Fable: The Journey Previews

I’m not sure yet whether or not Fable: The Journey is even remotely in our scope, but it doesn’t seem like it, none of these previews mentioning RPG elements or stats.

Joystiq.

In fact, the team working on The Journey isn’t even the same as the team that made Fable 3. When he explained that the Journey team had two years worth of experience developing for Kinect, we had to ask you know what. “A lot of the team were working on Milo,” Peter admitted after getting a nod from the game’s marketing manager in the back of the room. “A lot of the Milo tech we’re not showing off. This is the first outing of this so we’re keeping some of our big stuff safe behind. A lot of the stuff you can do in Fable: The Journey is some of the stuff that was originally found in Milo.”

(…)

So The Journey team has effectively started from scratch, building an entirely new Fable experience in a new, admittedly streamlined, engine. And they’ve created something that manages to capture some of that Fable aesthetic, while looking unlike anything else in the franchise’s history.

The game’s primary mechanic is driving a horse and carriage. “The real inspiration was sitting down in a chair and driving a horse and carriage,” Molyneux explained. “As soon as we solved that, everything else seemed simple.” The process of driving the horse is a relaxed affair, one that Molyneux says he intends to be playable with your arms down. If you don’t even feel like doing that, you’ll be able to use voice commands to instruct your horse; for example a stern “whoa” to slow it down or a click to giddyup.

You play the role of a dweller; in the grand tradition of Fable games you’re … well, you’re not in that grand tradition. Your dweller isn’t a hero, and doesn’t have heroic blood coursing through his veins. “You really are just an everybody,” Molyneux says.

GameSpot.

The Journey is more than just a horse-roving adventure. During designated moments, you can leap off the carriage and continue on foot. This is where combat kicks in, with a strong emphasis on magical warfare. Doling out magical attacks is simple and intuitive. By swirling your hands around, you move balls of energy, and you can manipulate these particles in a number of ways. If you punch forward with one hand, you issue a quick burst. If you do the same thing with both hands, your attack is slightly stronger. You can also rub your hands together to turn your particles red, powering them up in the process. This transforms an ordinary fiery blip into a flaming explosion, so it’s worth taking the time to do your stuff.

The final trick we saw was a simple crafting system. By twirling your hands, you mash your magical particles together. Once spun into a gooey paste, you can transform your ball of powers into all sorts of different creations. Drawing a square slows down time and creates a temporary shield, for instance, which serves as a handy defense. You can also turn your magic into a spear, telescope, or fishing rod. We only saw the first one demonstrated in the game, though the other two examples correspond with minigames.

VideoGamer.

In the former, you guide your vehicle with simple, steady stretching gestures, in a simplified approximation of what you’d be doing with actual reins. There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly taxing here, movement wise just steering, and a ‘giddyup’ motion to go faster. The meat of the gameplay seems to stem from the tension between the desire to stop and pick up important items or explore diversions, and the ongoing need to press on.

Dawdling too much will allow The Corruption to close in on you, demanding that you flee at speed over what might be rather hazardous terrain; Molyneux wouldn’t explicitly state whether or not the player can die, but it’s certainly possible to plough over the edge of a cliff, from the sounds of things.