telling is much better than I expected.