I realize Ive harassed you a bit with my views in the past, but you just brought a tear to my eye. Will definitely buy through Steam, so it can remain safe in my account for any future playings.

I’m curious about the process you go through getting a game on Steam. Who approaches who, how they decide if they want to distribute it, what correspondence you share, that sort of things. I remember an update news through Steam that made a joke about crossing over “The Path” with “Left 4 Dead”, and thought it sounded like you have good buisness relations with them. Just curious, because I love both Tale of Tales and Valve.

And of course, congrats to you for being able to share your art with so many more people, and congrats to the medium in general for having that much more inspiration to innovate.

Thank you, Adam.

I think Valve have a different relationship with every single developer they work with. Our point of contact is a friend who works there (who enjoys having a bit of fun with the contrast between our work and the more straightforward games on Steam ;) ). We usually send our stuff to him. Sometimes he likes it, sometimes he doesn’t. But we hear other developers contact other people or they get contacted by Valve (like we have regarding The Graveyard when it was a finalist in the IGF, e.g.).

Working with Valve really feels simply like working with a group of enthusiastic and knowledgeable people. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of hierarchy in the company. Everybody just does their job, friendly and efficiently.

That’s great! Now that Fatale, The Graveyard, and The Path are all on Steam, you guys should put them into a bundle with a small discount.

Congrats! Really exciting that Steam has been so gracious to you guys. For a second there I didn’t think they would put FATALE up.

I realy was skeptical about this and steam but after i saw that put Graveyard there i suppose Valve people are more open minded than any big game corporate there (like EA, blizzard, activision)..
Btw.I heard activision alocated a HELL of budget (Awfully high) for Modern Warfare 2 and that’s a shame really..I really hope at least 2-3% of this budget will make it’s way to tale of tales..I begin to hate publishers..They destroy creativity and originality in gaming comunity..

Thanks for the support, badsykes! :)

I don’t think publishers actively seek to destroy creativity and originality. They simply take advantage of human weaknesses to fill their pockets. If they could do that with original games, they would. So if everyone would simply refuse to buy their trash, they’d be forced to change. But apparently, trash is what people want. Valve is a developer, not a publisher. A such, they probably respect creativity more and understand how it can be valuable commercially.

But I agree that if publishers would invest as little as a few percent of the budget of any of their big productions in creativity and originality, the effect would be immense. I’m not quite sure why they don’t do this. Even commercially, it makes sense.

Why you don’t put others languages in subtitles in your games? Sound like you are belge, so you must speak one or two (maybe tree with dutch) language more than english.
It was not already easy to enter in an experimental game, but with a problem for understand correctly the story, it’s can be worse… You must lost some sell of all language’s handicapped like me.

Okay, you can’t put all languages, but one or two more (the ones you know speak) in subtitles can be only better, and if you make the subtitle file easily updatable, that can be encourage people to do voluntary translation.

Unlike The Graveyard, The Path and The Endless Forest, FATALE was not designed with translation in mind. We wanted to use the text English version of the play by Oscar Wilde (as opposed to the French original) because we wanted Jarboe to say the text (and she speaks English). If you have heard the text in FATALE, you will probably realise that simple subtitles wouldn’t do the work justice. There may be other ways, of course. But we did not design for that. FATALE is a small project and doesn’t aim to be a commercial success.

Maybe we’ll do a French version at some point when we find a French speaking actress who can play Salome. But other languages are unlikely.

Thanks for voicing your concern. We do care about this issue. FATALE is the first project we released that exists in only one language. And it may be the last.

Jo: The problem with poetry is long lasting..Is hard to translate poetry in other language..For example many people tried to translate Mihai Eminescu (the best poet in my country) in english and they failed..
Valve actually is in a very intersting position.They self sustain themselves.They don’t need the publishers money and they do what they want.

I forgot to mention, the Experimental Game Project (http://experimentalgameplay.com/blog/) is doing an Art Game theme this month and the next (giving us two months instead of only one)

The top game has the honor of being put on display at the Foundation of creation and technology (“FACT”). The deadline is around Dec 17th for those who want to try to get in the exhibit and Dec 31st is the final end date.

Would be awesome if Tale of Tales participated :)

Hm. I thought Art Games were those little things with big pixels? ;p

Hello guys,

here is a link to first Czech review of FATALE. But don’t expect scores, this game doesn’t need them.

Here you go: http://www.doupe.cz/Doupecz/Recenze-FATALE—biblicka-vernisaz/sc-108-sr-1-a-136126/default.aspx

Ha, indeed.

I just hope they do not poke fun at so-called art games. I really want people to do something valuable rather than a parody.

But I was surprised at the comments on the post, so far. Only one was annoying. The one who said art is incomprehensible to those who are not “trained” in it.

While I don’t believe a training is absolutely necessary to enjoy art, I do disapprove of people who reject art without such training. From personal experience I know that it is possible to learn to enjoy something. And in fact, gamers should appreciate this concept, given how difficult hardcore games can be.

That being said, the term “art games” seems to apply mostly to amateur art, the digital version of Sunday painting if you will. Something I don’t have a problem with at all. I just don’t feel that this is what we do at Tale of Tales. Art is not something we do on the side, “art game” is not a “genre” that we dabble with next to our shooter games and platform games. Art is what we live for.

Michael: people like confort …. art is not logical and easy so is not creating confort.Also if you don’t have people around you when you rise that apreciated art so you rise in balance between usual stuff that do all people and art that do some people it will be very hard to make so many to swallow this kind of games..Until parents and apropiates teach a child to apreciate it a mature will be locked in his dumb work and home cycles.

badsykes: I don’t agree with you at all. For me, I was a different gamer before The Path and after it. During playing The Path, I discovered another part of me. There are games, that tell you what to do, where to go, and where you obey the orders made by developers. They even tell you, what you should think about the situation in the game by giving you so many clues and information you simply choke with them. And thats why most people will have the very same experience playing these games. And as you’ve said: “you rise in balance between usual stuff that do all people”.

And for that reason games like The Path can make a difference, because they are different. You can learn from them, you can deeply think about them, you can explore them, you can dream about them, you can live with them. And the best thing is, that they don’t tell you HOW to do it. They leave it up to you. And thats something, that other mainstream games are lacking.

I really wished The path was longer and a much more content.I would pay 20euros for a longer The path..I just love the way to be in a world that every normal element around me combines in a completely different way and experience emotional outcome..My dreams are like this..Very very real and emotionaly.They teached me that everything and every combination is just a combination..There is no one way..The only thing is in reality you are kinda stuck in one variant..
I will end up in texturing soon..(i am very very begginer) … I want to create the worlds in my dreams and just a discovering world.I will have loong way to go and i if i am not ending up in a grave too soon i hope you guys can see something finished in this decade from me…

Good luck, badsykes!

I read your “Realtime art manifesto” and I’m delighted with it and what you are doing. However, don’t you write in the article: “…Avoid retail and traditional games publishers… Sell your work directly to your audience.”?

P.S. Your games is such an unusual and unconventional. I’m only played “The Path” and fascinated by it. I’m Russian, and sorry for my bad English.

Hi Eugene. I’m Belgian. Sorry for my bad English. ;)

The Realtime Art Manifesto describes the goals we should aspire to. We hope to get there at one point. In the mean time, we do what it takes to stay alive. It’s a gradual process.

Ok. Michaël )
Creation and promotion of your games – the only source of your income?
To be honest, I always wanted to create my own game. At the moment I am – digital artist and designer. But I do not know much with 3D-programming. Maybe you advise anything? Do I need to learn Quest3D? Or I can’t do anything without external programmer?

We support ourselves through a combination of game sales and donations, art funding and art commissions. This is actually a good mix because it gives us relative independence from both the market and the art world. Though there’s still too much of the latter. We’re working on that.

If you’re a digital artist, I’d suggest you have a look at Unity. It’s a game authoring tool that is designed like a 3D modelling application with added scripting. It’s pretty good and there’s a free version now.
Quest3D is great for more sophisticated (visual!) programming. But it’s not as accessible.
Blender is a nice all in one package. It’s free as well. But its game programming potential is limited.

What kind of «art funding and art commissions» do you do?

Hmm .. I downloaded “free version” of Unity from their website, but when I’m start it wrote that is «A one time 30-day free trial version …”. It is unlikely that it can be called a free version. Or maybe I downloaded something wrong?

By the way, how much time you spent to learn Quest3D? I know it’s stupid question, but what to you think is better to create small projects: Quest3D or Unity?

As I understand Auriea creates textured models (3d max?), and you’re doing 3D-programming in Quest3D? And both of you – media artists?

We get arts funding from the government, per project. We submit proposals and sometimes they grant us some money. Once in a while a museum or other organisation invites us for an event. Sometimes there’s a budget for making something. Like the new addition to The Endless Forest or a small iPhone game that we’ll be releasing early next year.

Unity Indie is supposed to be free now. Just email the Unity staff or search their forums to clear up confusion.

It took about 3 months to get comfortable with Quest3D, then another 3 to make a prototype the wrong way, and another 2 to learn how to do it properly. ;)

Unity is definitely the one we prefer for small projects. We created The Graveyard and Fatale with Unity. And The Path and The Endless Forest with Quest3D.

Both Auriea and I are trained as artists. We both know a little bit of everything.

As I understand it, Unity, unlike Quest3D (which not require knowledge of the commands, replacing them to the visual elements) – uses a programming language. Hence, in order to create something (on Unity), it is necessary to examine a “BIG THICK BOOK” :) on scripting language? Then, the next logical question: how much time you spent on study Unity to create your first project on it? :)

As I see, your main sphere of interest is art (not digital programming, which is just an instrument to achieve your art-goals)? What do you mean by the word “art”? What is art for you? ^_^

ART imo = combining elements to create feelings, to create dreamy dimensions…to create subconscious exciters :)

Art is research. Trying things out. Asking questions. Sharing feelings. Sharing doubts. Finding what is human.

Unity uses Javascript. And I had already learned Javascript through creating websites and Flash movies. I never used a book, though. Learned everything I needed to know on the street (the Information Super Highway, that is ;) ).

Thanx for your answers!)