Rock, Paper, Shotgun

27/05/2009 at 12:14 Andy says:

Wow. The best bit of the game is the credits at the end which list about 100 roles all filled by “JW” or “Jim”. Very funny.

27/05/2009 at 12:41 Smee says:

It’s a parody of The Graveyard. Auntie Pixelante recently mentioned it:

http://www.auntiepixelante.com/?p=448

27/05/2009 at 13:30 Dracko says:

dessgeega is right on the money too. Tale of Tales should play this repeatedly until the lesson hits home that they’re in the wrong business.

27/05/2009 at 14:17 roBurky says:

Dracko: I don’t quite see how someone remaking their game with a different setting and visual style would have that effect.

27/05/2009 at 16:20 Dracko says:

roBurky: You’re right. I’m probably giving them too much credit when they clearly have their head up their rears.

27/05/2009 at 18:56 Jazmeister says:

I think Tale of Tales should keep making games, but just never make The Graveyard again. I have a number of tedious problems with that game, and The Gutter justified that lost time.

28/05/2009 at 02:04 MD says:

I found their Post-Mortem of The Graveyard to be… well, worth reading. Some samples:

1. Birth of an idea

History

Your avatar is an old lady who walks through a peaceful graveyard (soundscape à la Endless Forest). That’s it. That’s the core game design.

The above was the initial concept of The Graveyard. At that point we also considered adding some gameplay to “make this more poignant and to give people something to do”. We were thinking of a game where you would try to find the answer as to where the husband of the protagonist was buried. And every time you play, it would be a different grave. When you find the grave, the lady would do something (smile, cry, talk, etc), a different thing every time.

After coming up with this idea, we realized why we thought it was strong. Like The Endless Forest, The Graveyard was designed around a core activity of walking through a certain environment. This simple activity is made meaningful by defining the avatar and the environment. A deer in a forest. An old lady in a graveyard. Both immediately imply meaning.

This happened on 24 September 2005, two weeks after the launch of the very first phase of The Endless Forest. We keep track of these things in a wiki. A year and a half later, on 29 May 2007, we added a note:

Does the gameplay described in the original version really add to the emotional impact of the game? Doesn’t it, on the contrary, reduce the impact: perhaps giving players something to do, creates a layer of protection against the emotional impact?

With Tale of Tales, we try to develop a new form of interactive entertainment. One that exploits the medium’s capacity of immersion and simulation to tell its story.

Overall, the reactions to the game (gathered from the articles, their comments sections and personal messages), fall into three categories.
Of course there is the expected response of the typical gamers whose desire for zombies whenever they see a cemetery is apparently insatiable. They tended to describe The Graveyard as “boring“. Of course.
A little bit up the ladder of human civilisation, we find the people who were turned on by the idea but turned off by the actual experience. They were “disappointed“. From what we can see, this was either caused by a failure on our part to maximize the qualities of the game or by certain expectations coming from the player. Despite the fact that games are supposed to be interactive, many gamers still seem to be incredibly passive when it comes to the meaning of their entertainment. They expect to be spoonfed and don’t seem to have any experience with literature, modern theater or fine art (or even art films) which require active participation, not just of thumbs and index fingers but also of heart and brain.
A final type of response was the simply “delighted” one. These people really enjoyed the game. And/or they were happy to see the experimentation that we’re doing with the medium.

I was tempted to add some sort of snarky commentary, but really, these guys are quite capable of speaking for themselves.

28/05/2009 at 04:34 Narwolf says:

Dracko, I’d say they’re in the right medium, but working in a genre that doesn’t exist. All the coverage they get is from a focused field that doesn’t include their aims.

That and I don’t think they’ve got good at what they’re doing, but its not like anyone else is joining in these days.

Meaning: heck, you can make things on your computer that control with a mouse and a keyboard and are interactive that aren’t games and potentially do it to great effect. Why not? Why shouldn’t someone be trying?

28/05/2009 at 10:39 Sinnerman says:

@Dracko; Tale of Tales obviously have a deep disrespect for games and people who play them in a way that reminds me of artists disrespecting people who understand mathematics and engineering. The only question for me is why people in the games community seem to crave the legitimacy that comes from their “proper art games”. I wonder how many of the sort of people who go to art galleries appreciate their works as opposed to people who read games blogs.

It also concerns me that people “in the industry” might nod their heads in appreciation to Tale of Tales ranting about the pond life wanting to play games instead of appreciating their master works.