Urm, you play as a mind-reading bird in that Catan text adventure app

The latest mobile app based on Settlers on Catan is out on mobile and it’s… not what you might expect, to say the least.

Asmodee Digital raised some eyebrows last month when it revealed that it had been developing an original text adventure based on the classic resource-collecting and settlement-building board game.

Not many details on the story were given at the time but, now Catan Stories has been released on iOS and Android, it’s an even stranger setup than we could have imagined.

Set 70 years after Catan was first settled, Catan Stories is based on the Legend of the Sea Robbers expansion for the game and follows three adventurers exploring the titular island.

But you don’t play as any of the explorers. Instead, players take control of the island’s guardian, a mind-reading raven troubled by ‘dark and intriguing visions’ that follows the trio and influences the actions of their human wards by offering helpful direction such as 'Rawk! Rawk!' and '...Brrrrawk!'

Written with Catan authors Klaus and Benjamin Teuber, the app is predictably largely text-based, with players picking between different options at critical moments of the branching narrative, but also features some 360-degree 3D environments to look around as they experience the bird’s visions.

We’re not quite sure how long it is yet, but it’s only a couple of quid to download on the App Store and Google Play, and seems to have positive reviews on both so far.