Veritas Tales: Witch of the Dark Castle turns the choose-your-own-adventure gamebook into a full-blown RPG, complete with dice rolls, pencil-and-eraser stat tracking, and a story that bends around whichever hero you pick. This narrative fantasy RPG is out now on Steam, hand-crafted by a 30-year industry veteran who once painted backgrounds for Vanillaware’s Odin Sphere and Dragon’s Crown. If you’ve been missing that old-school gamebook thrill, this one was built just for you.
At a Glance
- Release Date: Released
- Genre: Adventure, RPG, Indie
- Platform: PC (Steam)
- Cost: $15.29 USD
- Developer/Publisher: Digitalis Publishing / 15 Industry
- Store Link: Get Veritas Tales: Witch of the Dark Castle on Steam →
The Story / Concept
The entire game plays out inside a literal book. Your inventory, stats, and character sheet sit on a desk beside the magical tome that narrates your journey, with dice, coins, a pencil, and an eraser standing in as the physical reminders that you’re the one writing this story. Creator Yoshio Nishimura spent six years building the game after leaving Vanillaware, drawing over 300 illustrations by hand and writing a script that runs around 150,000 words. The result plays like a digital descendant of classic gamebooks such as Fighting Fantasy and Sorcery!, wrapped in a fantasy world styled after The NeverEnding Story.
Core Gameplay Features
- Choice-driven combat and dialogue — every encounter can be fought with a sword, talked down, or avoided entirely.
- Every choice and every roll of the dice changes how the world reacts to you
- Old-school gamebook rules mean a wrong turn really can end your run
- Two playable characters with a second-run twist — finish the story once and you’re dropped right back in as the character you didn’t choose.
- Items and choices from your first playthrough carry weight into the second
- Feats earned along the way can unlock new outcomes on the second run
- A fully voiced, fully scored adventure — the classic gamebook format gets a modern coat of polish.
- Save-anywhere functionality softens the genre’s classic brutality
- Original score composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto (Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story)
Who Is This For?
Veritas Tales is built for players who grew up flipping between numbered paragraphs in a gamebook, or anyone who loved the storybook presentation of games like Voice of Cards. It’s a slower, text-and-illustration-heavy experience rather than an action RPG, so if you want a game that rewards careful reading, replaying, and a bit of dice-luck, this is squarely aimed at you.
Pro Tip
Try the free demo first if you’re on the fence — it covers roughly the first 30 minutes of the full game. And if you clear your first playthrough, don’t skip the second run with the other character: your earlier choices and inventory carry over and can reveal a very different side of the story.
