Someone in Austria gets Fatale

Fatale

Körperlos, als reine Perspektive schwebt man als Spieler durch die Tempelanlage. Fast wie bei einem Kreuzweg besucht man Station um Station, vordergründig um Kerzen auszulöschen, in Wahrheit aber, um sich der Atmosphäre hinzugeben und um Details der Szenerie wahrzunehmen. Aus herumliegenden Schleiern, den Séparées, dem Henker und vielen weiteren, nicht nur ernst gemeinten Elementen (Zündholzschachtel mit Telefonnummer Salomes!) baut sich im Kopf des Spielers die fatal endende Geschichte auf. Man muss sich auf die Atmosphäre einlassen, sich in die Szenerie vertiefen, denn das Andeutungsgeflecht erweist sich als nicht dicht genug gewebt, um eindeutige Schlüsse ziehen zu können.

Alois Pumhösel, Der Standard

Fatale reviewed in Spanish

Jaime San Simón describes how he experienced FATALE on the Spanish Eurogamer website.

Tale of Tales ha logrado recrear la figura de la Salomé de Wilde a un nivel de complejidad asombroso, creando a partir de ella una obra con sentido y valor propio. Un trabajo minucioso que da pie a una obra que no será bien recibida por todos los públicos, pero ya se sabe que los grandes artistas siempre vienen acompañados de polémica.

And no, there’s no score. 😉

“Making of Fatale” interview

The ever eloquent Bruno de Figueiredo picked our brains when we were working on Fatale and has now published the result with a bunch of work-in-progress pictures. Enjoy!

To a large extent, FATALE is about looking. We follow Wilde’s version of the story in this. You start as John the Baptist in a situation where you’re being looked at – by Salome – against your will. Then because of the looking of another person – King Herod at Salome – you are put to death. And finally you meet Salome who claims that if you would have looked at her, you would have loved her. And, presumably, none of this would have happened.

Tale of Tales is 6!

That means discounts! :)

Six years ago, on a freezing snowy day like today (at least that’s how I remember it), the document that founded “Tale of Tales BVBA” was officially published. To celebrate our anniversary, we’re discounting our three commercially available downloads for the week. As a lucky coincidence, this means you can still get a quick and cheap and very original Christmas gift for your loved ones! :)

From now until next Saturday, you can get The Path for 6.66 US Dollars (30% off).
Available from the regular page.

Plus, The Graveyard and FATALE are bundled together for 6 US Dollars (50% off!).
Available only through these links:
FATALE/The Graveyard bundle for 6$ PC version
FATALE/The Graveyard bundle for 6$ Mac version

These offers are valid until 26 December.

FATALE in Wired UK and loved in Italy

Giochi (Games) Magazine of Italy has written a rather extensive review of FATALE this month, in which they give the game a perfect 10/10. We don’t read Italian but we can feel the love. Thank you!

GIOCHI Dicembre 2009 (Italy)

Also a short article about us and FATALE appears in this month’s issue of Wired UK Magazine:

WIRED UK - December 2009

And Wired.co.uk has published more of the complete interview with us at their site.
Edit: journalist Daniel Nye Griffiths posted even more on his blog.

The Making of the Dance of the Seven Veils

still from the video In all the discussion surrounding the experimental nature of FATALE, it’s easy to forget the amount of hard and loving work was put into its creation. So we decided to pay homage to one of the most complex elements in the production -the Dance of the Seven Veils- by putting together a “Making Of” video, documenting the collaborative effort.

Watch the video here!

From the musical composition and performance of Gerry De Mol over the improvised choreography of Eléonore Valere Lachky to Laura Raines Smith‘s painstaking effort to animate 4750 frames by hand, the clip shows how music, dance, video, animation and realtime rendering and scripting come together to deliver a performance unique to the medium.

FATALE on Steam

FATALE on Steam

If you’ve been waiting to get FATALE on Steam, now is your chance, here.

It’s great that a mainstream games store like Steam wants to support our experiments. It really shows the desire of the medium to grow. And that’s a wonderful feeling. Even if FATALE is not your particular cup of tea, more diversity is always good. Because we all want this medium to be the medium of the 21st century.

FATALE in Games TM and Edge

Fatale in EdgeFatale in Games TM

There’s a 4 page interview about FATALE in the current issue of Games TM (89) that was made before the release of the game. And there’s a rateless review of FATALE in Edge online, which I enjoyed because it’s about what the writer discovered while playing and how he appreciated it.

Video games rarely offer the chance to look so deeply at a single character, or to spend so much time lingering over an environment and enjoying it for its own sake. Tale Of Tales is a small team, but they went across disciplines to find experts in every field, from the art to the music to that wonderous dance sequence. Plenty of indies wear primitive graphics as a badge of honor; Tale Of Tales pulled off Fatale with a team of less than a dozen.

Eurogamer reviews FATALE

FATALE @ Eurogamer

Christian Donlan has reviewed FATALE for Eurogamer. And quite spectacularly so! Not because he enjoyed the piece, but because he relates very eloquently how hardcore gamers might approach it. Expressing the confusion and even anger they might feel as well as the doubts concerning the sincerity -or even sanity- of the creators. I found it most enlightening! And an amusing read to boot.

Tale of Tales’ latest is another GameFAQs disaster, in other words: what do I do? Where do I go? Why won’t the door open? How do I get my seven quid back? If Fatale had a hints hotline – and I really wish it did – I’m pretty certain players’ calls would be patched directly to Mark Lawson and Umberto Eco, dressed as mimes, answering all queries in Aramaic.

We’re just plain astounded that a project like FATALE can be reviewed on a mainstream games site nowadays. These are fascinating times, indeed!

Fatale 1.01 released

We’ve released a minor update to FATALE. People who purchase FATALE now, will get the new version automatically. People who have purchased it before and want to upgrade, can download it again (contact us if the download link is expired). Note that this update is not essential. It only concerns details.

The most notable -and least important- change is the option to use conventional first person navigation (mouse to look around, keyboard to move). We personally feel that the default control system is ideal for the experience, but some people seem so comfortable with game conventions that any deviation ruins things for them. We hope it improves their enjoyment of FATALE. But we don’t recommend using this option to anybody else.

There’s a full list of things that have changed behind the cut.

Continue reading “Fatale 1.01 released”