Horror Tales: The Wine

As we all begin to come to grips with the reality that the global pandemic isn't going anywhere, we're starting to see the impact this moment in time is having on art and entertainment. It's in the way musicians are taking to Zoom to write songs, television characters are masking up and Hollywood directors are using COVID-19 as the jumping off point for dystopian sci-fi thrillers. If you've been waiting for a pandemic-themed horror game to add an extra layer of fear and dread to your life, then let me introduce you to The Wine from developer Carlos Coronado. This is a dark and twisted tale of disease, despair, misinformation and class divides, all set on a small Mediterranean island. You're going to need more than just a stiff drink if you hope to survive The Wine, the first of a planned series of Horror Tales.

Let's start off with the bad news: The world is in the midst of a deadly pandemic and everybody is freaking out. Thankfully, there's a cure. Everybody has been telling Marti Vermello that there's a well-known winery that makes a special blend that will counteract the symptoms of the Devil's Fever. Seeing this as his only shot to save his family, Marti decides to set sail to this small island in hopes of finding a bottle of their finest red wine. This turns out to be a terrible decision.

Without spoiling anything, I will say that Marti is not alone on this island. That's made perfectly clear within the first few minutes of him landing on shore. The other thing that is painfully obvious is that the island was not immune to the pandemic. The once-idyllic setting has been ravaged by disease, with the sights (and smells) of death everywhere. We see signs of confusion and desperation as the illness spread, giving us a glimpse into the final fatal hours of a doomed city.

All this is conveyed through both the haunting visuals and the notes and newspaper clippings we find lying around. Yes, this is one of those games where the story is fed to us through journals and pieces of paper that are posted in convenient locations. It's not ideal, but considering the circumstances, it's one of the only ways to drive the story forward. This is how we learn about the capital city's safety measures, who they blamed for the outbreak, what they did to the infected and how those in power used the tragedy to their advantage. The more we uncover about this island, the clearer it is that there was a lot more going on than just a pandemic.

The game is played entirely from the first-person perspective, though there's never any combat. The closest we get to a weapon is a flashlight, which wins the battle against dark basements. Instead what we get are a lot of platforming puzzles. This is the kind of game where the levels cleverly connect together, setting up challenges where you'll need to jump between platforms or use moving carts to get to hard-to-reach areas. Figuring out where to go and how to navigate this disease-stricken city is a lot of the fun of the game, and the level design is real good about keeping you focused on what's important. The Wine is at its best when you're just poking around and seeing the aftermath of the Devil's Fever.

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When you're not jumping between platforms, you'll be solving another kind of puzzle. A surprising amount of this game revolves around trying to unlock doors by solving a series of picture puzzles. The concept is simple enough: You need to pair the top picture with the bottom, which is a dial you can turn to complete the combination. The good news is that the answers are scattered around the levels, so all you need to do is look around for pieces of paper or markings on the wall. This is the one and only traditional puzzle you'll run into, so expect each iteration to get a little more challenging.

One of the ways the game ratchets up the difficulty is by adding a bad guy to avoid. I'm not going to get too specific about what's after you or how it connects to the story, but it's important to know that there are a lot of times where our weaponless hero will need to run for his life. This is what I would call the "horror section," and, as much as it pains me to say it, but it's the worst part of The Wine. When the villain jumps out of nowhere and the music screams in your ear, you'll know that it's time to run.

This has a lot of jump scare energy early on, but you'll start to be able to predict these horror moments the more you play. Any time you see a maze or area with multiple narrow paths, you know that you'll be running through them in order to give the bad guy the slip. You should also expect them to pop up in most of the later puzzles, both the platforming and the picture dial.

Beyond the repetition, the problem I have with these horror bits is that they are overused. I found myself more annoyed when they popped up than scared. And once they incorporate the villain into the puzzles, their predictable patterns and behavior completely ruins the illusion. Had these chase scenes been used more sparingly or changed over the course of the game, the terrifying conclusion would have had much more of an impact. And what's extra frustrating is that the ending shows that the game had another card up its sleeve that could have been used in the place of the chase scenes. The balance is all off here.

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And that's true of the game in general. The best parts of The Wine involve you exploring and solving the clever platforming puzzles. The way the stages connect with each other is masterful and shows that real care was put into constructing this world. The same goes for the story, which is clunkily communicated, but riveting the whole way through. The commentary is spot-on, yet doesn't overshadow the rest of the game. It's only when we're solving the picture puzzle or running from a mindless bad guy that the momentum slows down to a crawl. It's as if the fun has to stop in order to make you do a bunch of boring game stuff, because that's what's expected. Perhaps others will like flipping through pictures more than me, but The Wine is at its best when it's telling you a story and making Marti jump around.

That's not to say the game isn't scary. The dread found in the first half of the game is genuinely creepy, thanks in large part of the sound design. The island also looks incredible. I already raved about the level designs, but varied stages and detailed back grounds are impressive, especially for such a small team. Considering how many horror games toss you into a dusty old mansion, exploring a sunny Mediterranean island feels like a breath of fresh air. Just don't breathe too much of that air, because there's still a pandemic going on.