Archive of our old blog (2005-2010)
Direct2Drive is celebrating its 5th birthday and for the occasion they’re having a big sale of games, all at 5 Dollars. This week, a number of indie titles have been added to the party, including The Path, Mount and Blade, World of Goo and Gish. So now there’s no excuse anymore!
Our friend Paul Eres’ Immortal Defense is not included in the celebration (despite it being his own birthday). But he lets us know that you can get it for $3 by entering BMCN000H7 as Discount code.
We’re delighted with the audio that Jarboe (voice acting and ambient music), Kris Force (sound effects) and Gerry De Mol (dance music) have created for Fatale. So much so, that we are releasing a trailer that only contains audio! Have a listen:
One of the cornerstones of our approach to design for interactive entertainment, is that all elements in the production are of equal importance. We do not single out any element above any other: 3D artwork, animation, interaction, text, sound and music all contribute in equal parts to the multi-sensory experience. Our aim is to communicate on many levels simultaneously and offer many different forms of amusement and delight. Traditionally, videogames tend to be a very visually oriented medium. But in our work, sound is of equal importance. And somehow it felt fitting to release an audio-only trailer for a project about a man who loses his head.
An MP3 version of the audio trailer can be downloaded on the project’s gallery page.
We’ve also finished the cistern area where John the Baptist is held captive. Here’s a screenshot:
Our short horror game ThePath has been selected for the IndieCade festival. The award ceremony, exhibitions and conference take place from October 1 to 4 in Culver City, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Sadly, we will not be able to attend the event -because we are w o r k i n g– but it looks like it’s going to be great!
Not that we’re able to reveal a lot yet (if only because were still working very hard crunch crunch, trying to get as much stuff in as possible while keeping an eye on that damned framerate ) but it was fun talking about our new project with Claudio Todeschini. The interview has been translated into Italian. Part one is here. Part two here. Buona lettura!
Sculpture by Nick Ervinck
Today an exhibition entitled “Fantastic Illusions” opens in the Shangai Museum of Contemporary Art. It’s a “Media Art Exhibition of Chinese and Belgian Artists.” Which means that it features The Endless Forest (Tale of Tales’ Michael Samyn is Belgian) and Flower (Thatgamecompany’s Jenova Chen is Chinese)! A second leg of this exhibition will take place in the fabulous Broelmuseum in Kortrijk where we will confront our work with ye olde Flemish Masters.
The theme of the show is actually very close to our hearts. Here’s a quote from the concept description by curator Christophe De Jaeger:
The title of the exhibition alludes to the human desire to be admitted to a world that is out of the ordinary, a world of fantasy. Considering the philosophical developments in the 20th century the least of the tasks of the critical artist is to create illusions. However, history shows that both artists and spectators have a constant desire that can be described by the romantic phrase Die Sehnsucht im Bild zu sein: the desire to dwell in the image.
Who of us has never experienced the uncontrollable urge to step into the world of a painting? Take a Dutch landscape by Jacob van Ruysdael; our gaze is irresistibly drawn to the path that runs through the landscape until it can go no further. What a disappointment that we cannot get beyond the horizon or feel the wind raging over the countryside!
Sadly we couldn’t go to Shangai because we’re too busy with Fatale, which happens to address the issue described above directly. But Jenova was there! And we’ll be in Kortrijk!
Other artists include Anouk De Clercq, Bart Stolle, David Claerbout, Hans Op de Beeck, Heidi Voet, Nick Ervinck, Hu Jieming, Teddy Lo, Peng Yun, Xu Wenkai and Wu Juehui. Guess which ones are the Belgians! 😉
The show in Shangai runs until 11 October. The show in Kortrijk starts on 13 November. We’ll probably report on it again then because we plan on doing something special in the Forest for the occasion…
Our friends at Broken Rules have been arranging contests within their game And Yet It Moves for awihle now. This week, players of their game can win The Path!
And Yet It Moves is a platform game that looks like this:
And Yet It Moves Wii Teaser from mml on Vimeo.
Looks like that Wii version is going to be BIG 😉 The game is currently available for Mac and PC.
See more details of their contest here!
They seem to be making it a special challenge for the occasion, you can only win by not walking but rotating to navigate! o.0 sounds difficult!
Last weekend we were invited to Antwerp to see a performance of Muziektheater Transparant’s new opera Solitude which is based on the music of baroque composer Henry Purcell. A description from their website:
Solitude plays on the boundary between reality and fiction. It tells the story of He and She, each in their own room and looking for the other and themselves. Staring into the other world through their webcam, or perhaps not? On the other side of the door is an escape route, a way that would lead them to each other, a virtual world with its own laws and boundaries. Lost in the game, He and She ultimately return to their rooms.
In this annual summer project organised by Muziektheater Transparant, a group of young singers and instrumentalists take up the challenge of creating the first performance of an extremely unusual opera after a short but intensive rehearsal period.
Not only were the young musicians involved highly talented, they made a fascinating exploration of the multiplayer game experience; The emotional attachment we have to these type of games and to the people we play with in them. Yes, an Opera about playing MMOs! Scenes from many different games were projected, often superimposed over the faces of the main actors. The costumes were made of various found objects, like a suit of WoW armor made entirely of pastic drink bottles. Very odd sounding but it really did work. It was an honor that The Endless Forest was chosen for the finalé when actors and musicians donned antlers and sung a song of blissful reconciliation. =) The lyrics went something like: “Let’s play this game, as a pleasant dream. Let’s forget about everything…”
UPDATE: we were sent better photographs of the performance, taken by Koen Broos…