Ink Travellers is a sweet short RPG about kids entering and exploring the world of two of their favorite books, relying on a soft sweet atmosphere and the goodhearted nature of the two protagonists with one or two bittersweet moments.

The story is fairly simple - grandpa is sick, so the two grandchildren, two little boys, go out to find a present good enough to make him well again. The line of thinking as well as the narration suit the age very well. And while it makes the dialogue rather simple, there is the straightforwardness and kind nature to children showing through that just warms your heart.
(Tonari no totoro totoro ~ well it's not as cute, but very cute!)
The grandmother (for grandfather says little) shares a similar good nature, but with much more patience and wisdom showing through. There is little said, but the few dialogue choices really bring her caring side across, and the ending pulls the events well together.

Due to a "magical encounter" you come into the possession of a key allowing you to enter books at will. The boys then choose sweet sweet books .. and hope they will be alright. You can even read the books themselves which makes for a lovely addition!
The only issue I had playing was that the dialogue has a few off-sounding lines and expressions every now as well as a couple typos and mistakes (like usefull, too many articles etc.).


What being a witch is actually about.

The battles are straightforward and easy. The start is fairly difficult as you do not have any natural means of recovering mana (and thus HP), other than items and dying. Yes, dying restores your health completely and has little setbacks, which does suit the situation as well as the general atmosphere.
As you later get equipment to massively recover mp in battle, you will then be set to heal any damage between battles and just auto-attack through battles. Thankfully, the battles are implemented via on-touch encounters (only the ghosts once stopped moving and could not be fought, but after travelling passages this went back to normal). They give a sense of presence and are cute in themselves by design, it made for a relaxing gaming experience without dragging on and I appreciated them for that. The saving crystal also serve as a portal system making it very easy to skip walking around unnecessarily.
There are many more items found than you will ever need, however, not that I mind collecting candy and cakes..


Thanks! Bye then!


The worlds and their maps are fairly small and limited - but rich in detail and harder to get items you can spot throughout the game (you need to backtrack for a few), with hidden spells as well. They are not necessary to complete the game, but very handy and a rewarding addition to get. The equipment is suited to the characters (you fight with GLORIOUS STICKS!), and there is love to detail everywhere that makes me want to include many more screens than I should. The portal-map is a roughly scribbled drawing on something resembling cardboard, you can read the books with additional pictures and page-flipping animation and even the chapter-screen has the style going, giving a short recap of events inbetween and summary of what actually happened - outside the viewpoint of our good-natured but impatient children.

The soft tunes also helped to develop the sweet atmosphere, and the game as a whole made me smile throughout the whole ~one-hour play and brought me a dose of happiness. The art of the worldmap and books and their animation is a little rough around the edges, but a wonderful addition.


I can recommend it to anyone searching for a sweet little game, something to lighten their day or people wanting to collect candy.
I loved it.