Burly Men at Sea is a 2016 branching folklore adventure developed by Brain & Brain. Its story follows three burly men in a small town who set off on an adventure on their boat and end up encountering different fantasy creatures depending on the choices they make.
On the surface, Burly Men At Sea is a game that seems hard to sell. The main reason being that narrative heavy and story-driven games have overcome the gaming world in this day and age like interactive visual novels or Telltale Games’ choice-driven adventures being one of the prime examples. The second reason being that it is a fairly short game as a one shot play averaging about 20 minutes or so. However, Burly Men At Sea sets itself apart from these other genres because it’s similar to reading an interactive storybook and these quirky burly men and their different adventures is in itself where all the charm is. One given route may take the third of an hour to finish but its value is in that its charm in the initial run is sufficient to motivate its players in jumping back in to find all those alternate routes at each cross path which leads to other choices with different cross paths to eventually uncover as many of the twelve endings as possible.
This branching folklore works its best not only for its simplistic visuals and the charming color palette and character designs, but also because of its well-timed humor and all the fun and mythical characters encountered along the way. Not to mention, the game design never makes you reset your game instead it takes each adventure and turns it into a book that is put on the shelf of the town storyteller. A unique path is distinguished at the side of the book with a specific symbol and that makes it easy to track which stories have overlapping paths and where to look for the differences. The fluidity of making this feel like its a different adventure every time makes it even more intriguing to keep going until all the paths have been uncovered. It creates a feeling of having a puzzle to see what to change in the next path to unlock the next route and what quirky character to encounter next.
There is a simplicity to the visuals of this game that almost feels like it is straight out of a book. It is coherent with how the game decides to end each adventure back in the home of the storyteller who tucks away another of the tales on his shelf. The art direction here may seem simple but there is a beauty to it all. Burly Men at Sea is a title to add for the casual gamer that appreciates a minimalist game with a lot of heart.