Tails: The Backbone Preludes

About This Game

What are the moments in life that make us who we are today?

How much impact do our choices have those around us?

Your destination may be set, but your journey isn’t. It’s time to make your choice, friend, on what kind of baggage you want to carry.

Taking place years before the events of Backbone, Tails: The Backbone Preludes is a narrative game following four characters through formative moments of change, circumstance, and consequences in life and told through a series of interactive vignettes.

Your choices are what’s most important – what traits are you bringing with you in your story, and what is the impact you make on the characters around you?

Immerse yourself in a deep and meaningful narrative again and again. Character traits, branching dialogues, and randomized events open up new paths every time the stories are relived.

Keep track of all of your choices in the new branching tree, and explore all the different scenarios. With twice the wordcount as Backbone, Tails: The Backbone Preludes dives deep into the different ways conversations play out.

While the world may be strange and the circumstances different, the stories in Tails are ones that everyone can relate to. Step into the shoes of four characters whose stories will reflect on different formative moments in life:

Howard, a photography major experiencing college alongside his roommate, Larry.

Clarissa, an heiress who will never be good enough for her father.

Renee, who’s confronting the lack of agency in her life.

And Eli, a scientist beginning to question if what he is doing is really for the greater good.

Welcome – or welcome back – to a very different Vancouver. Set in a dystopian world and inhabited by anthropomorphic animals, you’ll find that this city both alien and familiar as you visit a world with a rich history inspired by art deco and post-Soviet architecture.

The same beautiful high-resolution pixel art, atmosphere, and locations of Backbone are revisited and set against another banger of a soundtrack by Danshin, whose melancholic and noir doom jazz perfectly accompanies the themes and characters of each story.