johnnemann
@johnnemann

Wow!!!

What a wild and triumphant ride. I think it's easy to say now that the game is an incredible success, looking back at the outcomes and legacy of it. I still get fan art and mail about the game - it's obviously continuing to resonate.

The part that I'm happiest about, though, is seeing the people who helped me to make this go on to do amazing things - multiple of the writers on this game are now narrative directors or senior narrative designers on bigger games, and some of the things they work on make me green with envy. I'm not going to list everyone here because there's a lot and I've put up the posters.

The music, composed by Ryan Ike, is constantly mentioned when people are talking about their favorite video game tracks. Until it was reprinted recently the vinyl was going for like $300 on discogs! I think we're still probably one of the few games with an original gospel song on the soundtrack.

The art crops up everywhere too, Kellan Jett's amazing work there really helps the game to stand out, plus the realization of that in 3D by Lauren Cason, and the continuation of that work from Serenity Forge, plus contributions by several other talented artists.

And it's not just them - one of the voice actors (a first-time video game performer!) is in the middle of a world concert tour, filling arenas! Glad we could be such a launching pad for him.

But actually I'm really proud of everything we made. What a weird cool important game. Thanks to the talented writers, thanks to Laura Michet for being an incredible editor and more, thanks to Serenity Forge for all their hard work with the original title and the console release, and thanks to Good Shepherd for publishing a bleak narrative game about the failures of the American dream.

I was (infamously, unfortunately) down about the game's commercial prospects soon after release, but while it's true it didn't make me independently wealthy, it's actually been a very successful game even in that metric - certainly far better than the vast majority of games, and better than I think I should have expected!

I wrote a post-mortem a few months after it came out but that was incorrect; it should instead have been a post-partum because the game continues to be played and loved and discussed, even five years after its release. And it might very well keep being played for another five years.

Thanks, everyone! I hope you find what you're looking for.


itsnatclayton
@itsnatclayton

WTWTLW was the first game I ever reviewed, and I was probably unnecessarily harsh on it because I was still very new to crit, still very in that "trying to appear smarter by being nitpicky" space. That it was for GamesMaster (rip) was its own whole thing, with a third-person written voice that resists too much personal attachment, with a format that demanded clumsy "better than / worse than" comparisons.

Still, though, what a special little game, and it holds a special little place in my heart as my first review, a game that sits fonder the more I grow as a person and come to appreciate the things it was saying. It also holds a place on my parents' hallway, what with my mum framing a copy of my review.


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in reply to @johnnemann's post:

Thank you for creating it! Where the Water Tastes like Wine is still one of my favorite narrative games--its stories resonate true in a very real way to me.

I admit that I feel some responsibility for this game in my own small way. In 2018, I discovered that there wasn't a Steam achievement guide for WTWTLW yet, and made my own. Over the years, that guide has received some real blockhead comments griping about how the final achievement is (purposefully, thematically) unobtainable1. I was aware at the time (sorry) that you were feeling down about the game's initial response, so I felt that the comments section of my quick little guide would trap at least a portion of that unnecessary vitriol before it made it somewhere more visible. With luck, you never noticed at all.


  1. I still think that this is really clever. Of course you never find that place. Of course seeking a concrete, numbers-go-up ending to that journey would be unsatisfying. Also, it's funny.

Haha! I've read that guide, actually, and thank you for making it. I appreciate the stance it takes and the fact that the info is out there about the achievement if players are frustrated. And thanks for the kind words about the game, too

Love this game - I thought of it recently as part of a possible (i.e. reachy) alternative tradition of VG exploration including "overworld sims" such as Pangea's Error and "slow horizon" games like Book of Travels. I'm sorry it hasn't yet earned you an early retirement, but I feel like its stature will continue to grow!