Rusty Smile is a single-player strategy RPG adventure set in a dark Italian folktale. Players take on the role of the Toothless Rake, a spirit tasked with punishing the guilty through a cycle of daytime investigation and nighttime confrontation.
Gameplay
The core loop divides into distinct phases that build tension across each hunt. During the day, players explore a rural village and engage in conversations with residents. Dialogue options shape how information surfaces without locking out key details. Leads reveal a target's name, location, and the specific sin that marks them for punishment. Once enough details accumulate, night falls and the village transforms.
Nighttime exploration requires careful navigation through streets altered by folklore creatures. Masked Baute patrol the area and demand shares of Obols and Soul Residue from lesser spirits. Players must evade these authorities while locating the marked victim. Failure ends the attempt early. Successful arrival triggers a confrontation on a procedurally generated 3D board inspired by tabletop design.
Battles unfold in alternating turns where the victim attempts to reach an exit key while the Rake works to corner them. Movement uses Steps rolled from dice. Accumulated Damage releases upon contact to injure and displace the opponent. Cells and paths provide bonuses, penalties, or tokens that either player can claim. Opponents employ their own dice to set traps, raise shields, or recover health. Some targets fight back aggressively rather than flee, turning the encounter into a direct duel.
Progression centers on expanding a dice bag. New dice appear through exploration and story advancement. Before each battle, players select up to twelve dice tailored to the opponent. Rolls generate Steps for movement, storable Damage, and Grudge for tactical edges. Dice effects extend beyond resources to include defense, roll manipulation, or disruption of enemy plans. Collection growth encourages experimentation with combinations suited to different enemy behaviors.
Game Modes
Rusty Smile operates entirely as a single-player experience. The narrative drives a sequence of hunts that interweave investigation, evasion, and board-based resolution. No separate multiplayer or competitive modes exist. The structure emphasizes story progression through repeated cycles of village exploration and spirit-world conflict. Each completed hunt advances the overarching tale while unlocking additional dice and deeper insight into the folklore elements.
The Setting and Narrative
The game draws from Venetian and Northern Italian folklore, centering on the Toothless Rake known locally as Rastrello Senza Denti or rasteo. This figure traditionally frightens the disobedient after dark, with misbehavior risking lost teeth and greater wickedness leading to disappearance. The fictional rural Veneto setting reflects an era before widespread electricity, where fields bordered homes and superstitions enforced curfews. Encounters introduce spirits, demons, and masked authorities drawn from regional stories. Venetian dialect appears lightly throughout dialogue and descriptions to ground the atmosphere without overwhelming accessibility.
Is It Worth Playing?
Rusty Smile targets players who enjoy narrative-driven strategy combined with resource management and tactical positioning. The day-night structure creates a clear rhythm of information gathering followed by high-stakes execution. Dice-bag customization adds replay value within the single-player campaign by allowing adaptation to varied opponents. The mature themes of cruelty, abuse, and supernatural authority appear through dialogue and stylized violence rather than graphic depictions. Since the title remains unreleased with no user reviews available, prospective players should monitor official updates from developer Dungeon Corretto for final confirmation of systems and release timing. Those drawn to unique board-game mechanics wrapped in folklore will find the described loop distinctive once it launches.
