The Ballad Singer is a cross between reading a book and portraying several characters in a world that reacts to your choices. It will be narrated in both English and Italian, making it unnecessary to read the game’s 350,000+ words.

The game’s structure spreads like a huge tree. There will be hundreds of decision paths, 2500+ illustrations and 40 different endings. Each decision will be final and has immediate repercussions throughout the game world.

The story is set in one of the fantasy universes created by the writer Alberto De Stefano, and takes shape through the artwork of Federico Musetti. The gameplay mechanics are based on the understanding of the narrative background and on the player’s ability to empathize with the character. Each choice throughout the adventure is fundamental, and all decision branches are complete, i.e. fully illustrated and narrated. There is no “main” narrative branch, the player shapes each different game. A rash decision will often lead to the character’s death, or will make the situation escalate, this is why The Ballad Singer is, to all intents, an adventure that tests players, forcing them to think over each circumstance.

The main feature of this title is the elevated quantity of choices, this is a true and proper book, narrated and illustrated at high resolution, where the players write their own plot, through their decisions.

The Ballad Singer has been quite successful on Kickstarter, achieving 133% of its base goal, and is being continued on IndieGoGo InDemand.

Riccardo Bandera, Creator (direct quote): Achieving this goal has been extremely important to us, and we are sure this can be a great start for crowdfunding in Italy’s gaming scenery. We are used to see project reach hundreds of thousands of Euro on Kickstarter, but never for Italian projects. One of our objectives is to export the artistic value of The Ballad Singer abroad, so that Italy may begin to show its passion for art, quality, and innovation in the videogame industry.

The plan is to release The Ballad Singer in November 2018 for Windows and Mac.