Adabana Odd Tales

About

In Adabana Odd Tales, you follow Shirohime and Kurofude as they navigate fractured versions of traditional Japanese folktales. The world of Adabana is a library of living stories where broken narratives need mending. Shirohime, amnesiac and guided by Kurofude’s cryptic presence, enters these tales through ancient, damaged books. Each chapter shifts between visual novel-style dialogue and interactive exploration, with choices affecting how the stories resolve. The gameplay leans into slow-burn mystery, piecing together lore from distorted fairy tales while figuring out the pair’s shared past. The game’s standout is its atmospheric art style, ink-heavy illustrations blend with minimalist animation to evoke a dreamlike, paper-thin world. Fans of folklore will notice subtle twists on well-known tales, reworked into puzzles or moral dilemmas. Since its 2020 release, the game has quietly built a cult following on PC and Switch, praised for its poetic pacing and layered storytelling. It’s a quiet, thoughtful experience where every page turn feels deliberate.

Storyline

A girl finds herself in a dark and unfamiliar forest when a monster appears out of nowhere and attacks. A mysterious boy, wielding a brush as if it were a sword, appears just in time to cut down the monster. He calls himself Kurofude, and he addresses the girl in a familiar tone as Shirohime. Yet she does not recognize him or the name he calls her. She has lost all of her memories. According to Kurofude, they are in the land of Adabana, a realm of illustrated books. Their tales are like dreams; no matter how deeply one immerses oneself in them, once one wakes up, they are gone. Thus the name Adabana—a name given to flowers that will never bear fruit. Their duty is to travel through story realms and look for signs of distortions in the tales. Shirohime, a girl with seemingly all the agency of a doll, accepts this explanation and opens a book handed to her. The title: Hanasaka Jiisan. As she opens the dilapidated illustrated book with its pages riddled with worm-eaten holes, the pages glow brightly and whisk the girl and boy away to a fairy tale realm...