Tale of Tales http://tale-of-tales.com/blog Auriea Harvey & Michaël Samyn telling tales of Tale of Tales Fri, 02 Apr 2010 08:10:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 en hourly 1 Closing the blog http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/04/01/closing-the-blog/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/04/01/closing-the-blog/#comments Thu, 01 Apr 2010 07:40:37 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=4669 This is the end of the Tale of Tales blog. It was started three years ago. And now it stops.
Feel free to browse through the archives.

If you would like to keep abreast, please follow us on Facebook or Twitter or for The Path related news, The Path blog.

Or subscribe to our news letter

Or email us.

Or nothing.

You’ll hear from us.


We reluctantly started this blog 3 years ago. We never quite grew comfortable with the format. So it feels like a relief to be able to close it down. Nevertheless, some of the posts over these three years mark important steps in our thinking as designers. Here’s a few highlights.


25 June 2007
Ten reasons why computer games are not games

When we started using the computer as the main (and only) medium for our art, back in the mid nineties, we did not choose it for creating things with it that we could also do in other media. We chose the computer because it allowed us to create things that cannot be created in any other way. So when we adopted videogames as a technology in the early noughties, it wasn’t because we had an interest in games. What attracted us to the medium was the slew of other things that videogames technology enabled. This post lists some of the properties of the medium we find the most important. We suspect that the popularity of videogames has more to do with these properties than with the fact that they are games.

In hindsight, this article contains a lot of wishful thinking that attributes things to videogames that many players and developers will find alien, while also making some statements about traditional games that would not hold up outside of the rhetorical opposition at the basis of the article. Still, as a a list, this pretty much sums up why we find videogames so interesting, even if this sentiment may not be shared by others and even if these properties are not unique to videogames in the end.


13 December 2007
Entering the post-gameplay era…

This post focuses on the discrepancy between the narrative ambitions of videogames and the simplicity of their interaction design and argues that videogames will only be a mature medium when they abandon their focus on fun gameplay in favor of a greater variety of experiences. Because currently the gameplay is telling a different story than the characters and settings are. Or -worse- the events in the narrative are adpated to what can be feasibly expressed through traditional gameplay.

I exaggerated the idea that AAA games featured widely varying stories for the sake of discussion. But in actually, the stories of, say, Assissin’s Creed and Bioshock are not so different, are they? One could even get the feeling that their authors really like these kinds of hero-stories and choose games as a perfect format to express their simplistic views on human existence.


14 January 2008
The meanings of games

Here I propose a view of the history of computer games as playful systems who found an almost natural home in the system-crunching machine that was the computer. Until the point when the computer became a lot more than a giant calculator. When the technology became capable of representing meaningful images, something changed radically. A change that caused an enormous growth of the audience for games.

For them, the choice is not between a board game and a computer game. The choice is between a movie and a computer game, or a book and a computer game.

But computer games are still being designed by engineers, not by artists. As a result their stories are empty, or often even horrible, if taken literally. Because the focus of the engineer remains firmly on the elegance of the system, and not on the emotional effect of the pictures and sounds on the player. Videogames need to be designed by people who take up their responsibility as authors of the stories that they are actually telling.

Then I make some gratuitous allusions to Atomic Bombs and the Holocaust. That was mean, wasn’t it?
Some of the linked images in the post have been replaced because the originals were missing.


1 February 2008
Of cogs and machines

I’ve always been fond of this post. It describes a kind of ideal quality for our games to aspire too. Most videogames are built as perfect systems. Then the designers breaks part of the system and gives the player the power to fix that part. As a result, the player becomes a cog in a big machine. We don’t want our games to be like that. We want our games to be the little cogs that can perhaps improve the big system that is the life of their player. Games-as-systems challenge the player to become as perfect as the computer. But games-as-stories have a limitless capacity for change. They become part of the player and their meaning changes as their host does.

Games-as-systems [...] are perfect. And that is their limitation. And why they are not art.


14 March 2008
Games less casual

When casual games became more popular, many people within the videogames industry considered this a sign of growing success. But I argued that the only thing that was happening is that people who were already playing casual games (like Scrabble and Monopoly) were now starting to this on computers. This had nothing to do with people adopting a new medium. In fact, this so-called new medium is in fact built on foundations that are remarkably similar to those casual games. The post ends with a call for exploration of the unique aspects of videogames, away from casual play, towards depth and meaningfulness.

I actually completely approve of casual games. Who wouldn’t? Everyone plays them. They’re fun. But they should not be confused with the artistic potential that videogames have as a medium. So a deliberate move away from casual play is probably a good exercise for ambitious designers. Then again, as I acknowledge in the article, accessibility is one thing we could learn a thing or two about from casual games.


12 November 2008
The challenge of non-linearity

In this post I first explain how we came from web-based art to videogames, as artists. And then I discuss the fear of non-linearity that some try to deal with by creating games.

For us, interactivity is not about “making interesting choices” or “overcoming meaningful challenges”. It’s about make-belief.

For us, computer entertainment is not this democratic medium that empowers the viewer to do “anything they choose to do”. Instead, it’s a powerful medium to allow people to experience an unusual emotion, to be something else, to be in another place.

For us, interactivity is travel.

It’s funny how we keep saying the same thing again and again, in a different way.


5 December 2008
Gameless

Around this time (Christmas was approaching), there was an enormous amount of AAA game releases. Hardcore gamers couldn’t be happier. And I found myself sad and alone without a single game that appealed to me. And to make matters worse, I realized that this was not a new situation. It had been five years since I had enthusiastically played a game. It seemed like nobody was publishing interesting games anymore. An odd situation for any consumer to find themselves in: a demand that exceeds the supply. That never happens.

The comments to this article were great. Everybody started recommending their favorite game. As if I hadn’t tried them yet. Completely missing the point that I was trying to make about this enormous market opportunity of people who want to play but just not Match 3 puzzles or Ninja hero fantasies.
In the post I assumed that these hordes of people were so eager to play that they would buy anything that was even remotely different, even without marketing. I was wrong about that, though.


13 December 2008
Not to be forgotten aspects of videogame design

An article about aspects of videogame design other than pure game design. Aspects that generally don’t get a lot of attention in the discussion about videogames but still require consume a lot of developers’ time and enegy. Things like atmosphere, character design, art direction, sound and virtual life. The article ends with a criticism of game reviewing that attributes no part of their scoring to most things in this list.

Things nearer to my heart, in other words, than formal game design. And things which I feel are far more important for the players than we tend to give them credit for in the industry where everything that is not the pure system or mechanic is often belittled as “eye candy”. At Tale of Tales, we consider all aspects of videogame design as parts that all deserve equal attention with the purpose of making the whole game an enjoyable experience.
This post was actually the outline for a longer article that was never written. Maybe I should try to write it. There’s a whole book there, it seems.


1 May 2009
Braid is not a game

A sort of stream of consciousness in which I wonder if my utter failure to overcome even the first challenge in videogames can be attributed to bad design. Or was the reason that I don’t like games? Still it felt like I was being unjustly punished by the game. Punished for trying to play. It didn’t feel like losing a game. It felt more like failing a test. But tests are serious. And games are fun. Then again, Braid is sort of serious too. And games don’t stop being games just because they’re not fun. In my delirium I conclude that everything could be a game!

We often get scolded because what we make can’t be called games. As if being a game implied a qualitative judgment. Many seem to feel that they only need to pay attention if something is a game. So it’s of the utmost importance to reject all that stuff that makes them feel uncomfortable. The title of this post was an ironic reference to a game that most hobbyists do embrace as a game.
I also like my illustration of the article that could be read is “Bread is not a game” but also as “Braid is not art” since the game portrayed is a chess “performance” by Marcel Duchamp. I’m so naughty sometimes.


27 December 2009
A bad year for dreams

In a sort of follow up to the post “against” casual games, this article evaluates the sales statistic of games consoles (spoiler: Nintendo wins) and concludes that there’s a lot of unused potential in the market. Potential, perhaps, for the realization for the dream of a videogame medium that can stand shoulder to shoulder with film, music and literature. Nintendo does not share this dream. And so far Microsoft and Sony have failed at realizing it because they’re nerds who only cater to other nerds. A mistake that Nintendo did not make. Underneath the spectacle offered on XBox 360 and Playstation 3 lie the same games as old. Nintendo realized that this sort of games makes a lot more sense when they are not bogged down by elaborate graphics and storylines. Conclusion: either focus on raw gameplay with no graphics and no story (like Nintendo did), or concentrate on the latter and remove the game stuff (and realize the dream and appeal to the real mainstream).

We have a choice. We can continue to make geek kitsch for the niche audience of hardcore gamers. We can follow Nintendo and make simple games with pixels and code instead of cardboard and plastic. Or we can do something important, something meaningful, something that actually makes a difference.

I had sneakily subtitled this post in its URL as “the-tragic-failure-of-the-games-industry”. Please notice that, ironically, the largest market in my graph -Europe- is completely free of games consoles. Lots of potential here!


31 December 2009
Auriea’s Top 9 Games of the Decade

Auriea joins my “Gameless” thoughts when she realizes that her most favorite games of the decade were exclusively made in the first half of that time span. It’s still a nice list of really great computer games, though. It’s good to know that these things exist.


So that’s it. 11 Posts from 3 years of blogging. The End. If words are weapons on the internet, we’re burying the hatchet. Here and now. Thank you for reading. Peace.

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/04/01/closing-the-blog/feed/ 0 Make love, notgames. http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/31/make-love-notgames/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/31/make-love-notgames/#comments Wed, 31 Mar 2010 15:26:44 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=4810 Notgames is an initiative that we started in the wake of my New Years Resolutions. It has been growing behind the scenes and is already a nice place where developers can meet and share experiences. The purpose of the Notgames initiative is to encourage and support the development of digital entertainment and art that is not games. You can read more about our intentions here.

The most active area of the initiative is the web forum where we discuss development and theory, each other’s work and that of others. There’s also a Tumblr feed which acts as a kind of collective stream of consciousness in images and words. And we recently started a blog and a Facebook page.

The initiative is open to anyone with an interest in the creation of leisure software outside of the confines of games. It’s a supportive environment for the exploration of this vast new terrain. Register for the forum if you would like to participate in the discussions, the Tumblr feed or the blog. Or simply become a fan on Facebook to stay in the loop.

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/31/make-love-notgames/feed/ 0 The Path Anniversary: last words http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/29/the-path-anniversary-last-words/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/29/the-path-anniversary-last-words/#comments Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:03:17 +0000 Auriea http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=4734

Thus ends our celebration of The Path’s one year anniversary and 11 years of collaboration. Here’s a summary, in case you missed something.

We published The Path postmortem chronicling the making of the game. This was a great way for us to look back on the history of the project, even if it is impossible to describe 3 years of development in a summary fashion!

On The Path blog there were 10 days of posts written from a very personal perspective to supplement the grand postmortem essay. These stories were full of insights about the Red Girls and their Wolves. And we uploaded tons of work in progress imagery, drawings and screenshots covering the entire development, on Flickr on The Path Archive. So if you are curious about the making of the game, have a look at all the Anniversary posts listed there.

We had a very fine sale where all our games were available at 50% off. Even if you missed it you will find everything we’ve made reasonably priced for download.

Also:
The Path translations patch for windows received an upgrade. And these translations are now available for our Steam players as well.

We published 2 new interviews with artists that we consider inspirational and whom we wanted more people to know about.

And we announced the coming of The Path Soundtrack which will be available next month!

So, now, we move on.
To those who celebrated with us, we thank you!!

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/29/the-path-anniversary-last-words/feed/ 2 Interview with Fuco Ueda http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/28/interview-with-fuco-ueda/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/28/interview-with-fuco-ueda/#comments Sun, 28 Mar 2010 09:19:33 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=4737 Fuco UedaIn April 2009, we had the honor of interviewing Japanese artist Fuco Ueda, thanks to Miss Ellie Nagata’s kind offer to translate. Miss Ueda’s work has been a great source of inspiration and strength when we were creating The Path, as her work also seems to deal with the pleasure and pain of being a girl. In a way, the Red Girls are some kind of estranged cousins of the skinny contemporary nymphs in the pictures by Fuco Ueda. So it’s only appropriate that it’s our girls who do the questioning in the interview.

Enjoy the short but sweet interview (English and Japanese)!

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/28/interview-with-fuco-ueda/feed/ 2 The Endless Forest: ABIOGENESIS for the Red Girls http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/27/the-endless-forest-abiogenesis-for-the-red-girls/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/27/the-endless-forest-abiogenesis-for-the-red-girls/#comments Sat, 27 Mar 2010 09:13:38 +0000 Auriea http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=4725

Nothing like a little party to end our anniversary celebration of The Path. And there is nothing like an ABIOGENESIS party in The Endless Forest! So please accept this last minute invitation to join us in the forest which has been shrouded in mist. Let’s bring some color back! If you don’t feel like running with the deer just open up the game and follow us in ABIOGENESIS Camera mode by hitting CTRL-W. It’ll be wild! We’ll probably crash the server! But it’s not a TEF party till SOMEONE crashes the server!

Download The Endless Forest for free here!

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/27/the-endless-forest-abiogenesis-for-the-red-girls/feed/ 5 The Path Anniversary: last days of sale http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/27/the-path-anniversary-last-2-days-of-sale/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/27/the-path-anniversary-last-2-days-of-sale/#comments Sat, 27 Mar 2010 08:42:22 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=4714 The Path is 1

Our celebration of the one year anniversary of The Path ends tomorrow. Until then, you can still buy all of our titles at half the price.

The limited Anniversary Edition USB drive will remain available after the sale. Until they’re sold out.

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/27/the-path-anniversary-last-2-days-of-sale/feed/ 1 The Path Soundtrack is coming in April http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/25/the-path-soundtrack-is-coming-in-april/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/25/the-path-soundtrack-is-coming-in-april/#comments Thu, 25 Mar 2010 11:42:23 +0000 Auriea http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=4693 The life of a working musician is even busier and crazier than that of a game developer! (^_^)
Jarboe and Kris Force have been working on extended versions of songs that they made for The Path off and on for a year. All the while Jarboe has been touring practically non-stop and Kris has been balancing sound design for commercial productions and playing in her band and other collaborations.

All their work and all your waiting will pay off next month when the waiting will be -over! We are finalizing things so we don’t want to say too much… BUT What we can say is that The Path original soundtrack album will be published by UK label Paradigms Recordings in April 2010. There will be a specially packaged CD and t-shirt to be had. And we will figure out the best way to sell the album digitally, because we know a lot of you want that.

The tracks are named after the Wolves. This will not be your typical game soundtrack album. And it will blow your mind + possibly your speakers.
Needless to say, more details coming soon!

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/25/the-path-soundtrack-is-coming-in-april/feed/ 16 Interview with Ray Caesar http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/24/interview-with-ray-caesar/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/24/interview-with-ray-caesar/#comments Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:04:27 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=4659 Ray Caesar: Blessed

When creating the art style for The Path, we were influenced by several wonderful artists. We are trying to interview them all. Our interview with Lisa Falzon was published a while ago. And the interview with Ray Caesar was done in that same period. But we never got around to publishing it. What better moment than the first anniversary of The Path to share this very insightful and inspiring interview with one of the world’s most imaginative contemporary artists!

People think I paint pictures of children… I don’t! I paint pictures of the human soul… that alluring image of the hidden part of ourselves… some call them ghosts or spirits but I see them as the image of who we truly are, made manifest with all the objects and bruises that filled the story of each life.

I look at the game industry today and see only one game… it starts the same and ends the same and it’s sold in a variety of names and packages and has no mystery because it is not utilizing creativity as well as it could…

Enjoy the interview!

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/24/interview-with-ray-caesar/feed/ 3 The Path Anniversary: postmortem 5: conclusion http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/23/the-path-anniversary-postmortem-5-conclusion/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/23/the-path-anniversary-postmortem-5-conclusion/#comments Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:01:39 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=4642 The final chapter of our postmortem of The Path evaluates the very personal creative process and makes notes about lessons learned. It’s been quite the emotional roller-coaster for us to go over this immense production again. And there’s so many things that we haven’t even touched upon. But the text is long enough as it is. :) We feel older and wiser now. And stronger with experience. The Path is our most successful project to date. But that success came at a price. Six innocent girls found their end in the process -it was unavoidable. And grandmother is always sick.

Read the conclusion here.

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/23/the-path-anniversary-postmortem-5-conclusion/feed/ 13 The Path Anniversary: postmortem 4 http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/23/the-path-anniversary-postmortem-4/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/23/the-path-anniversary-postmortem-4/#comments Mon, 22 Mar 2010 23:02:27 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=4598 The Path sales chart

In the penultimate chapter of our postmortem article about The Path, we take a closer look at the reception of our birthday baby in the first year of its life. How did the press respond? How did the fans? How well did the Path sell? And where? All this and more in the fourth chapter of The Path postmortem.

Enjoy the read.


]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/23/the-path-anniversary-postmortem-4/feed/ 3 The Path Anniversary: postmortem 3 http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/21/the-path-anniversary-postmortem-3/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/21/the-path-anniversary-postmortem-3/#comments Sun, 21 Mar 2010 11:59:16 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=4568 The third chapter of our postmortem of The Path is about what we think went right and what we think went wrong during and after the production. Several items on the list are not so black or white, as they have positive and negative sides. Overall, releasing a game like The Path probably has a similar effect on its creators as giving birth on a mother: the baby is such a glorious thing that you forget -or trivialize- all the hardship and pain that preceded its existence. Still, it’s good to stop for a moment and evaluate the entire project, in the hope of avoiding mistakes in the future, and repeating successes.

Please read on.

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/21/the-path-anniversary-postmortem-3/feed/ 4 The Path Anniversary: postmortem 2 http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/20/the-path-anniversary-postmortem-2/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/20/the-path-anniversary-postmortem-2/#comments Sat, 20 Mar 2010 12:51:39 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=4500 Red Girls models for The Path

The second part of our postmortem of The Path is written mostly by Auriea and explains the design process that went into the game. From the uncertainty at the start of the project, over mixed experiences with collaborators, the inspiration of glitches and the importance of prototyping, to our ideas about 3D aesthetics and dealing with personal emotions in videogames. Illustrated with work-in-progress sketches and screenshots.

Enjoy!

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/20/the-path-anniversary-postmortem-2/feed/ 2 The Path Anniversaire, Jubiläum, Aniversario, etc: translations! http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/20/the-path-anniversaire-jubilaum-aniversario-etc-translations/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/20/the-path-anniversaire-jubilaum-aniversario-etc-translations/#comments Sat, 20 Mar 2010 09:36:19 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=4490 Thanks to the hard work of many volunteers, The Path has been translated in several languages. The following translations are available free of charge as a patch for the Windows version or automatically on Steam when you change your interface settings.

  • ☛ Danish translation by Tobias Kosmos and Nicklas Beck Jørgensen
  • ☛ Dutch translation by Michaël Samyn
  • ☛ French translation by Yann Cossiaux
  • ☛ German translation by Susanne Laws
  • ☛ Hungarian translation by Kiss Helga, Dékány Csilla and Ország Tibor
  • ☛ Italian translation by Matteo Sarnari
  • ☛ Portuguese translation by Bruno de Figueiredo
  • ☛ Romanian translation by Andra Andrei
  • ☛ Spanish translation by Ricardo Oyon

Once again, thanks to all the translators for putting so much effort into making The Path more accessible.

The language patch for The Path is a continuous project. We are working on more translations and will release them in an updated version of the patch as they get finished.

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/20/the-path-anniversaire-jubilaum-aniversario-etc-translations/feed/ 0 The Path Anniversary: USB Limited Edition & ToT Store Sale extravaganza! http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/19/the-path-anniversary-usb-limited-edition-tot-store-sale/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/19/the-path-anniversary-usb-limited-edition-tot-store-sale/#comments Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:33:09 +0000 Auriea http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=4461 The Path - Anniversary Limited Edition (PC & Mac)

For the one year anniversary of The Path we’ve made a new version of our popular USB stick edition! This time in silver and printed with a picture of Robin. We only have 50, and of those 42 of them are for sale. We will not print this edition again so this is your only chance to get the Robin printed USB drive! This is a whole package too; you also get your choice of poster, a The Path sticker and the 6 Red Girl polaroid cards. You get both Mac and PC versions of the game, and lots of extras! (Yes, different extras than were on the PC only USB stick.) Check out the page in the store for more details!

We are also marking down prices on many of the other store items.

So, if you have been interested in The Path merchandise there has never been a better time to get something! It will be a lot of work for me to put these packages together, I put effort into making each poster unique, but I’m looking forward to it! :)

The store sale runs until March 28th. But the Anniversary Editions will remain available until the last one is sold.

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/19/the-path-anniversary-usb-limited-edition-tot-store-sale/feed/ 5 The Path Anniversary: postmortem 1 http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/19/the-path-anniversary-postmortem-1/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/19/the-path-anniversary-postmortem-1/#comments Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:24:15 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=4445 We have written an elaborate documentation of the production of The Path and will be publishing the article in 4 parts, as we proofread and finalize them.

A first introductory chapter summarizes the history of the project: How the idea started. When we got funding. And how long it all took.

In the next part, scheduled for tomorrow, we delve deep into the design of the game, followed by an overview of what went right and what went wrong, to conclude with a look at reception and sales.

We hope you enjoy the read.

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/19/the-path-anniversary-postmortem-1/feed/ 3 The Path Anniversary: discounts! http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/18/the-path-anniversary-discounts/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/18/the-path-anniversary-discounts/#comments Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:50:29 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=4361 The Path is one year old. To start the anniversary festivities, we are discounting all our titles by 50%!

For the next 10 days, until Sunday March 28, prices are:


The Path is 1 year old!

One year ago, tonight, The Path was released from a bed in a room in a hotel in San Francisco, where Auriea and I first met in person, exactly 10 years before. To celebrate this double anniversary we’ll be revealing and announcing The Path related material throughout the week. So keep an eye on our blog, facebook, twitter or wherever you’re reading this!

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/18/the-path-anniversary-discounts/feed/ 3 11 Years of collaboration http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/18/11-years-of-collaboration/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/18/11-years-of-collaboration/#comments Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:07:00 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=4202 Today is the anniversary of our collaboration. 11 Years ago, Auriea and I launched our first joint web site on the day when we met in person for the first time. Here’s a selection of one portrait, one project and one event per year.

1999
Our DHTML love letters were presented on hell.com as a pay-per-view online exhibition, entitled Skinonskinonskin.

2000
The SFMOMA Prize for Excellence in Online Art was presented to us by Bill Viola at the Webby Awards.

2001
Our web work is featured in the bourgeois exhibition Belgisch Atelier Belge, among that of Belgian art superstars like Delvoye, Fabre and Tuymans.

2002
Tale of Tales is born during a research project at the Jan van Eyck academy.

2003
After their initial refusal, we convinced the Flemish Audiovisual Fund that they should support videogames, starting with our 8.

2004
Unsuccessfully pitching 8 to commercial publishers at the Game Connection in Lyon marks the start of our career as independent developers.

2005
At the Innovative Game Design symposium in Maastricht, we shelved our ambitions to become commercial game developers. Chris Crawford was there too.

2006
We presented the Realtime Art Manifesto at the Mediaterra Festival in Athens.

2007
We stopped resisting Web 2.0 and started the Tale of Tales blog .

2008
Showing The Path demo at the Independent Games Festival to hundreds of colleagues and fans was an exhilarating experience.

2009
We launched The Path at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts with live music by Jarboe and Kris Force.

2010
The Notgames initiative is an attempt to stimulate artists and designers to create interactive entertainment that is not games.

Hover your cursor over the images for captions.

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/18/11-years-of-collaboration/feed/ 17 It’s been almost one year… http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/14/its-been-almost-one-year/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/14/its-been-almost-one-year/#comments Sun, 14 Mar 2010 10:33:13 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=4000 since The Path was released.

On 18 March 2009, we launched The Path from a room in the hotel where we first met exactly 10 years before. Get ready for celebrating the first anniversary of our six little girls and their very own big bad wolves! Expect an elaborate and revealing post-mortem/making-of, a special limited USB edition package, a nice discount on the regular download, an updated translations patch (now also on Steam!), an interview with a source of inspiration, news about the soundtrack, and of course an Endless Forest bathed in darkness and mist.

Robin's Birthday Room

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/14/its-been-almost-one-year/feed/ 29 The Game Developers Conference starts today! http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/09/the-game-developers-conference-starts-today/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/09/the-game-developers-conference-starts-today/#comments Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:46:08 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=3972 And we are not there. :)

Instead, we are at home, working on a new project. A project that doesn’t have a name yet. You can follow what we’re doing on Tumblr where we post some of the reference material that we’re collecting to inspire and inform the design.

LockFlower

We can’t say much about this project yet. Because we don’t know what it will become yet. We have a basic idea but that can still change. It has something to do with flowers, and with locks, and with diagrams of the universe, and with sex. It’s very different from any game we’ve made so far. There’s no story at its basis. There’s no characters. And it might even feel like an actual game -though we’re definitely applying the notgames dogma to this one.

We’ve also done something unusual with the design method. Auriea and I have split up. The new project consists of two very different parts. Auriea is designing one and I am designing the other. And then we’ll bring the two together.

The current phase is a prototyping phase that will run on and off until some time next year. This phase is supported by the Flanders Audiovisual Fund.

To all our friends at GDC: enjoy the event! :)

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/09/the-game-developers-conference-starts-today/feed/ 21 The Graveyard for iPhone http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/08/the-graveyard-for-iphone/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/08/the-graveyard-for-iphone/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:43:23 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=3943 The Graveyard on iPod touch Now on the App Store: The Graveyard for iPhone and iPod touch. Only 1.99 US Dollars. A free Lite version will be available as soon as Apple approves it (release has been stalled a bit because they disapproved of your use of the word “Trial” and the reference to the full version in the description of the “Lite” one).

The Graveyard on the App Store

From the press release:

The Graveyard offers a player the opportunity to imagine themselves in a certain situation. It’s not a game in the sense that there is a way to win or lose or a puzzle to solve, or even a story to uncover. But the interaction does immerse you in a virtual world filled with narrative, an equally powerful feature of the medium of videogames. The iPhone version of The Graveyard is the same as the PC version. Only a few elements have been removed or simplified to allow it to run on the iPhone hardware. But the fact that you hold the game in your hand and touch it with your finger, adds to the sensation of fragility and preciousness.

The Graveyard was originally made for Mac OSX and Windows with Unity (2 years ago already). Since there is an iPhone version of Unity, we figured we’d just port the game. It wasn’t as easy as expected. The iPhone hardware is a lot less powerful than a PC, so we had to tweak the graphics a bit (no post-processing, no real-time overlays, no animated trees, no birds, and a vertical display area to reduce the visible part of the environment). Another problem was the lack of a usable format for sound compression which lead to the download being larger than the PC version (isn’t it ironic that an MP3 player is so bad at handling sounds?). Still, if you ask us, The Graveyard is one of the best looking and sounding games on the iPhone. Hope you enjoy it! :)

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/08/the-graveyard-for-iphone/feed/ 12 Weltschmerz http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/06/weltschmerz/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/06/weltschmerz/#comments Sat, 06 Mar 2010 18:37:37 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=3933

Main Entry: welt·schmerz
Pronunciation: \ˈvelt-ˌshmerts\
Function: noun
Usage: often capitalized
Etymology: German, from Welt world + Schmerz pain
Date: 1864

1 : mental depression or apathy caused by comparison of the actual state of the world with an ideal state
2 : a mood of sentimental sadness

Weltschmerz (from the German, meaning world-pain or world-weariness) is a term coined by the German author Jean Paul and denotes the kind of feeling experienced by someone who understands that physical reality can never satisfy the demands of the mind.

The modern meaning of Weltschmerz in the German language is the psychological pain caused by sadness that can occur when realizing that someone’s own weaknesses are caused by the inappropriateness and cruelty of the world and (physical and social) circumstances. Weltschmerz in this meaning can cause depression, resignation and escapism,

the prevailing mood of melancholy and pessimism associated with the poets of the Romantic era that arose from their refusal or inability to adjust to those realities of the world that they saw as destructive of their right to subjectivity and personal freedom—a phenomenon thought to typify Romanticism

Weltschmerz was characterized by a nihilistic loathing for the world and a view that was skeptically blasé.

Main Entry: bla·sé
Pronunciation: \blä-ˈzā\
Variant(s): also bla·se
Function: adjective
Etymology: French
Date: 1819

1 : apathetic to pleasure or excitement as a result of excessive indulgence or enjoyment : world-weary
2 : sophisticated, worldly-wise
3 : unconcerned
synonyms see sophisticated

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/06/weltschmerz/feed/ 28 Someone in Austria gets Fatale http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/04/someone-in-austria-gets-fatale/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/04/someone-in-austria-gets-fatale/#comments Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:08:21 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=3917 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

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/04/someone-in-austria-gets-fatale/feed/ 1 Going underground http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/01/going-underground/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/01/going-underground/#comments Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:43:55 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=3896 We’re embarking on a new project today. Two new projects, actually. It’s an experiment. Instead of working on them in sequence, we’ll work on one one month, then on the other the next. The idea is to increase the development time of both. Because we’ve experienced that not working on something and just allowing it to grow over time, makes it a big difference.

Over the next 18 months, we will be prototyping two new largish games. None of this work will be published. And even after the prototyping phase, it will take some time before we bring the projects to production and release. So it’s going to be quiet around here for quite a while.

That doesn’t mean we will disappear completely. While working on the prototypes, we will be doing a few small projects too, and we may release some things related to the old projects.

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/03/01/going-underground/feed/ 13 Vanitas, for all. http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/02/26/vanitas-for-all/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/02/26/vanitas-for-all/#comments Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:24:58 +0000 Auriea http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=3880 For various reasons, up til now Vanitas was not downloadable by users of the 1st generation iPod Touch. At first, because we didn’t get a chance to test it on this older hardware. Then after we did, when we tried to update to allow for it, Apple had suddenly, inexplicably, changed their policy on how to specify hardware restrictions. This left many developers scratching their heads how to allow or restrict what hardware their apps can run on. Apple had to fix our AppStore listing by hand to get things straight. Needless to say we are happy to now announce that Vanitas will run on any version of the iThings! iPod or iPhone, regardless of age.

So, 1st gen iPod Touch users, you can now play too!

3cherriesgatheryerosebuds3dice

Also, a few helpful tips for things that may not have been so obvious.

TIPS:
- Use multitouch to levitate up to 3 objects at once.
- Find the authors of the quotes by clicking the url at the top of the info screen.
- It is easier to get a gold star at lower levels so, try your luck with the reset button on the 3rd info screen.

enjoy!

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/02/26/vanitas-for-all/feed/ 10 The truth http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/02/24/this-is-a-test/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/02/24/this-is-a-test/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 08:31:27 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=3877 The world is flat. The sun turns around it. The clouds too. Sometimes the clouds float behind the sun, sometimes in front of it. The sun is afraid of the moon. The moon brings darkness.

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/02/24/this-is-a-test/feed/ 18 If Doom is Rock and Roll, then The Path is… http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/02/21/if-doom-is-rock-and-roll-then-the-path-is/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/02/21/if-doom-is-rock-and-roll-then-the-path-is/#comments Sun, 21 Feb 2010 10:26:25 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=3822 In the wake of The Art History of Games symposium, Tracy V. Wilson’s question as to whether art games are (still) games made me realize that Frank Lantz’s observation that Doom is like rock and roll may hold even more water than I originally assumed.

Maybe we can think of rock and roll as a kind of “hyper” version of traditional folk music that was made possible through technology (electronically amplified instruments and vinyl records). Much like videogames could be seen as a “hyper” version of traditional games enabled by the technology of computers (both as creative tool and distribution platform). Like videogames, rock and roll added a certain vitality and emotional depth to an ancient tradition that totally absorbed a new generation. *

This analogy gets really interesting for me when we start thinking of more extreme or experimental forms of rock music. In the beginning, rock and roll, like videogames, was relatively straightforward and all about fun. But then some people started experimenting and things like The Doors and Velvet Underground happened, followed soon by Sex Pistols, Crass and Dead Kennedys. **

One could argue that the music of Sonic Youth, Psychic TV or Einstürzende Neubauten is as much removed from the “fun” of rock and roll as the games by Jason Rohrer, Daniel Benmergui and yours truly are from the “fun” of videogames. Interestingly, it seems that it is exactly in the deviation that this type of rock (or videogames) starts claiming artistic value. Not only by virtue of not being fun, but also by introducing “alien” elements to the form like noise, unusual structures or narrative content previously deemed unsuitable.



Pollock, Rohrer, Rotten
The hairline may be only one of many things that Jason Rohrer shares more with Johny Rotten than with Jackson Pollock.

So rather than thinking of people who experiment with videogames as new Jackon Pollocks or Kiki Smiths, maybe we should think of them as new Nick Caves or Siouxsie Siouxs. They are taking a new technological incarnation of an old analog form and are introducing elements to it that seem to contradict the form’s original merits. And by doing so, they get closer to what is commonly perceived of as artistic.

Next to the more rock-oriented deviations, we may soon be seeing the videogames equivalents of Philip Glass and Michael Nyman and perhaps even Stockhausen or Górecki, as some developers may reject not only the “hyper” version of the form (rock and roll/videogame) but also its non-electronic predecessor (folk music/game).

All this time, of course, rock and roll, as videogames, continues to exist. Once in a while it is influenced by the more artistic experiments. But often it is not. And the two co-exist, appealing often to different audiences, but equally often not without significant overlaps. Sometimes we like playing Mario. Sometimes we immerse ourselves in The Void. Much like sometimes we dance to Abba while other times we need a dose of Cocteau Twins.

* Oddly, there’s a similarity between the two on a social level too. Both traditional games and folk music are often group activities that are mostly about interacting with other humans and having a fun time together. Rock and roll and videogames add a much more explicit notion of authorship to the form and introduce a more severe separation between author and audience, up to the point where enjoying the music or the game could become a solitary activity, thanks to reproduction and distribution technologies.

** Punk is an interesting case because it started as anti-rock and roll but was quickly reintroduced into the mainstream via bands like The Ramones and The Clash who made it fun again.

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/02/21/if-doom-is-rock-and-roll-then-the-path-is/feed/ 8 Presenting in Madrid http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/02/17/presenting-in-madrid/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/02/17/presenting-in-madrid/#comments Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:01:10 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=3813 On Thursday, February 18th, we’ll be presenting our working at the ARCO art fair in Madrid. We were invited by Domenico Quaranta to talk about our work at a symposium entitled “EXPANDING THE FIELD. Or, 8 good reasons to talk about new media (in an art fair)”. Other guests are Hans Bernhard and lizvlx of UBERMORGEN.COM, Marius Watz, Trevor Paglen, Oron Catts and Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky).

Something is happening in the field of art. Postmodernism seems to have been replaced, but nobody is really able to say by what. Art critics such as Nicolas Bourriaud and Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev explained this change looking backwards to Modernism, but Modernism itself is many things, and it’s still not clear if this new modern, or Altermodern, is rooted in a new utopianism, as argued by Christov-Bakargiev, or in creolisation, globalisation and travelling, as suggested by Bourriaud.

What is clear to both is that new technologies, in the broader meaning of the term, are having a central role in this change. Starting from here, and appropriating Ippolito and Blais’ idea that the change will come from artists operating “at the edge of art” – Expanding the Field will involve artists and researchers that address, with different approaches, various new technologies – from the Internet to videogames and biotechnology – and issues and practices of the digital culture, from media hacking to data mining and surveillance.

Should be fun! ;)
And we’ll have an entire day to spend at the Prado!

ARCO Art Fair, Forum Auditorium 2, Hall 6.
February 18, 2010, from 12.30 to 2.30 p.m. and from 4 to 8 p.m.
(we’re scheduled at 6)

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/02/17/presenting-in-madrid/feed/ 5 The Graveyard and The Path now on Impulse http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/02/15/the-graveyard-and-the-path-now-on-impulse/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/02/15/the-graveyard-and-the-path-now-on-impulse/#comments Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:57:04 +0000 Michaël Samyn http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=3807 The Graveyard The Path

The Graveyard and The Path are now available on Stardock’s Impulse platform.

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/02/15/the-graveyard-and-the-path-now-on-impulse/feed/ 0 Vanitas. analog. http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/02/10/vanitas-analog/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/02/10/vanitas-analog/#comments Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:26:44 +0000 Auriea http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=3785
So we took The Very Broken iPhone. (It was broken when we received it. a gift. made sure it was *really* broken myself, with a very big hammer.)


there was made an octagonal table. Michael spent quite some time making the matching octagonal radiation on the floor.

We created within a physical representation of the contents of the game. A little bird skull, dice, a tarot card, a twig from a tree, a key, dead leaves, a tooth, a shell, etc., and lots and lots of ladybugs. All under glass.


added 4 iPods. and then came the people.



see the whole set here

For all our nervousness it all went quite well. Surprisingly so. I think it created a nice environment for people to view Vanitas. It was exciting and fun to be able to watch so many people interact!

Thanks to:
* Wolfgang Wozniak for the Very Broken iPhone.
* E.K. Huckaby for his kind, indispensable assistance.
* Lord Whimsy for his good advice.
* whoever made the table, we give thanks.

This and all the other games made for The Art History of Games exhibition at Kai Lin Art in Atlanta, GA will be up and playable until March 2nd.

]]> http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/02/10/vanitas-analog/feed/ 7 Photo post: Towards an Art History of Games http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/02/10/towards-an-art-history-of-games/ http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2010/02/10/towards-an-art-history-of-games/#comments Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:21:34 +0000 Auriea http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=3787 Various photos of presentations at the symposium. This is a flickr slideshow, if you fullscreen it and choose ‘Show Info’ (top right) you can read context and commentary on each image.

a few personal highlights of the symposium:
* listening to John Romero describe the design choices which lead to the invention of ASWD camera navigation.
* Brenda Brathwaite’s moving confessions of her design process, all that she puts into it and the way game design effects and expresses life.
* And playing her game, Train, at the gallery.
* Jason Rohrer describing how he came to the design of his game “Sleep is Death” and how it grew from a desire to communicate stories that defied telling through words alone.
* Hearing Christiane Paul talk about net artists in the context of art game history.

And finally, yes, there exists a photo of us standing next to John Romero. Amazing!
(yes, we know, we look silly. should have smiled. it was a pretty fun evening though. :))

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