Where the Water Tastes Like Wine is a game about traveling, exploration, and telling stories
Dim Bulb Games announced a lovely game last night during The Game Awards 2015 called Where the Water Tastes Like Wine.
The studio was founded by Johnnemann Nordhagen, a veteran of Sony Computer Entertainment, 2K Marin, and Gone Home developer The Fullbright Company.
Where the Water Tastes Like Wine is a game about traveling, exploration, and telling stories, set in a "dreamlike and fantastical American landscape."
Players will be able to freely explore game world, seek out landmarks and cities, and meet other travelers and hear their stories through a century of history.
"As some clever folks have deduced, the title comes from a folk song, or, more accurately, lots of different folk songs," said Nordhagen. "American folk culture is one of collaboration, sharing songs and stories but giving them your personal twist. It comes from many different cultures – the European settlers, the slaves that were forced to live here, the workers who have traveled here in search of opportunity, and of course the people actually native to this land.
"Many of the songs, stories, and poems deal with hardship, especially in the blues genre, and many are about traveling the country. The American road story is a genre in itself, ranging from stories like the Mark Twain classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.
"There are many stories of other American wanderers that rarely get told – the spread of African Americans from the south, the movement of migratory farm workers, or the forced marches of native people. Where the Water Tastes Like Wine wants to capture the feeling of those songs, poems, stories, and wanderings in a game."
The game features illustration by Kellan Jett, and combines 2D visuals with a 3D overworld US map. Some of the songs which were inspirations for the game can be found through the studio's archived This is My Jam page. The title of the game may or not be pulled from a line in the Canned Heat song Going Up the Country, but it just came to mind.
Where the Water Tastes Like Wine is slated for release in 2016 for PC and Mac. Other platforms are to be announced.
