Thank you Seashell Studio for sending us the review codes!

We’ve all heard the story about the rabbit and the tortoise having a race to see who can be quicker, but have you ever imagined it being a little bit more competitive? What if there were traps and boosts that can be placed to assist oneself and sabotage opponents? Maybe you’ve considered the idea of flying bunnies or tortoises that can skate on their own shell. Running Fable may be of your interest if you’ve thought about any of these.

This silly concept of a game, if you haven’t caught my hints, is a racing simulator where you must strategically set traps and power-ups to aid in your ambitious journey to victory. One could consider Running Fable similar to Mario Kart; running into traps will kill momentum and decrease your health. There are different types, though, and they do different things. The first one is a cage that falls over your head and will keep you in place for a second or two if and when you fall victim to it. It doesn’t deal any damage to you, though, which means that this contraption alone is incapable of knocking someone out. The next one is a spider web that is strewn between two branches. It has a trampoline effect, meaning that a character running into it would be simply knocked back and have to restart their momentum-building. Now, for the more hazardous ones. First off, we have a classic bear trap which will stop you in your tracks and deal a bit of damage to you. It’s pretty straightforward, but it’s also very small, so it may benefit you to lay them in groups so that there’s a higher chance of them getting set off. Another one is a stick of dynamite that has a similar effect as the bear trap, except it does significantly more damage. You also can only place one, so you have to choose a smart place to put it. Other than these, there are two traps that only damage a specific character in its respective situation. Aside from traps, you can place things to benefit whoever collects them, such as two different types of eggs that each have a stamina regeneration effect of some sort, and a carrot that heals some health.

Each race has two phases: the strategy phase and the racing phase. The strategy phase is when you can place all the traps and boosts that I mentioned before. The controls for it are a bit wacky, but I figured them out soon enough. You can only place a certain amount of each trap, and can choose to place 10 of them hidden inside a bush to make them less noticeable. A strategy I’d recommend is placing eggs every few meters on the track so that you can maintain a sprint, since it uses stamina to move quickly. After that, you’d be good to go to just spam the other traps randomly all over the rest of the track. If you don’t place traps, it’s your loss because of how many points you can get using them alone. Something I've noticed is that people playing online won't always place traps, and this could be for two reasons: they're either really bad/think they're too good, or they're bots. I'm not sure which one. Anyways, points towards your final score of the match are awarded each time someone falls for a trap that you set. They are also gained by getting a good score in races. Matches are typically 3 rounds/races, but this can be adjusted.

The graphics of the game are childish but fitting for the vibe that is trying to be achieved. The music uses mostly bad synths but is very cheerful and I actually enjoyed a few of the songs. The controls are okay on controller, but I’d personally make a couple of changes to the mouse/keyboard ones. Something else that’s worth noting would be that the developer is still relatively active and regularly releases patches and even seasonal event updates. Also, the game is slightly buggy, but not unplayable.

I briefly implied that there are two characters: the rabbit and the tortoise. The rabbit moves quickly and has the ability to fly to get over certain obstacles such as water or maybe even certain parts of the course that one would simply want to avoid. The tortoise also somehow moves pretty fast, and has the ability to glide over water by “surfing” on its shell. The traps that each of these have against each other are the whirlpool and the thunder cloud. The whirlpool is placed in water and can set back the tortoise if it glides over it, and the thunder cloud zaps the rabbit out of the sky.

There are no major moral issues with the game. Even though there is a little bit of cartoon violence regarding the bear traps and bombs, there is no blood present throughout the entire game. There is an in-game chat, however, which does not have a filter. This means that since there is no bad language used in normal gameplay, whatever people online say will be part of the game.

Running Fable is a game that I actually really enjoyed playing, and believe that it’s very good for those who like to indulge in sabotaging their friends and skillfully destroying any opponents’ plans of their downfall. It’s a good game for it’s price, and could be suitable for all ages due to its cheerful nature and style.