Tale of Tales http://tale-of-tales.com/blog Auriea Harvey & Michaël Samyn telling tales of Tale of Tales Mon, 12 May 2008 11:53:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.1 en TEF on Mac (sort of) http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/05/12/tef-on-mac-sort-of/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/05/12/tef-on-mac-sort-of/#comments Mon, 12 May 2008 11:43:10 +0000 Auriea http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/05/12/tef-on-mac-sort-of/ I tried out the public Beta of VMWARE Fusion 2.0 because they boast it has “experimental support for DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 2 3D acceleration” (meaning it actually uses the video card, allowing one to play some 3d games!) I was hoping that it would allow me to run The Endless Forest on the Mac, and it does!

Okay, before we all get excited, this is still in the realm of exotic setups. VMWARE is a software that allows you to install Windows (or use a Boot Camp partition) without having to restart your computer. So you _still_ need to have Windows. Also, even on the MacBook Pro which runs TEF like a dream in Boot Camp, in VMWARE I’m getting 7-9 FPS for TEF. This is… not good. Then again, this is a beta of VMWARE maybe the final version will get the frame rate up? It _could happen… right?

Anyway, for you Mac using, dual Booting, tinkerers out there who are curious about TEF, I encourage you to give it a try and let us know how you fare!

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/05/12/tef-on-mac-sort-of/feed/ The Path in Shojo Beat! http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/05/02/the-path-in-shojo-beat/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/05/02/the-path-in-shojo-beat/#comments Fri, 02 May 2008 09:45:12 +0000 Auriea http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/05/02/the-path-in-shojo-beat/

A little write-up of our game-in-progress appears in the May 2008 issue of Shojo Beat (sister publication of Shonen Jump) manga magazine. Fun magazine! Pleased they found us attractive enough to feature. If you like girls with BIG eyes, this month, in addition to keeping up with “Vampire Knight Blood Lust” you can keep up with us as well. (^__^)

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/05/02/the-path-in-shojo-beat/feed/ Endless Forest community site is open! http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/22/endless-forest-community-site-is-open/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/22/endless-forest-community-site-is-open/#comments Tue, 22 Apr 2008 07:19:25 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/22/endless-forest-community-site-is-open/ We had been testing the new Endless Forest community website for a few months already. Lots of players had found their way to it. And it’s becoming a really fun place with great artworks and stories created by the community.

So we decided to just give up our perfectionism and open the site as it is, in its beta state.

Have a look:

http://EndlessForest.org

The Endless Forest community website

Only players of The Endless Forest can log in and post. But most of the content can be viewed by anyone.

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/22/endless-forest-community-site-is-open/feed/ Pathologic http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/14/pathologic/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/14/pathologic/#comments Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:34:37 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/14/pathologic/ Pathologic

We’ve been wanting to talk about the Russian studio Ice-Pick Lodge for a while now. Their 2005 game Pathologic is truly fascinating, even if it is “broken”, as John Walker put it.
Thanks to Rock Paper Shotgun we can now enjoy the game by proxy, through a grandiose triptych of a review, divided in Body, Mind and Soul.

A good read, especially with the new game, Tension, on the way.

Ice-Pick Lodge is one of those very few studios that make games from a deep artistic motivation. They don’t mess around with clever control schemes or gathering points. They have a story to tell and they use the interactive medium to tell it. Even if that means sacrificing the overrated “fun factor”. If games are ever going to become a mature artistic medium, this is where it’s going to happen.

How I wish Pathologic wouldn’t crash on my PC…

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/14/pathologic/feed/ Red Poetry http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/13/red-poetry/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/13/red-poetry/#comments Sun, 13 Apr 2008 12:21:21 +0000 Auriea http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/13/red-poetry/

The Journal of Mythic Arts has today posted a nice compendium of contemporary Red Ridinghood poetry. Goes along nicely with our ongoing discussion of visual Red Ridinghood variations in The Path forum.

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/13/red-poetry/feed/ Every single K.K. Slider song at once http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/10/every-single-kk-slider-song-at-once/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/10/every-single-kk-slider-song-at-once/#comments Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:08:17 +0000 Auriea http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/10/every-single-kk-slider-song-at-once/

cool.

it’s from Animal Crossing, you know that, right?

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/10/every-single-kk-slider-song-at-once/feed/ Interview with Jenova Chen http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/07/interview-with-jenova-chen/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/07/interview-with-jenova-chen/#comments Mon, 07 Apr 2008 07:13:16 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/07/interview-with-jenova-chen/ We met with Jenova Chen and the team at Thatgamecompany for the first time at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last February. Their games Cloud and flOw had of course attracted our attention. And their new game under development, Flower, is looking very very interesting too. Unsurprisingly, we hit it off extremely well. But there was still much to talk about after the conference. An interview seemed like a good start to continue the conversation.

This was the fastest interview we’ve ever done. We hope you’ll find it as enjoyable as we did.

Read here!

Photo by jenovachen

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/07/interview-with-jenova-chen/feed/ Emotions and art in games http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/05/emotions-and-art-in-games/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/05/emotions-and-art-in-games/#comments Sat, 05 Apr 2008 13:03:25 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/05/emotions-and-art-in-games/ In discussions about emotions in games -and the desire to have more of them- we are quick to use the word art. But outside of games, art and emotion are not so clearly linked. In fact, a lot of -”high” or “fine”- art tends to provoke much weaker emotions in the audience than soap opera’s, Hollywood tear jerkers or romantic literature. The emotions provoked by the latter evaporate rather quickly, while the former can linger on for days, years. They can even change your life, as Rilke pointed out.

Since games are interactive, we are used to receiving immediate response to our input. When it comes to emotions, we probably expect the same immediacy. We want the game to grab us by the throat and force us to feel something. Will this exclude games from ever rising above the status of popular -”low” or “commercial”- art?

I guess the question is:
Does interactivity stand in the way of depth, of thoughtfulness?

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/04/05/emotions-and-art-in-games/feed/ Scenes from the Forest http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/03/30/scenes-from-the-forest/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/03/30/scenes-from-the-forest/#comments Sun, 30 Mar 2008 16:29:39 +0000 Auriea http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/03/30/scenes-from-the-forest/ Just some nice screenshots from the Easter ABIOGENESIS party.

ABIOGENESIS: Easter

ABIOGENESIS: Easter

ABIOGENESIS: Easter

ABIOGENESIS: Easter

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/03/30/scenes-from-the-forest/feed/ We made a new game! http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/03/21/we-made-a-new-game/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/03/21/we-made-a-new-game/#comments Fri, 21 Mar 2008 09:01:08 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/03/21/we-made-a-new-game/ The Graveyard-song2

We have just released The Graveyard, a very short game that we’ve been working on in secret. Its about an old lady who visits a graveyard. She walks on a path, she sits on a bench, she listens. That’s it. Except that in the full version (only $5!), she can die.

Here’s the press release.

Download the trial now!


And support your indie game developer! ;)

read a preview/review of The Graveyard on Rock, Paper, Shotgun!

Note: the Mac version is now a Universal Binary (meaning it will run on PPC processors in addition to Intel.)

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