On Your Tail

Are you ready for your Italian vacation? You play as Diana, an aspiring writer that needs a break. For a change of scenery, Diana goes to the little fishing village of Borgo Marina. However, when you get there, a thief is wreaking havoc on the town! You decide to step in as an amateur detective solving the case and helping out the townspeople along the way. This game is part relaxing hanging out and part mystery detective story. Also, everyone here is an anthropomorphic animal.

Find it on Steam.

The look and feel of Borgo Marina is fantastic. It has all the charm I imagine from an Italian village. Now I’ve never been to Italy, but I’ve seen some Italian villages on travel shows before, and this captures that feeling nicely. Bright and colorful with smaller streets and large plazas, the town is a fun place to explore.I took the effort to learn the layout, so I can pretty much navigate the town without using the map. Take time to look at the various pictures and paintings around. They’re all fun and fit into the world of anthropomorphic animals.

More than just a place to hang out, there are lots to do. Diana may be on vacation, but she needs money. Some jobs include being a waitress at the local restaurant or helping out at the geletaria. You can also fish or do some painting. Read some books, watch some movies, or just hang out with your new friends made in town. While there are only a few characters with 3D character models that you meet out and about, you do get to meet a lot of townspeople as 2D images. They are varied with lots of fun designs. What they say changes as the story progresses. The design of the characters are interesting. They have human-sized hands, but tiny animal-sized feet.

As for the mystery part of the game, Diana has a tool that helps point out important clues. Once she has enough information you get a deduction minigame where you put together the order of events and figure out what happened. It is a fun and interesting way to do things. There is a logic to the way things work out, and it’s nice to watch the final sequence.

Watch out if you get into a deduction phase, though. You can’t back out of it, so you can’t quit while it is happening. If you do, you’ll have to revert to the last time you saved, and if that was a while ago, oof.

The minigame steadily gets harder with longer sequences and combo cards. The presentation is done in a fun board game style. However, with the amount of times you need to redo the sequence, testing out various combinations and orders, it can get pretty annoying. You have to start from the beginning each time and watch the animation over and over again. There is no way to undo a step, so you must start over from the beginning each time. And if you reach a lose state, the game will play an animation. Not a problem once, but on the tenth time? It gets old. There is a hint system if you really need it. Also, here is my hint, there is a second, subtler hint system that the game doesn’t tell you about.

I think the largest problem with the mystery plotline is that it gets rushed towards the end. It feels like once you get some major information, the part that starts helping you recontextualize everything that happened earlier, the story just concludes. It is a shame that the game isn’t longer.

There are a few technical issues with the game. Loading times are noticeable at times. I ran into invisible walls while the next area loaded. The decorations of the house will also disappear, and the gelato recipes don’t seem to stick. Also, there is at least one instance where the game froze, and it was easily re-creatable.

One fun thing that shows the charm and thought put into the game is in the card arts. Cards will show things such as characters or locations you encounter. They have an effect where they feel 3D despite being 2D images since there is a parallax effect you can see while rotating the cards.

On Your Tail is a fun blend of a mystery deduction game and a slice of life vacation game. The two parts seem to work together well. The town of Borgo Marina is full of fun things to do and charming characters to meet. The mystery minigames are fun, but they can get really challenging, and being forced to start from the beginning each time makes them annoying. Still, it is worth the visit. The atmosphere and vibes of the town are absolutely grand.

I am a furry, therefore, find it on Steam.