Telling Tall Tales: an interview with Tale of Tales
I had the pleasure of interviewing Michael Samyn, one half of the Belgium based “other game” developer Tale of Tales. Tale of Tales was started in 2002 and grew out of a desire to create interactive art through videogames. They are most famous for “The Path”, a very different take on the Little Red Riding Hood tale by Grimm. I’ve tried to transcribe the interview here in English for my non-Dutch readership. Thanks a lot to Michael Samyn for taking the time out of his busy schedule for this exchange!
- How was Tale of Tales formed ?
ToT: Auriea Harvey[Michael’s partner in ToT - MR] and I used to make Internet art and we designed websites. But when the Internet introduced the new standard with Web 2.0, it took the fun out of it and we searched for another medium. That’s how we ended up in videogames. We discovered very quickly that the things we found interesting in videogames were actually very undervalued and underdeveloped in many of the mainstream game designs. We feel that this is one of the reasons of the marginalisation of the medium. Simply put, we design videogames for people who don’t play them; we approach videogames as an artistic medium.
What attracts us to interactive media is the opportunity to create life: the intimate relation between the art and the observer through direct contact with the audience. Making art and experiencing art becomes something simultaneous. Our work is only actually finished when people have played it. There is no divide between the work and the player. We make our work around the player. Everything is there for the player. Without a player there is no game.
- What is your working method in developing games? Do you use a standard way of developing projects?
ToT: Our methods still shift all the time. There is no fully realized method yet for our way of working. And the technology is still very primitive compared to our dreams and ambitions.
One core ingredient is that we start to create as soon as possible. We don’t design too much on paper. Sometimes we say that we make our game first and then we design it. But sometimes it’s too hard to make the game become what it wants to be, and not trying to force it into a direction we had foreseen. For our smaller projects, we imagine ourselves as the player and for our bigger projects we invite people to play, while we observe and ask questions.
We work a lot with freelance artists. Who we work with, depends on the project. Laura Raines Smith and Takayoshi Sata have so far done our modelling and animation. Kris Force does sound. Jarboe, Gerry De Mol, Zoë Keating and Walter Hus produce our music.
- The website Adventuregamers.com remarked about The Path: “We’re not sure if it’s a game, but whatever it is, it’s a great one of those”. The game sector is intrigued by your projects, yet seems to have trouble to define them as actual games. Why?
ToT: Because of decades of inbreeding, videogames have started to resemble each other very strongly. The format is very tight, a lot tighter than the multitude of meanings of the word “game”. Our games do not fit into this tight format, because we have an “outside” approach to the medium, without caring much about mainstream conventionalism.
But, because this tight format has reached its climax in horrific Facebook games, I believe that the game community is a lot more open to new forms. A lot has changed in the minds of the game audience in the three years since we released The Path. Just look at the reception of a game like Dear Esther, released last February.
- What is your take on current developments during the game industry?
ToT: A lot of things are changing right now. Our curiosity has been aroused.
Things that used to be impossible are starting to take place. People used to think that videogames as a whole could evolve into a new medium, replacing cinema and television, and were frustrated to never see it happen.
But now people are starting to see that only a small part of gaming needs to reach that kind of goal to push the entire medium to new heights. The huge impact that independent games have on the mainstream industry is a very clear illustration of this development. There is a growing realization of the difference between commercial success and creative success. And, if things go well, it might be the catalyst the medium needs to finally reach maturity. There is not really a choice, actually. If the games industry won’t evolve as a cultural means, then it will just go down with the failing capitalism.
Games resemble fashion or architecture a lot more than they resemble movies or literature. When you compare it to film, games still reach a much less varied audience. But that’s starting to change a little bit. The bigger the game industry gets, the more room there will be for games like ours.
Thanks again to Michael for the interview.
-Take a look at Tale of Tales homepage here!
- or take a few steps on The Path yourself.
- Michael referred to Dear Esther by thechineseroom. Check it out!
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