The war between the Shadow Army and the Alliance of the Free Races has been raging for ages in Aventásia. No side has been able to get the upper hand. This is about to change when a goblin archaeologist named Mortimer MacGuffin discovers a clue to a legendary artifact which could decide the fate of the world. Sadly, things go wrong from there. The forces of evil captured and tortured his delivery boy who was on his way to the arch-mage to tell him the good news. Now they are after MacGuffin. Luckily the female elf Ivo is nearby and manages to free him - at least long enough to give Wilbur, a young gnome, the One Ring in order to bring it to the arch-mage. Soon Nathaniel Bonnet and his mysterious companion join the party and it's up to the the four adventurers to save Aventásia.

The Book of Unwritten Tales is a classic point & click adventure with a big focus on humor and obscure references. From the obvious "One Ring" over a scarecrow looking like Indiana Jones to more subtle hints hidden in the various locations and the many multiple-choice dialogues, the game takes every chance to make fun of famous pop-culture elements and often even breaks the fourth wall by doing so. By controlling one of the four characters and switching between them either when the story dictates it or later in the game at any time, the player collects everything that isn't nailed to a wall - and sometimes even that - and talks to everyone he meets in order to solve the many riddles in the game and ultimately advance the storyline by doing so. The game even allows the solving of some riddles with different characters without forcing the player to use a specific one. While the outcome is, of course, always the same, the way to solving the riddle can be quite different.

To help the player progress, the game not only drops subtle hints on the next step during conversations but also shows all the hotspots in a location with the press of a button. In addition once a hotspot has been used up, meaning the character doesn't have any more comments on it or it has served its purpose, it becomes inactive. If the player selects an item from the inventory, the game only shows the one point where it has to be used. If the player hovers over any other hotspot, the game doesn't show any possibility of interaction. Also the player often has to interact or speak with a NPC multiple times before the next step is available to him.

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