2025 Game of the Year Countdown #7: Where the Water Tastes Like Wine Dim Bulb and Serenity Forge Nintendo Switch, 2019
This might be the most unique video game I’ve ever played. I knew it was going to be different going in, but I guess I hadn’t quite grasped how unique it would end up being. And, looking at the highly varied reception it received when it initially debuted, I guess it’s not for everyone.
The short version of this game’s history is that it crashed upon release, despite generally rave reviews from critics, and got review bombed on Steam due to a purposefully impossible achievement. It cost the creator, Johnnemann Nordhagen, quite a bit of money and was, essentially, a dismal failure. He was able to recoup some of it by doing a physical release with Limited Run Games, but it’s still thought to have been a big flop. In fact, the physical mini-manual essentially admits that the game wasn’t particularly popular, thanking the few fans who did appreciate the game.
It’s quite disappointing that more people haven’t tried this game because I have never had an experience quite like it. The point is to wander across the USA, meeting people and acquiring stories as you go, retelling these stories to other characters you meet while camping out. There is no hard era in which the game is set, with characters you meet along the way ranging from children of slaves to hippies; the general feel seems most at home being set within the Great Depression, if only in spirit.
Despite the nebulous time period, this game perfectly captures what it must have felt like to wander across the US during the Great Depression. You’re aimless. You’re penniless. You often lack any agency. The game gives you no real tutorial, not just about where to go, but with the controls and the various health bars you have, if you can even call them that. And while I can appreciate that from the meta standpoint that Nordhagen clearly had in mind, as this was no doubt how many unemployed people felt during the eras that inspired this game, it was really frustrating as a player. There was a control map I could access, but it wasn’t exactly helpful. For example, you can hitchhike, but the game doesn’t tell you that you have to stop walking in order to get picked up. So I thought these cars just didn’t want to pick up a giant walking skeleton, which serves as your in-game avatar.
Additionally, the stories you acquire throughout your journey are categorized into things like scary stories, exciting stories, sad stories, etc. But we can’t see any of these markers. Instead, we can only see them organized into various tarot card categories like Lovers, Death, etc. But when a character we meet asks us to tell them a sad story, we might pick a story that was sad to us, but they end up thinking it was scary instead. I was often frustrated when a character kept asking me for happy stories and I kept telling them stories that they thought were funny instead. This was honestly the hardest part of the game because you have a limited time in which to tell the stories, as well as a limit to the number of stories you can choose from. You’re also barred from retelling a story to the same character, so you can’t figure out one funny story and farm it again the next time you meet up.
I guess I should mention how you even acquire stories in the first place! As you wander across the country, you’ll come across points of interest where things will happen to you in a visual novel fashion. These become stories that you can tell people. As you travel, so do your stories. You can overhear other people retelling them, always embellished to a certain extent. Sometimes they become unrecognizable and silly. The characters you meet and camp with will also tell you about their lives, and you can retell these stories as well.
Most of the stories, and all of the character interactions, are narrated. The main narrator has a voice like Satan raking a rock garden, and I love it. There is also a wolf that initially sends you on your journey, and he’s voiced by Sting. Like, from The Police. The voicework is wonderful in this game, with perfect regional accents and vocab mixing with a masterful soundtrack that transports you straight to the fireside you’re at. It’s honestly a masterpiece of soundwork, voice acting, and mixing.
To note a few highlights from the soundtrack, I was especially partial to the southwest take on the game’s main tune, Vagrant Song. I also really enjoyed White Rider, Curandera, and Soulsucker Blues.
The stories and voicework often left me in a contemplative mood, which is intentional by Nordhagen. These are stories from downtrodden and damaged people, struggling to survive, but also from optimistic people with stars in their eyes, looking for a better tomorrow. So often, I found myself thinking about the people that inspired these stories and where they were, what became of them. Did the former prisoner leave his struggles behind him and build a better life, despite the racism he experienced? Did the socialist union miner get hunted down by the greedy union busters? These stories all feel so real and so lived.
The entire reason I picked up this game to begin with wasn’t because I knew much about the game at all: it was simply because it was supposed to be full of stories. I relate to people by telling stories. Friends and family know this and enjoy it when I have new ones. I guess I just tell them well. So I knew I’d like the game, but I didn’t quite realize it would feel as immersive as it did. I really got into so many of the characters. Fidelina and Dehaaya were probably my favorites, but I also really liked Quinn and Mason, too.
I’d like to put a few of my favorite lines from various characters here. Nordhagen says that he didn’t set out to make any sort of social or political statements, he simply wanted to tell the stories of people who are often left without a voice. That is a little hard to believe after reading some of these characters’ lines, but it was lines like these that made me appreciate the game and reminded me how important it is to listen to the stories of other people. If only we could force those in charge to take things like this seriously, instead of focusing on their own wealth and power.
Overall, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine is not without its flaws. No direction, poorly explained controls and navigation, and imprecise story types all plague the early game. No doubt it turned off many players. Not to mention the impossible Steam achievement. However, once you grasp the difficult parts of actually playing the game, the stories and personalities of characters blend with a wonderful soundtrack and produce a great gaming experience I won’t soon forget.
