Tunic

Tunic is an action-adventure game set in the ruins of a post-apocalyptic fantasy world, in which the player character, an anthropomorphic fox, navigates the terrain and fights off hostile creatures. The player is initially given no directions or instructions, and the majority of the text is in a constructed writing system, with only some words presented in the player's selected language, such as English. The three-dimensional terrain is typically displayed from a fixed isometric view, though the perspective shifts at certain points.

The fox character moves around the world by running or dodge-rolling; after rolling, the fox can run faster until the player stops moving them. The player can freely explore the world, and there is no mandated path to follow. Although many areas require specific actions or items to enter normally, which creates a general order to the game, there are often alternate ways to gain entrance. The isometric view obscures numerous hidden paths and secrets.

The plot of Tunic is revealed through gameplay, the backstory and context emerging only as the fox player character collects manual pages. This manual is written with the player as the reader. It does not explain what the fox player-character knows about the story or if they understand the constructed language.

A fox awakens on a shore, and begins to journey through the game world, which is filled with ruins. After collecting a weapon and shield and ringing two magical bells, the fox enters a temple and then a spiritual plane known as the Far Shore. There they encounter the spirit of a larger fox trapped in a crystal prison, referred to in the manual as the Heir. The fox leaves to collect the three crystal keys to the prison which can be found within dungeons across the land. If the fox is killed, the Heir revives them.

Andrew Shouldice began working on Tunic in February 2015, using the working title Secret Legend. Shouldice had previously worked on point-and-click adventure games at Silverback Productions and made small games for Ludum Dare competitions, but had never made a larger solo work. He wanted to make a game with open-ended exploration, and quit his job at Silverback to make the game without knowing his creative direction. He posted screenshots of his work on Twitter and Vine, attracting immediate attention.

Within weeks, Shouldice developed the game's fox protagonist, isometric graphical style, and action-adventure single-player gameplay. Shouldice had initially wanted to have a human protagonist customizable by the player, but was unable to design a character model he was satisfied with; he switched to an anthropomorphic fox instead, which he says made sense because "foxes get into trouble". He decided early in development that his experience as a programmer was not enough to create all aspects of the commercial game he envisioned. At the March 2015 Game Developers Conference, he met with composer Terence Lee (Lifeformed) and audio designer Kevin Regamey of Power Up Audio, who soon became the composer and audio designer.

Tunic received "generally favorable reviews", according to the review aggregator Metacritic. It was ranked as one of the top 30 games of 2022 by aggregated score for Windows, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5, and the eighth-highest scored Switch game. Tunic was featured in several game of the year lists for 2022, including overall game of the year by VG247 and indie game of the year by Shacknews.

Critics highly praised the gameplay, though some aspects had a mixed reception. Several reviewers described the combat as challenging but satisfying; 'Indee' of Jeuxvideo.com concluded that Shouldice had tried and succeeded to make the game difficult enough to make the player feel unwelcome in the world. Anne-Marie Coyle of PC Gamer and Ryan McCaffrey of IGN also liked the boss battles, and PC Gamer considered them even better than the rest of combat, though Jill Grodt of Game Informer and Brendan Caldwell of Rock Paper Shotgun felt that they were too difficult compared to the rest of the game. Game Informer, along with Richard Wakeling of GameSpot and the reviewer from Jeuxvideo, applauded the accessibility options to make combat easier as allowing players to continue exploring without being restricted by the combat. Reviewers in general described the game as a mix between the gameplay of Zelda and Soulslike games or as a tribute to those games, though Zoey Handley of Destructoid and Christian Donlan of Eurogamer went further to describe it as based on an understanding of what gameplay design worked for those games rather than just a copy.